The project takes inspiration from highly successful consumer cloud platforms (e.g. Facebook), as well as enterprise equivalents (e.g. salesforce.com). G-Cloud will provide a platform for government organisations to share applications and best practices.

Between 2012 and 2015, the UK Government hopes to realise savings of £180 million through the re-use of applications in a centralised Application Store, as well as £160 million through data centre consolidation. A catalogue of services and suppliers will enable buyers to make clear comparisons to facilitate purchasing decisions.

The leading technology research firm Gartner positions ‘Government Cloud’ at the peak of inflated expectations in their “Hype Cycle for Government Transformation”, citing the potential for 15-20% reduction in total IT operating costs through ‘shared services’ and ‘consolidation’.

However, in the longer-term, the analysts highlight the opportunities for “consistent productivity improvements”, greater “customer focus” and elimination of “redundant hardware, software and business processes.”

Sean Taylor, Director of Redwood Technologies, one of the short-listed SaaS providers, comments on the challenges the project faces:

“Government organisations all have their own local priorities, which they are unwilling to compromise – and rightly so. In order to get these organisations to work together more efficiently, G-Cloud will have to provide the central platform that will help to rationalise cost-bases, while still retaining the individual sovereignty of each participating organisation.

Sean continues, “Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of communications. How citizens communicate with the organisation, how colleagues within the organisation communicate with each other, and how different organisations communicate, affects every aspect of public service delivery.

“Even if different organisations do share common characteristics, it is unlikely that all the stakeholders will embrace integration willingly. Therefore the success of a G-Cloud communications platform will hinge on the ability to customise services for local requirements.

“Greater integration may follow in due course as a consequence of different organisations working more closely together, as sharing the same technology will tend towards the convergence of business processes. But in the first instance, organisations will need to have the choice to migrate at their own pace.”

Last month, Liam Maxwell, the Cabinet Office’s director of ICT futures, told the Cloud Expo in London that government contracts for cloud services will move away from the traditional model of long-term tie-ins, with new contractual agreements being signed after brief consultation and lasting as little as 12 months. He predicted that these services will soon be purchased in much the same way as a high-turnover commodity like office stationery.

The unveiling of the response vehicle proved a great success with attendance from many local businesses, including Redwood Technologies, contributors to the scheme and local residents, including many patients who have been treated by the CFR volunteers.

The charitable donations have not only enabled the CFR team to purchase the vehicle but they are now able to respond to 999 medical emergency calls in the local area at any time of the year, even in tough weatherconditions.

Martin Taylor, director of Redwood Technologies comments “I’m delighted that Redwood was able to help such a worthy local cause, providing vital assistance to those in need. It’s great to see community spirit alive and well, not only in the donations but the wonderful work that the CFR volunteers do which greatly benefits our local community”

The directors of Redwood, Sean Taylor and Martin Taylor, had the opportunity of speaking with two of the leading lights representing British business ideas. A range of topics was discussed, including the challenges of continuous innovation, proposed changes to patent law and the ins and outs of trademarking.

John Alty remarks on the company, “It’s excellent to see a business that’s really at the forefront of the British knowledge industry. In times of economic instability and uncertainty, we need businesses like Redwood to keep innovating, to keep growing and generating high-quality jobs for well-qualified people.

He adds, “It’s the intellectual property value created by entrepreneurs like these that’s going to help drive growth in the national economy.”

Martin Taylor also commented on the success of the visit:

“We were honoured to have the chance to sit down with John Alty and talk about some of the really tricky issues facing software developers today. At Redwood we’ve learnt, over nearly 20 years of experience, how to navigate the pitfalls of Intellectual Property and create real value.

“But for new technology companies starting up, it’s one of the big barriers to innovation. Will my software be protected? How do I make sure my competitors can’t simply throw their resources at producing the same thing? Am I even allowed to develop this product? What can I call it? These are all problems which aspiring entrepreneurs have to address.

“That’s why the IPO’s work is so important, in ensuring that the interests of both new and incumbent businesses are properly protected, and promoting responsible and sustainable commercial innovation.”

The event set a new record for the largest on-the-night sum ever raised for the charity, in excess of £26m, which will fund projects to support disadvantaged children all around the UK. With over £1m of these donations being taken through storm’s Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) accredited automated payment service, Redwood was proud to be part of such a special occasion.

As the largest platform for phone-based payments in Europe, storm was able to support in processing the hundreds of thousands of calls which came flooding into the donation hotline. The platform has also been audited by the BBC’s Interactivity Technical Advice and Contracts Unit (ITACU) to guarantee compliance with the required standards of data security.

GFM, an agency specialising in mass interactive media response, used storm as a key element of their solution for BBC Children in Need. Rob McLaughlin, Technical Sales Support Manager for GFM, commented on the challenges of ensuring the smooth running of this unique event:

“With one-off live fundraising events such as BBC Children in Need, it is absolutely critical that everything goes off without technical issues. If the viewer is inconvenienced or delayed at all when they’re trying to donate, they can lose patience quickly. We need to be able to take payments automatically then and there.”

