Research indicates that 51 per cent of UK businesses struggle to draw valuable insights from data that they collect

In today’s digital world, data is a vital asset that gives organisations the ability to uncover valuable insights about customer behaviour, which ultimately provides businesses with a competitive edge. However, new research commissioned by managed services provider Claranet has revealed that UK businesses are struggling to capitalise on the vast amounts of customer data they collect.

The research, which was conducted by Vanson Bourne and surveyed 750 IT and Digital decision-makers from a range of organisations across Europe, is summarised in Claranet’s Beyond Digital Transformation report. The findings reveal that despite the increasingly large quantities of data that organisations are now collecting, over half of UK companies (51 per cent) struggle to use and understand their customer data to help them make important business decisions.

According to the survey responses, 41 per cent of UK organisations cite centralising customer data as being a key challenge encountered when trying to improve the digital user experience, and 43 per cent reported that they were unable to provide a consistent experience across channels as a result.

For Michel Robert, Managing Director at Claranet UK, the findings highlight how the often-siloed and legacy approaches to data management are preventing businesses exploiting the potential of the information at their fingertips. Robert commented:

Data has quickly become an incredibly valuable asset in businesses today and the source of important intelligence that can be applied to respond to changing customer demands. Most businesses are sitting on vast amounts of data and those that can harness it effectively can gain a much deeper understanding of their customers, better predict, improve and personalise the customer experience and, ultimately, create stronger brand loyalty and repeat business. It’s therefore troubling that over half of UK businesses are reporting challenges in this area, so addressing data management shortcomings needs to be a priority for any business that is passionate about delivering a positive customer experience.”

To realise the benefits of data you’ve got to be able to combine and mine different repositories of data and make it actionable in real time. However, that’s a process that is often frustrated by legacy systems and batch processing. These unconnected and incompatible IT systems create data siloes and prevent data and insights from being discovered and actioned within organisations.”

Cloud technologies can help a great deal, providing the tooling and infrastructure needed to collect, process, and analyse vast sets of data from across the organisation and make it actionable in real time. By creating a platform that can capture and analyse data from across an organisation, business leaders can discover unique insights, issues and opportunities that will ultimately help them achieve the competitive advantage they seek.”

Claranet, the leading European MSP has been named Best Cloud Support Provider at Computing’s Cloud Excellence Awards, which took place at the prestigious Waldorf Hilton in London last night

The event honours the wide variety of people, projects and organisations operating in the cloud industry, with 20 different categories recognising a diverse range of success stories and examples of market-leading innovation. The result saw Claranet come out on top against several major cloud players, underlining the expertise and hugely successful track record that the company has built up in this area.

Tanaz Gould, Consultancy Director at Claranet UK, said:

Over the last year, Claranet has spearheaded a large number of highly successful digital transformation projects with leading organisations around the world, including complex infrastructure migrations and consolidations. With each project we take great pride in working very closely with our customers to ensure we can guide them through each stage of the process and maximise the results for their unique business goals.”

The judging panel consisted of key individuals from leading cloud and IT organisations including John Abel, the Vice President of Oracle for UK and Ireland and Julian Burnett, VP & Executive Partner of retail at IBM, as well as Tom Allen, Special Projects Editor at V3 and The Inquirer. The ceremony itself was a fantastic evening celebrating the triumphs of global businesses, with winners in other categories including AT&T, DarkTrace and Anglian Water. Tanaz continued:

Winning this award is a superb result for Claranet and we are delighted to have been recognised for the work we have done over the course of the last year. The importance of cloud-based services and digital infrastructure is becoming increasingly prevalent, enabling any organisation to become more efficient, agile and cost-effective. We’re proud to be at the forefront of the industry in this respect, which has come as a result of us building and maintaining a philosophy that emphasises offering the highest level of service and support to our customers.”

Everyone involved at Claranet deserves immense credit for this accolade, including our architects, engineers, service delivery teams and account handlers. We’re incredibly proud of the entire team for their passion and commitment and hope this will drive us on to even greater things.”

