• Martin Saunders appointed to new role as Corporate Development Director
• Neil Thomas joins company as Claranet’s new Product Director

Managed Services Provider (MSP) Claranet has announced a number of strategically important changes to the senior management team, designed to drive continued innovation within the business, and ensure market relevance for its products and services. Previously Claranet’s Product Director, Martin Saunders, has moved to the newly-created role of Corporate Development Director, while Neil Thomas has joined the company as its new Product Director.

Martin Saunders has over 18 years’ experience in the Service Provider industry, with particular expertise in cloud technologies and high-availability network services. Having joined Claranet in 2006, he has had direct responsibility for the company’s product strategy and successfully oversaw the development and launch of its award-winning IaaS platform, the Virtual Data Centre, and more recently the launch of Claranet’s communications offering following the acquisition of Star in 2012.

In his new position as Corporate Development Director, Martin’s remit will shift away from the product offering itself and will focus on the development of new acquisitions and partnerships, sales enablement and ensuring Claranet makes the most of its group-wide portfolio of services.

Commenting on his newly-created position, Martin Saunders said: “Claranet has a long-established reputation for innovation and service in the hosting industry, but we must be dynamic if we are to remain competitive. We have an ambitious growth strategy, both organic and by acquisition, and I look forward to using my extensive knowledge of the company and our strengths to support these ambitions in my new role.”

Filling the role left by Martin, Neil Thomas has stepped into the position of Product Director at Claranet. Having previously worked at Vodafone Global Enterprise as Senior Product Manager, Cloud Computing, Neil brings with him a wealth of managed hosting experience at the enterprise level that he will apply to the rapidly growing mid-market sector in which Claranet operates. Neil will be focused on driving innovation across the portfolio, especially in the managed hosting and applications services range.

Claranet has also appointed James Mitchell as Senior Product Manager for Unified Communications, an emerging service area for Claranet.

Neil Thomas, Claranet’s Product Director, commented: “The IT industry is currently undergoing a period of rapid change, which presents a number of challenges for our customers. With an already wide range of network, hosting and communications services, Claranet is well placed to respond to those changes the fast-changing IT industry, and there are significant opportunities for the business to improve and deepen the portfolio further. As Product Director, I intend to ensure that our product portfolio can continue to meet the needs of our customers today, whilst also anticipating the needs of the market five years down the line.”

Claranet’s UK Managing Director, Michel Robert, said of the new appointments: “If Claranet is to drive growth and increase market relevance, it is vital that we have the right skills in place to move the business forward. Martin has served the company incredibly well during his time as Product Director, but the time is now right to reposition his skill set to ensure that we are able to make the most of new technologies, identify new acquisition targets, and source new partners for our business. Equally important is that we can bring new blood into the business. Neil Thomas brings with him a unique set of skills, which will no doubt prove to be invaluable as we move on to our next chapter.”

Find out more:

• For more information about Claranet’s hosting portfolio, visit hosting services.
• For more information about Claranet’s communications portfolio, visit communications services.
• For more information about Claranet’s networks portfolio, visit networks services.

It seems there is a high-profile technology security problem in the news every week, and while this coverage is great for educating people, it can leave the public slightly jaded and unresponsive to internet security threats. In the wake of recent security breaches, eBay, Spotify and Office, amongst others, have called for their customers to address potential vulnerabilities by changing their passwords. Many people probably haven’t acted upon this advice, and it is this complacent ‘it couldn’t happen to me attitude’ which can ultimately result in security breaches.

This week I was asked to comment on an internet security situation which has been getting plenty of attention from the press. One publication ran with a front-page headline claiming you only had ‘Two weeks to save your computer from major cyber attack.’ Clearly the media sensationalises in order to gain attention and to sell, but do they have a point? I’ll try and explain what happened in this story and what you should do to ensure you are safeguarded.

I am the Managing Director for an internet hosting provider called Tagadab, a Claranet Group Company. Alongside many other service suppliers we worked with the FBI to help de-stabilise a botnet controlled by a major cybercrime syndicate.