Louise Duffield, Head of Operations at BBC Children in Need praised the performance of the platform:

“The capability and simplicity of storm’s payment handling process, and the reliability of the platform even during massive peaks in demand, means we can make it as easy as possible for people to be generous.”

Content Guru and C&W Worldwide are collaborating to implement a new storm Ireland platform built on Redwood’s technology, which represents C&W Worldwide’s biggest investment in Ireland in over a decade. Edward Winfield, the Director of SaaS Alliances for C&W Worldwide, remarks, “The current climate of uncertainty in Ireland presents an ideal opportunity for disruptive innovation.”

The team went over to Dublin to present storm Ireland to the Irish customer base at the Guinness Storehouse, the largest brewer of stout in the world and a renowned Dublin landmark. Guests heard a series of presentations from senior C&W Worldwide and Content Guru executives, followed by a pint of Guinness and panoramic views across the city from the famous ‘Gravity Bar’.

Stephen Colgan, the Head of Sales for C&W Ireland, remarked on the success of the event, “It was great to see so many of our customers turning out to learn about storm. Initially we thought perhaps they were only coming for a Guinness, but given that we’ve already got a flurry of follow-up meetings booked in with a range of customers, it seems safe to say they are as excited as we are about the platform!”

Edward Winfield, the Director of SaaS Alliances for C&W Worldwide, comments, “storm is a key part of the C&W portfolio, and it is tried and tested in the UK. India is essential to our global strategy, so by making storm available to our customers there, we will be better able to service their needs.”

There are pressing challenges facing the Indian marketplace. Wage inflation rates of 8-15%, as well as 40-60% first-year churn of contact centre agents, is impacting the business case for offshoring contact centre operations. Moreover, competition from emergent territories, such as South Africa, is helping to drive an emphasis on improving quality of service. Contact centre BPOs have to reconcile this need for higher standards with retaining their advantageous price-point.

The storm team ran three seminars at 5* hotels in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi under the banner of “Bringing the cloud to the contact centre”. They met senior management from a host of global BPO companies and system integrators, including HP, IBM, Infosys, Convergys and Wipro. The launch has thrown up some of the most exciting storm opportunities to date, each of them potentially spanning multiple countries and thousands of contact centre seats.

Shali Thilakan, C&W Worldwide’s Managing Director for India and South Asia, commented on the successful launch of storm, “I am very proud of what the team has achieved. It is never easy to get customers to get out of their office, to travel across town and spend time with a vendor for a product launch. The customers get bombarded with these kinds of invites all the time. However we have been able to get more than expected participation across all three cities.”

Shali continues, “The level of interest these events have generated is a testament to the fact that there is a clear need for storm’s cloud-based services in the Indian contact centre marketplace.”

Provided either as a standalone solution or an integral module within the multi-award-winning RedRecorder™ suite, Redwood applications can now preserve both on-screen activity and call content, together.

Handing a client the opportunity both to ‘view’ and listen will contribute to rigorous compliance and dispute frameworks that govern communications in many sectors. Screen recording will also help an organisation train their staff to become more effective, call by call.

Redwood Senior Design Engineer, Martin Fung, explains:

“Screen recording reveals what steps a contact centre agent takes when dealing with a customer enquiry. This record, especially when provided integrally with voice recording, offers a crucial tool for compliance and quality assurance. A manager can analyse and thus improve the processes an agent follows, boosting both service quality and efficiency from the bottom up. This kind of monitoring also helps reduce the risk of fraud, a big worry for any operation dealing with sensitive information.

“Redwood has a rich heritage in the contact centre sector and call recording is a crucial part of that story. By providing a screen recording service that is seamlessly integrated with voice, we’re adding an extra dimension that will further refine a client’s management of their customer-facing operation.”
Martin also notes how the smallest changes can make a huge difference to customer service.

“The slightest fine-tuning can pay significant dividends when applied across the huge volumes of transactions a contact centre may tackle every day.

“The ability to speed up and increase the accuracy of interactions with customers, for example in processing payments, can bring substantial revenue benefits to a business. These adjustments improve the customer experience and boost job satisfaction for call agents, too.”

Additional features can also include real-time monitoring and on-demand ‘hand-holding’, whereby a manager takes control of an agent’s mouse and keyboard remotely, actively supporting that agent as they progress through a call. This is another efficiency and customer satisfaction booster, saving the caller from a lengthy wait ‘on hold’ whilst an agent consults their supervisor or refers to a manual.

Screen recording is available as an on-site DNX solution or fully hosted in the cloud on storm®, the scalable Software-as-a-Service communications integration platform. Recordings are managed via an easy-to-use web portal – making arduous folder-trawling a thing of the past.  Advanced encryption, developed in accordance with Redwood’s ISO27001-accredited security procedures, means that a client can rest safe in the knowledge they are properly protecting their customers’ data.

Trusted trades

With over 2,700 directly employed and sub-contracted engineers, HomeServe is a national emergency home repair provider backed by a 24-hour claims handling and repair network. HomeServe also supplies households with access to vetted trades people who are qualified to carry out hundreds of different jobs around the home.

