Glyn Heath, Founder of Centiq Ltd, speaks to IT Advisor.

The benefits of IT monitoring and the early warning of system issues.

monitoring, managing and mitigating risk

Centiq have been awarded the IBM System x specialty.

As one of only 3 in the UK with this Speciality mark, we have joined an elite group of IBM Premier Business Partners who have invested in developing skills to achieve a high level of performance in System x technology and solutions. It's great testament to the Centiq team in the work done through all activities with IBM System x. These marks allow Centiq to display this mark throughout our marketing material.

The Budget has demonstrated that the Chancellor has had little scope for giving incentives for business growth.  The extension of the Enterprise Investment Scheme and the doubling of Entrepreneurs Relief to £10 million will certainly help boost entrepreneurship in the UK.  However, even though a 200 per cent rise in SME R&D Tax Credit has been announced, there was no mention of how small businesses’ corporation tax rate of 21 per cent would be affected.

So once again private enterprises are left to take their destiny into their own hands rather than relying on any incentives from the government. To me, it's all the more important that businesses look again at their IT assets and determine ways of optimising their performance to meet business goals and reduce operational costs. Despite two years or more of downturn, there is still considerable scope for UK organisations to automate many of their business or administrative processes and free staff time for major tasks, supporting customers and wider business development.

Opinions vary about whether new staff recruitment is on the rise, but the latest statistics on UK IT employment really struck a chord with me following our intake of six new starters on our graduate training programme in August last year.  According to e-Skills UK, the IT sector skills council, the proportion of the UK IT workforce below 30 has dropped from 33% in 2001 to just 19% in 2010.  To me, this seems like such a wasted opportunity for IT companies to benefit from the qualities that newly qualified recruits can bring to the workplace.  For us, it has been noticeable that our graduates have such ambition, drive and determination to give to the sales operation specifically and the wider business generally.

The new graduates have helped energise our existing activities and brought some fresh ideas to areas such as sales prospecting, making the investment doubly worthwhile.

Do companies monitor their IT to check its health and provide early warning of potential system issues?

I’ve spent many years investigating organisations’ IT systems and improving system performance but I’m regularly struck by how few CIOs seem to plan time and resources to do it systematically. Certainly many will use vendors’ monitoring tools, where they are available, for some systems but rarely consistently across the entire landscape.  There was further evidence of the lack of system monitoring with Progress Software’s survey of early warning systems used by IT departments in safety-conscious environments, covered in last week’s Computer Weekly http://tinyurl.com/4sczw4u.

The IT services industry is seen as a good long-term career opportunity for recent graduates as we begin to move out of a period of economic turmoil.

While youngsters are put off computer science degrees due to high graduate unemployment levels in that field, students from a variety of academic backgrounds are entering the IT services sector to begin careers in sales.

IT services firm Centiq set up a graduate training programme, with the aim of recruiting six graduates to become salespeople.

The company received hundreds of applications, interviewed 46 and put six on a 26-week training programme. The trainees, who were recruited in April, will not be set sales targets until April 2011. Computer Weekly caught up with some of them...

Centiq’s enterprise consultancy and system support services transform the performance and economics of organisations’ technology infrastructures and related business systems. The company consolidates, virtualises and optimises computing environments, delivering smarter IT, business analytics, cloud deployments and helpdesk capabilities at reduced cost. Headquartered in Nottingham, the company has a 12-year track record of success with blue chip and mid-range customers in the technology, retail and wholesale, manufacturing, business services, local and central government, finance and healthcare sectors. We spoke to Glyn Heath, Managing Director, to find out more about the IT services industry....

Following on from my last blog, I thought it would be apt to share some thoughts on the Government’s Spending Review now that the headlines have had time to sink in. 

The Government has taken a gamble in endeavoring to cut back the deficit within the life of this Parliament. One of George Osborne’s key assumptions seems to be that the private sector will be able to fill the potentially heavy job losses in pubic sector by private businesses creating new employment opportunities. He received an unexpected boost following the review with the announcement of the UK’s quarterly growth figure of 0.8 percent, which was well above expectations.  http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=192

Despite the gloom during the run-up to next week’s government Spending Review, I’m going to offer a more positive suggestion on this topic.