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eCommerce More Resilient than High Street
Shoppers preferred online shopping to the high street last month, according to new research.
According to figures from the British Retail Consortium, online sales grew by 9% last month. The growth in eCommerce came with a ‘substantial’ fall in clothes demand and the worst footwear trading since 2008. This drove bricks and mortar like-for-like sales to fall by 3.3% from the same month last year.
The research suggests the reason consumers chose to shop online and avoid the high street was largely due to the poor weather.
Online retailers, despite being the quickest growing part of the sector, were also hit, with growth slowing from 14% last year as the market begins to mature. According to the report, the growth was the weakest since November 2011.
BRC director general Stephen Robertson said: “The general trend for online retail is a slowing rate of growth, which is a sign of the market maturing.
“Growth of 9% for this April is respectable but well behind the increase of almost 14% for the same month last year. There’s major growth in sales being made via mobiles, but that’s still a very small proportion of all the business being done.”
Robertson added that consumers, cautious about their finances, remained reluctant to spend unless they had to.
TweetNHS Fined £70,000 for Data Quality Breach
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has handed out its financial penalty to an NHS organisation for a serious breach of the Data Protection Act (DPA).
The Aneurin Bevan Health Board in Wales was fined £70,000 after sending a report containing extremely sensitive patient information to someone with a similar name.
A recent report from the ICO found that human error is now the largest cause of data breaches.
An ICO investigation found that data protection training was lacking for both clinical and secretarial staff at the organisation. It also found that the NHS trust did not have adequate controls in place to ensure that personal information was being sent to the right people.
Stephen Eckersley, the ICO’s head of enforcement explained how the case could have been extremely distressing to the patient concerned as well as their family: “The health service holds some of the most sensitive information available.
“The damage and distress caused by the loss of a patient’s medical record is obvious, therefore it is vital that organisations across this sector make sure their data protection practices are adequate.”
The trust has since signed an agreement with the ICO that will ensure they give their staff appropriate data security training and regularly monitor their data compliance and IT security policies.
“We are pleased that the Health Board has now committed to taking action to address the problems highlighted by our investigation; however organisations across the health service must stand up and take notice of this decision,” Mr Eckersley concluded.
Click here to find out how you can improve data quality within your business.
TweetThe government is “fully expecting” cloud computing giants Amazon and Salesforce.com to sign up to the G-Cloud initiative, after the two companies were noticeably absent from the initial list of supporters.
G-Cloud is the framework intended to provide civil servants with hosted computing and storage, and is dubbed as a fundamental change in the way that public sector IT operates. The G-Cloud is predicted to bring many benefits in terms of flexibility, and cost effectiveness.
“I am fully expecting Amazon and Salesforce to be on the G-Cloud too,” said Denise McDonagh, director of ICT for the Home Office and deputy programme lead for the G-Cloud, during a UKAuthorITy.com ITU webinar last week.
The recruitment of the two big names is a boost for the G-Cloud, and will enable public-sector organisations to use the two companies’ software and services on uniform terms and conditions.
There has, however, been a delay in the second iteration of the G-Cloud framework, which was due to go live in this month. It is now set to appear at the beginning of May. According to McDonagh, this is because the government is still working on how to make it simpler for SMEs to get involved.
TweetCloud Computing to Boost Healthcare Sector
The use of cloud computing in healthcare is expected to grow significantly according to new research from business intelligence analysts GBI Research.
The new research dubs cloud computing as the ‘next big thing’ in healthcare IT, enabling data to be stored on servers not owned by an organisation, saving both space and money.
According to the firm, cloud computing offers the healthcare industry many advantages including reduction of costs, improved accessibility of applications and off-site management of data, which increases efficiency and security in terms of data management.
Cloud computing is now being widely recognised as a less expensive, more secure alternative to traditional computing networks used by physicians and healthcare organisations worldwide. As healthcare IT becomes more widely used, and data storage and retrieval costs increase, more hospitals are expected to adopt cloud computing, boosting the healthcare IT market.
According to the report, the global healthcare IT market is predicted to grow at an annual of 9.3% to $20.5 billion in 2017.
This follows from a recent study from IBM indicating that the number of enterprises using cloud computing will double in the next three years.
TweetOne Third of IT Budgets Spent on Cloud Computing
Businesses are investing heavily in cloud technology, a new survey from IDG Enterprise reports.
The survey which canvassed opinion from 1,650 IT and business executives found that more than a third, 34%, of their current budget are now allocated to cloud computing technology.
According to the report, cloud computing could gain an even bigger proportion of IT budgets in the next few years. Two-thirds of companies are expecting to increase cloud spending in the next year. On average, organisations will increase cloud computing spending by 16%. Seven out of ten businesses added that their IT departments needed to expand their skills base to keep up with the cloud trends.
Even though there are higher short term costs for implementing cloud initiatives, the majority of organisations (63%) strongly agree that there will be long term cost savings.
“Cloud computing solutions enable increased IT innovation, agility and reduce long-term IT costs,” said Bob Melk, senior vice president, group publisher and chief marketing officer at IDG Enterprise. “Cloud computing solution providers have the opportunity to become a strategic partner as cloud investments increasingly fuel business strategy.”