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Working in the Internet industry is never dull. The rapid pace of change is relentless, with new technologies, new competitors and new customers appearing on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. Every so often though, it’s good to stop and think about where you’ve come from and how much progress you’ve made over the years.

Last week Claranet won ‘Managed Services Provider of the Year’ at the Data Centre Solutions Awards. Winning awards is always nice, but this one was particularly good because it was based on independent votes from the industry, our customers and other people and organisations. I’ve also just started my 9th year working for Claranet, so these two things combined made me stop and think about the Claranet I joined compared with the Claranet I continue to enjoy working for today.

When I joined in 2006, Claranet was well known in the industry as a pioneering Internet Service Provider (ISP), particularly for Claranet’s flat rate dial up Internet access. Sometimes I speak with people who still have the perception that Claranet is solely a provider of internet access for individuals and small businesses. In reality we offer much more, but this traditional customer group of individuals and small businesses, who take connectivity (and some other small scale services), are still catered for, though this arm of the business operates under the name of Claranet SOHO (Small Office & Home).

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This summer sees a number of high profile sporting events taking place, from the Fifa World Cup which kicks off in just under a month, to Wimbledon, right the way through to the Ryder Cup in September. While there are those who follow sport keenly every summer, the World Cup is an event that draws in football fans and non-football fans alike, and that means more people trying to stream and keep up to date with every goal, dribble, and moment of drama.

We’ve seen a number of requests from organisations bracing themselves for the impact this will no doubt have on their network, with many IT departments facing up to the inevitable fact that many of their users will (often against corporate IT policy) be using services like Sky Go and BBC iPlayer across multiple devices to keep up to the minute on their favourite sports.

So how do you ensure that this extra traffic doesn’t end up slowing your mission critical applications and processes down?

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In order to optimise their IT strategy, IT decision makers need to learn three things: firstly, generally they can’t accomplish everything they’d like using only in-house resource, secondly, they need to understand what services an MSP (Managed Services Provider) can offer, and thirdly they need to view their chosen MSP as a trusted partner for the relationship to be as fruitful as possible. If you manage to do all of these things, you become an informed consumer, and your organisation will benefit because the IT strategy supporting it will be stable, flexible, future proof and cost efficient.

By leveraging the expertise of an MSP, IT decision makers not only have access to an extended operational IT team who can take away some of the rigmarole of ‘keeping the lights on’, but also, they gain access to a consultative partner who can guide their business through the process of cloud adoption, migration, and work with them to develop technology roadmaps for the future.

The great thing about becoming an informed consumer is that you begin to understand the benefits of working with an MSP, by getting to see the processes which underpin their results. This in turn allows you to contextualise the monitoring data provided by an MSP and take these insights back to other areas of your business. It is of utmost importance that an MSP helps you in this process, by guiding and transparently showcasing its inner workings, keeping you in control.

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Claranet was named Managed Services Provider of the Year at the DCS Awards 2014 last night (15th May 2014). The award reinforces Claranet’s position as the leading independent MSP in the UK & Europe.

The DCS Awards were established to recognise product designers, manufacturers, suppliers and providers operating in the data centre arena. Now in their 4th year, the Awards have gone from strength-to-strength, recognising the achievements of IT vendors and their business partners alike.

The MSP of the Year category was one of the most contested categories of these awards, and Claranet fought off strong competition. A two-stage judging process saw entries first assessed by a panel of industry experts, before being shortlisted for a public vote.

Michel Robert, Managing Director at Claranet, said: “This award is a significant win for us and recognises the investment we have made over the last few years – in our people, in best-practice processes and in technology – to ensure we are meeting our customers’ requirements and market need. We have worked hard to drive the business forward, innovate our services and expand our product offering. So we are delighted to have won this award, and would like to thank the judging panel and all those who voted for us.”

In addition to winning the Managed Services Provider of the Year award (DCS Awards 2014), Claranet also recently won the Best Customer Service Strategy award at the SVC Awards 2013, and was a Finalist in the Quality Service Provider of the Year award at the UK Customer Satisfaction awards 2014, which are run by the Institute of Customer Service.