For more information on the awards and a full list of the winners, please visit:

https://computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3063067/here-are-the-winners-of-the-clo…

• Claranet expands its Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering and confirms its position as a leader in the European cloud outsourcing market
• Group strengthens its Agile and AWS competencies to support complex client applications in the cloud
• Claranet further confirms its experience and its ability to support its customers across Europe in their digital transformation

Claranet, a European leader in the hosting and management of critical applications, has announced the acquisition of Italian DevOps and cloud specialist XPeppers.

Founded in 2010, XPeppers is a value-added systems integrator specialising in AWS managed services, DevOps and Agile technologies. Having built strong relationships with a number of large businesses, XPeppers has become a respected partner for customers who need to manage critical applications through AWS and is also an AWS Partner Network (APN) training partner. Its expertise in DevOps and Agile tools also gives it the critical capabilities to help customers manage digital transformation.

XPeppers has an annual turnover of around 4 million euros, with its customers including Conde Nast and Mercury Payments.

This latest merger has enabled Claranet to further strengthen its AWS offer in the Italian market and confirms the Group’s position as a natural leader in the public cloud market in the rapidly growing European market. This is in line with Claranet’s ambitious expansion strategy, which has seen the Group grow rapidly in Europe in recent years, both through organic growth and acquisitions. XPeppers represents the latest of these acquisitions.

Lucia Terranova, Deputy General Manager at Claranet Italy, said:

Bringing XPeppers into the Claranet Group is a natural fit for both parties. As an AWS specialist, XPeppers possesses expertise which is very much in line with that which we value at Claranet, and reinforces our position as one of the leading AWS stakeholders in Europe. Combined with XPeppers’ DevOps and Agile capabilities, our customers now have the opportunity to benefit from all the advantages that public cloud has to offer, while maintaining a single point of contact and unified support.”

Mario Lanzillotta and Anna Tocci, founders of XPeppers, said:

Being part of the Claranet Group will create many opportunities for our customers, partners and employees, so we’re very pleased to announce this deal. All of our customer ecosystem will see benefits from us merging with Claranet’s pan-European operations, with its financial strength and reputation for outstanding service being hugely valuable in ensuring that we’re able to serve our customers in the best possible way.”

Claranet recognised by Microsoft’s MSP program for demonstrating excellence in delivery, technical expertise, and experience of the Azure cloud ecosystem.

Claranet has been recognised for its expertise in consulting, implementing, and operating cloud solutions by Microsoft, becoming one of just 32 global launch partners to achieve this status. Securing the Azure Expert MSP accreditation confirms Claranet’s high level of expertise and knowledge of Azure cloud services as well as its ability to support customers in their unique innovation and digital transformation projects.

The certification program was created by Microsoft to reward partners who can meet a demanding set of criteria by demonstrating their excellence in delivery on a consistent basis. This includes an independent audit of their managed services, processes, and technologies, with only the most loyal and experienced partners being rewarded with the Azure Expert MSP badge.

The audit focuses on a wide range of key criteria and specialities that must be mastered by the MSP in a cloud environment, including: overall knowledge of Azure services; good cloud security practices; excellence in architectural design and application code adaptation; exploitation of platforms in scalable environments and cost containment.

Frédéric Atlan, Group Business & Partner Development Manager at Claranet, said:

Over the last few years there has been a rapid increase in the number of businesses migrating their in-house legacy technology and infrastructure to a public, private, or hybrid cloud service provider. In order for these transformations to be successful, organisations need to be supported and guided by partners with proven knowledge and experience of the cloud. The Azure public cloud, for example, has its own unique features and at Claranet we have known for a long time that following traditional methods are no longer suitable for this type of service”.

We now operate specifically on Azure using the best of the platform, including all advanced services, and this is an opportunity to collaborate with Microsoft further by bringing all of our cloud-based tools into compliance with their platform. When delivering critical services just having technical expertise is not enough, so it is vital that all associated processes and workflows are mastered to give the most effective support to customers”.

Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft Corp, added:

We are delighted to name Claranet as an Azure Expert MSP. Claranet has extensive experience in supporting its customers in the cloud by embracing a methodical and innovative approach, meaning they are fully deserving of this new status”.