Aside from the obvious benefits of cloud computing, one-fourth of the respondents said they believe the technology will play a critical role in shaping business strategy.
TweetCloud Computing is the Future
An overwhelming 93% of financial decision makers believe that cloud computing will be important to the success of their overall business over the next couple of years, according to recent research.
Vanson Bourne questioned 100 senior executives within the finance departments of UK companies. The research found that 68% of businesses surveyed had either already implemented cloud services or have plans to.
Of the surveyed executives, 94% believe that cloud computing provides their business with quantifiable benefits, while 64% said cloud computing is more beneficial than traditional outsourcing.
“The benefits of cloud computing go far beyond the obvious cost savings on software and reducing the burden of maintenance,” said Thomas Davies, Head of Google Enterprise for the UK and Ireland.
“The strategically significant role it can play within an organisation in terms of driving innovation and productivity is making it an increasingly attractive option for businesses that want to remain competitive and agile.”
Furthermore, 66% of the senior executives believe that cloud has a vital contribution to the company’s corporate strategy and 69% suggest that it increases the IT department’s ability to innovate.
TweetNot Supporting Mobile Devices is Costing E-tailers £10 Billion a Year
British e-tailers are losing over £10 billion a year through not supporting mobile devices, according to a recent report from The MoBank Group.
With more and more consumers choosing to shop via mobile, mCommerce has become an increasingly important channel for retailers. A recent study by Forrester has estimated that by 2016, 14 million people will be making purchases via mobile handsets.
Dominic Keen, chief executive of The MoBank Group said: “Statistics show that over 15% of all online traffic is now coming from mobile, therefore retailers that use websites which don’t adequately support mobile transactions are losing the equivalent to one day of business per week.”
“We estimate that 80% of UK merchants aren’t currently on mobile. Our models suggest that approximately £10 billion of commerce is being lost each year, a significant chunk of the UK economy.”
In addition when 4G is launched shopping on mobile will be faster and easier, therefore, retailers need to prepare themselves now for this advancement. Click here for top tips on how to cash in on mobile ecommerce.
TweetMillions Lost in Online Sales Because of Fears in Security
Poor online security costs the economy more than £200 million a year a new study has found.
New research from the International Fraud Prevention Research Centre found that over £1 billion worth of transactions were abandoned last year from UK consumers frustrated at the length and complexity of certain older forms of identity verification.
One in five of these abandoned transactions were not taken elsewhere as individuals cancelled their shopping attempt altogether, resulting in £214 million worth of lost revenue for UK retailers.
The study found widespread frustration among consumers about old and inefficient identity checks, with some requiring the customer to submit physical forms or call a contact centre. It revealed that almost half (44%) of UK shoppers have abandoned at least one online transaction in the past year, because of security issues.
Professor Paul Barnes, director of the International Fraud Prevention Research Centre, said: “Depending on the reason for the identity verification check, our tolerance during a transaction varies greatly and can be as short as a 60 second window.
“With millions potentially being lost from the key industries in the UK, it is vital that this issue is addressed as soon as possible.”
TweetThe growing prevalence of cloud computing will push personal computers to the sidelines, according a new prediction from technology market research firm Gartner.
According to the analysts, the reign of the personal computer as the sole corporate access device is coming to a close, and by 2014, the personal cloud will replace the personal computer at the centre of user’s digital lives.
Steve Kleynhans, research vice president, Gartner said: “Many call this era the post-PC era, however, it isn’t really about being ‘after’ the PC, but rather about a new style of personal computing that frees individuals to use computing in fundamentally new ways to improve multiple aspects of their work and personal lives.”
The analysts at the firm say that the personal cloud will begin a new era that will provide users with a new level of flexibility with the devices which they use for daily activities, while harnessing the strengths of each device, ultimately enabling new levels of user satisfaction and productivity.
“Major trends in client computing have shifted the market away from a focus on personal computers to a broader device perspective that includes smartphones, tablets and other consumer devices,” said Kleynhans.
“Emerging cloud services will become the glue that connects the web of devices that users choose to access during the different aspects of their daily life.”
TweetMore than a dozen international IT firms have partnered to create a cloud computing platform which will be used by European researchers to provide computing support for scientific discoveries.
Officially called “Helix Nebula — the Science Cloud,” will allow European research organisations to study large sets of data through cloud computing technology. It will become available to governmental organisations and industry after a two-year pilot phase involving three flagship projects proposed by CERN, EMBL and ESA.
“CERN’s computing capacity needs to keep-up with the enormous amount of data coming from the Large Hadron Collider and we see Helix Nebula- the Science Cloud as a great way of working with industry to meet this challenge,” said Frédéric Hemmer, head of CERN’s IT department.
The partnership will seek to use cloud computing to continue pursuing the Higgs boson and boost large-scale genomic analyses in biomedical research. The ESA has suggested that they also hope to research volcanic and earthquake activity using the new cloud offering.
By demonstrating how cloud computing can help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges, the consortium hopes to ignite the European market for cloud computing services, and open the way for public organisations to profit from commercial cloud services.
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