Shift required to drive home true ROI of adopting cloud services

The channel’s emphasis on cost-savings rather than the broader benefits of cloud, risks turning off potential customers. Concerns were voiced at Claranet’s partner seminar last month – that although businesses, particularly SMEs, are alive to the opportunities posed by cloud, they shy away when it comes to cost. Unless resellers can drive home the messages about the true ROI of cloud they will continue to fall at this hurdle, Claranet warns today.

Simon Bearne, Sales Director at Claranet, says that the gulf between the channel’s perception of the primary selling points of cloud and those reported by end-users, must be closed if resellers are to drive their sales of cloud services:

Rather than leading with cost-savings, which in fact do not always materialise, resellers should focus on the benefits that cloud brings, which end-users say they are actively looking for: flexibility, scalability and agility. These areas can all potentially be measured, and the challenge for the channel in 2014 is to help end-users understand these wider benefits, and to help them evaluate these in building their case for adopting cloud services, as well as to measure their ROI post-migration.”

Research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) supports the messages coming from Claranet and reveals a disconnect between the channel and end-users when it comes to drivers for cloud adoption. When asked what they perceived the primary end-user motives for cloud to be, 65 per cent of resellers selected cost-savings compared to on-premises solutions, followed closely by a reduction in capital expenditure (48 per cent). This is, however, not supported by Claranet’s own research into adoption trends, which reveals that while cost is important, the primary reasons for adoption relate to flexibility (71 per cent), a need for scalability (66 per cent) and 24/7 service dependence (63 per cent).

Simon concludes:

The channel must better align their sales pitches with the needs and wants of end-users, clearly demonstrating the wider benefits of cloud services to help support the case for adoption. Costs are of course incredibly important, particularly for cash-strapped SMEs, but the benefits of cloud go far beyond the purse strings and reducing ROI calculations for cloud to cost alone doesn’t do it justice. There is a risk that potential customers will just not see the full picture of how cloud could benefit them.”

Find out more:

• For more information about Claranet’s Channel Partner team, visit partner services.
• For more information about Claranet’s hosting portfolio, visit hosting services.
• For more information about Claranet’s communications portfolio, visit communications services.
• For more information about Claranet’s networks portfolio, visit networks services.

Claranet has followed up its 2012 acquisitions of Star in the UK and Typhon in France with a wave of new acquisitions with three companies joining the Claranet Group in the last three months. Beginning in February Claranet acquired Echiron, a high-end managed hosting and applications provider in Portugal. This was followed by the acquisition of Grita, a specialist French hosting provider to the healthcare sector in March. Finally, in April Claranet acquired Dutch cloud services provider, NovaData.

Following these acquisitions Claranet has cemented its position as the largest provider of cloud services to the mid-market in Western Europe. Claranet Group will have annual revenues in excess of €160 million (£135 million), circa 800 employees, over 4,500 customers and operations in 6 European countries (France, UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain and Portugal). Part of Claranet’s ambitious growth strategy is to add additional operational capabilities in different market places.

Echiron was founded in 2000 and is based in Lisbon. It is recognised for its expertise in cloud, database and Microsoft & Oracle application management services. With offerings that complement and broaden Claranet’s existing service portfolio, Echiron is a natural partner for Claranet. Echiron has 90 customers across all industry sectors, including BMW Portugal, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (one of the largest private foundations in Europe) and SPMS (Portugal’s centralised health system administration body).

Grita, is a specialist provider of hosting services to the healthcare sector in France, and accredited with the French Ministry of Health’s HADS (Hébergeur Agrée de Données de Santé) certification for the hosting of private medical data. The HADS accreditation, combined with Claranet’s existing ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS certifications, makes the company one of the few hosting providers in France to have this set of key industry accreditations, and extends its reach into this fast-growing market segment. Since entering the healthcare and emerging e-pharmacy markets in 2010, Grita has become a leading player – with over 50 major customers in the sector, including Philips and Agfa.