The company offers insurance cover for plumbing, drains, electrical wiring and gas central heating and has over 7.1 million policy members in the UK, with a further 2.2 million in the USA, France and Spain.

Four hour delay

Outbound telesales have a crucial role to play in HomeServe’s customer recruitment strategy. Any loss of service affecting the teams talking to new customers can lead immediately to substantial lost revenue.

Bobby Khatkar, Technical Project Manager for HomeServe, explains that the company’s primary on-premise dialler solution did not provide the level of service continuity required.

“Typically, we might have experienced a delay of up to four hours when we suffered an equipment failure,” he says. “That kind of outage can seriously affect your numbers in terms of contacts made and sales closed. Every lost call means we’ve lost the chance to build a lasting and profitable relationship with a new customer.”

STORM’s cloud solution

The HomeServe team considered a variety of alternative solutions for their backup dialler requirement. Says Bobby Khatkar: “Most of the alternatives we considered offered basic power dialler functions that would keep us in business while repairs were made.”

Redwood’s sister company Content Guru, which owns and operates the STORM platform, proposed an auto-dialler hosted in the cloud. The solution enabled Homeserve to enjoy the same sophisticated power dialling capabilities all the time, ensuring complete business continuity regardless of localised outages.

Rapid recovery

The first key benefit of the Content Guru solution is the speed of recovery made possible by the cloud. Manual failover can be completed within minutes, keeping the cost of service loss of to a minimum.

The HomeServe team were also delighted with the high level of functionality designed into the STORM-based solution. The service enables agents to continue their campaigns with little or no loss of key data or resources.

Efficiency

“We also make substantial savings when the repair is complete,” says Bobby Khatkar. “Because STORM auto-dialler is a true bespoke solution we save a great deal of time when we are recovering from a loss of service. Any information which is inputted on STORM is downloaded via the Web-based management interface and imported into our own system when it recovers.

“This makes our operations more efficient by removing the need for laborious manual updates between systems. There is also complete consistency throughout, since no data is lost due to omissions or errors in the process of duplication. We can simply migrate campaign data between the primary system and the STORM back-up. We can restart the full service almost instantly.”

Web interface

The graphical user interface for the auto-dialler makes it easy for services to be designed and modified on the fly. STORM’s VIEW™ management interface also gives the Homeserve operational team live statistics and detailed historical reporting, customised to display the information they need in an intuitive manner.

“We can access the platform from any web connection,” says Bobby Khatkar. “The platform was recently tested at an offsite DR location to ensure that the functionality was available.”

“The web interface makes it quick and easy to load a campaign into the STORM auto-dialler, and then move it back again when we revert to the primary system.”

Lower costs

As a hosted solution, the STORM deployment requires minimal capital outlay and operational costs are manageable and predictable.

“This service provides us with far more than we were looking for, at a price that matched our budget,” says Bobby Khatkar. “It is an excellent example of using the cloud to complement and enhance an existing service, adding new capabilities and prolonging the productive life of legacy equipment.”

ISO 27001 is the only auditable international standard which defines the requirements for a corporate ISMS. The standard is designed to ensure the selection of adequate and proportionate security controls.

“The security of sensitive company data must be at the top of every business agenda,” comments Mike Bailey, Director for BSI Training. “It is particularly relevant in the current climate, where measures such as management system standards can be put in place to minimise the risks.”

Matthew Chadd, Senior Project Manager for Redwood, explains that ISO 27001 is particularly effective for organisations which manage information on behalf of others, because it can be used to assure customers that their information is being protected.

“Redwood platforms process and store vast amounts of sensitive data,” he says. “Our clients include some of the world’s leading banks and financial institutions, as well as UK and foreign government agencies.

“This accreditation demonstrates to our clients and their customers that the information we work with is subject to a recognised global security standard.”

Dr. Lee, who is a strong advocate for science and technology issues in Westminster, met Sean and Martin Taylor, the brothers who founded Redwood in 1993. He was particularly interested in the company’s Network Operations Centre, which makes Bracknell a communications hub for global organisations and national governments.

“As events in Egypt have shown, the communications age has entered a crucial new phase,” commented Dr. Lee. “Social networking, smartphones and mass communication technologies are empowering people in ways that were never possible before.

“Redwood is a pioneer of these next generation technologies; it was fascinating to discuss their implications with the people at the forefront of innovation in this vital industry.”

Dr. Lee was also introduced to Redwood’s sister company Content Guru, which specialises in helping organisations to manage and work with the many different ways in which people now communicate.

“The technologies being developed here in Bracknell also address crucial issues for the public sector,” said Dr. Lee. “So-called cloud-based services allow us to use smarter communications to improve access to essential services, while saving money and avoiding the need to make major new investments.”

“Enterprise and innovation are the lifeblood of our economic recovery,” said Dr. Lee. “Redwood Technologies and Content Guru exemplify the entrepreneurial spirit that will drive economic success in the future, both for Bracknell and for the UK.”