The acquisition of NovaData, which has annual revenues of €7 million (£5.7 million), strengthens Claranet’s position as the leading provider of managed hosting and application management services in The Netherlands. Founded in 2008 and located in Eindhoven, NovaData is an IT services firm focused on mid-sized and large businesses and institutions. With a range of services that broaden and complement Claranet’s existing portfolio, NovaData is a natural partner for Claranet. It means that customers in the region will benefit from the expertise of both companies and from a combined and expanded services portfolio. NovaData’s customer base comes from a wide range of industry sectors such as healthcare, business services and manufacturing.

Find out more:

• For more information about Claranet’s hosting portfolio, visit hosting services.
• For more information about Claranet’s communications portfolio, visit communications services.
• For more information about Claranet’s networks portfolio, visit networks services.

As someone who has always lived and worked in and around London, I love our Underground system and couldn’t imagine London without it. As my children frequently remind me though, you can love something but not always like it, and the tube is sometimes very difficult to like with its strikes and signal failures. Today is one of those days! I’ve just spent the last couple of hours fighting my way across London to attend the Amazon UK Summit in docklands (more on that in another blog post) and I’m not exactly feeling fresh and ready to network and absorb information.

I won’t comment on whether the RMT were right or not to call the strike, the media are doing a very good job of that already. My interest here is what part technology is playing in this situation, both how it’s causing it, and how it’s helping.

It’s not news that London Underground has been spending huge sums of money modernising the tube. The introduction of Oyster cards was a very visible example of this which has ultimately resulted in less need for ticket offices, but there has also been a huge amount of investment in train infrastructure and signalling as well. What I believe is less well known is how far this investment has pushed forwards the way the Tube functions, to the point now where signalling on a number of lines can now support driverless trains. Earlier this year, Boris Johnson (London Mayor) approved plans to order driverless trains with the unions promising “all-out war” over the plans. I expect LU’s march forwards with technology to be meet with stiff opposition from the unions, with the frequency and length of strikes increasing.

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Businesses are right to ask difficult questions about their Cloud Service Providers

Responding to research which has found that businesses are conducting more due diligence when provisioning cloud services and have a greater awareness of data sovereignty issues in a post-PRISM world, the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) and Claranet suggest that increased awareness of surveillance programmes may be providing the push that businesses need to better protect their data.

A global survey has revealed that businesses are conducting heightened due diligence on cloud suppliers and demanding more localised storage of their data in the wake of reports about US surveillance activities. The report suggests that 31 per cent of IT decision-makers have decided to move their business data ‘to where they know it will be safe’, while 52 per cent are now conducting greater due diligence on cloud providers than ever before.

Alex Hilton, CEO of the Cloud Industry Forum, said: In the wake of PRISM we have witnessed a significant amount of fear, uncertainty and doubt in the industry, but we don’t see the revelations as having made a material difference to cloud adoption rates in the UK. All the signs in the market are immensely positive: overall adoption stands at an all-time high at 69 per cent and is set to increase further to around 80 per cent this year. Moreover, research from Claranet, which was conducted post-PRISM, points to a marked increase in trust in cloud services, suggesting that in spite of reports of surveillance, faith in cloud as a viable delivery model continues to grow.

“The industry is weathering the storm, but if a by-product of the scandal is that businesses are making more checks on their cloud providers before taking the leap, then all the better. Cloud users should be seeking reassurance from prospective CSPs to understand how the service is delivered, where data is stored and ultimately who has access to their data. These are messages that we have pushed since our inception and since the formation of our Code of Practice for CSPs, so it’s encouraging to see end-users taking a more active role in securing their data,” he continued.

Michel Robert, Claranet’s UK Managing Director, added: In our experience, concerns about data location and security are anything but new. Data sovereignty has been a key issue for cloud users for quite some time, and to address these concerns Claranet provides in-country data centres: All users, applications and data always reside in the customer’s chosen country. That end-users are taking a greater interest in the security and location of their data is no bad thing and it’s important that CSPs recognise and address the changing needs of their customers.”

Find out more:

• For more information about Claranet’s hosting portfolio, visit hosting services.
• For more information about Claranet’s communications portfolio, visit communications services.
• For more information about Claranet’s networks portfolio, visit networks services.