Inside:■■ What could full-fibre

broadband mean for the UK?

■■ Joining the DevOps culture club

■■ Dynamics 365, the story so far

...and more!

Tech talkEdition 5

IT Resourcing

Are you ready for

the GDPR? Take a

look at our guide!

@Capita_ITR Capita IT Resourcing capitaitresourcing.co.uk

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Capita IT Resourcing is a leading UK IT and digital recruitment provider, well placed to deliver expert resource and market advice when and where you need it. We have years of experience in the recruitment of contract and permanent IT and digital talent, and our objective is to be a long term trusted partner for each and every one of our clients and candidates.

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Edition 5

Contents

7 Big Data – the big solution for retailHow can retail benefit from data science?

8 Why Artificial Intelligence means greater collaborationWhat's so intriguing about the AI revolution?

9 How chatbots can improve customer service

Understanding the growing role of chatbots in customer service

10 Joining the DevOps culture club

Why DevOps is a culture, not a job title?

13Would full-fibre broadband be good for the UKBuilding a full fibre Britain

14 Feature: The guide to the GDPR (and how we can help you prepare)

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'Finding female candidates with relevant skills is becoming increasingly important to many companies, reflecting perhaps society’s current thinking regarding closing gaps around male and female roles.'

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After a healthy final quarter of 2017, we’re preparing to deal with one of the most significant regulatory changes to hit the IT industry in recent years.At Capita IT Resourcing, the final few months of last year saw an increase in contractors, mainly on the large contract programmes with which we are engaged. In terms of technologies, the situation was more diverse, although we did notice a surge in analytical roles as well as roles associated with project management and project management infrastructure. We’re thrilled that our Novus graduate programme had a fantastic end to 2017, with fourth-quarter figures exceeding Q2 and Q3 combined.

But the hot topic for 2018 is GDPR: the General Data Protection Regulation, which is scheduled to come into force on 25 May. We’ve really noticed a sense of urgency among businesses to take on GDPR experts – this is a huge area for both clients and candidates as companies rush to ensure they are GDPR-compliant. We’re seeing many candidates in the open market completing courses relevant to GDPR under their own steam – of course, these GDPR skills then make the candidates more valuable. We’re also seeing a rise in requirements for contractors in order to fulfil the needs arising from GDPR compliance.

This increasing GDPR work sits alongside the expected upturn in activity we often see as a new year begins. As the old year winds down and budgets are spent, activity often slows down, only to speed up as Q1 of the new year arrives.

Trying to predict trends for a new year can be a dangerous game, but we expect data science and analytics to be big in 2018 across both our regular recruitment and Novus streams. Also, cyber security remains a huge concern for many businesses.

The focus on attracting more women into the IT industry has undeniably become a recent trend. Finding female candidates with relevant skills is becoming increasingly important to many companies, reflecting perhaps society’s current thinking regarding closing gaps around male and female roles. There’s a push to encourage female graduates to choose IT as a career path and our Novus programme is at the cutting edge of this movement.

Finally, we’re aware of many clients looking to cut costs and as such, we’re formulating new IT recruitment strategies to address this. Using a consultancy model may be an option, or perhaps replacing contractors with permanent staff, but we look at each client’s needs individually before coming up with a relevant solution tailored to the needs of the business in question.

Find out about Capita IT Resourcing and how

we can help you: capitaitresourcing.co.uk

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@Capita_ITR Capita IT Resourcing capitaitresourcing.co.uk

Find out about Capita IT resourcing and how we can help you at

capitaritesourcing.co.uk

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The retail industry has been facing a number of challenges. How can it benefit from Big Data? Data science can assist retailers in growing sales by ensuring they make intelligent decisions based on hard evidence. Big Data allows businesses to use past sales to look for trends and target specific customers and geographical areas with promotions and offers. It can also help to create customer profiles, manage inventory, reduce shipping expenses and appraise staff performance. While all these factors affect profit, here we’ll focus on three areas: customer attraction, customer retention and real-time point-of-sale (POS) data.

The idea of “long-term analytics” in a retail context means using data to create more accurate customer profiles that can predict their lifetime value to the business. Organisations can compare the cost of acquiring a customer (through marketing, exclusive offers etc) with the value they’re likely to contribute to the company in the long run. Likewise, the data can be used to work out which customer groups are most valuable to a business, allowing them to focus customer retention strategies.

POS data is a vital part of any drive to increase retail sales: it can build accurate customer profiles, monitor staff sales, check for sales trends or changes in spending patterns and measure customer satisfaction levels. The fact that POS software keeps track of every

single transaction going through the store makes it an ideal data collection point.

Finding ways to utilise the data gathered every day is crucial. Analytics and real-time sales data offer unique insights into customers and their behaviour, facilitating effective and targeted marketing practices, and hopefully boosting sales.

Big Data – the big solution for retail

Find out more about Big Data and Analytics: capitaitresourcing.co.uk/big-data

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The potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has moved from concept to reality; Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook are among those introducing AI systems as the public begins to become aware of the sea-change already happening in tech interactions.One of the most intriguing things about the AI revolution is that it seems to be driving greater collaboration: groups, companies and individuals are coming together to bring different areas of expertise to bear on AI adoption for the widest possible user base. Tolga Kurtoglu, CEO of iconic Silicon Valley firm Parc, has gone a step further by suggesting humans and AI will work together in nearly every job in the future.

Although open source initiatives are commonplace in the IT sector, for many, secrecy has been the byword. Apple, for example, has a reputation for keeping its cards close to its chest, so

it was surprising when Russ Salakhutdinov, the company’s director of artificial intelligence research, announced that it would be sharing research papers and actively engaging with the wider AI development community, in order to help attract and retain top talent in the industry.

AI actually thrives on open collaboration because of the wide-ranging possibilities of its applications. A perfect example is driverless cars; the use of “learning machine” intelligence is key to success but so is the wealth of experience and knowledge built up by vehicle manufacturers over more than a century. This shows how

collaboration between specialists in vastly different fields is required to achieve an effective end result, and it is only one of hundreds of other examples of how AI will transform older established models.

An environment that promotes free-thinking enables AI to thrive and as its usage increases, so too will levels of collaboration on both local and global scales.

Why Artificial Intelligence means greater collaboration

Read our blogs: capitaitresourcing.co.uk/posts/

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“People-to-people conversations, people-to-digital assistants, people-to-bots… that’s the world you’re going to get to see in the years to come.” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (as quoted in Forbes magazine). Customer relationship management (CRM) practices now play a huge role in business development for companies of all sizes, and the strategies and technologies used by the IT sector to maximise CRM efficiency are always in the spotlight. But CRM systems now go far beyond simply amassing and analysing Big Data, and consider how customer interactions themselves are undertaken. As a result, firms are incorporating new methods of communication between themselves and the consumer, such as the chatbot.

Call centres – whether UK-based or overseas – were once the main focus of customer contact. Although actually speaking to someone can aid the creation of successful customer relationships, new technology means businesses may now consider whether a call centre is worth the cost. Chatbot technologies powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can listen and provide relevant information in actual conversations. Machine learning processes can operate in a live

chat scenario, allowing businesses to interact with customers in a timely and relevant fashion that could also cut costs.

Billions of people already use messaging apps, text/SMS messaging, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, so will happily accept communicating with a chatbot designed to mimic human interaction – although online “live chat” services are more than just messaging processes in a different wrapper.

Chatbots offer the opportunity to provide the consumer with information at any point in time. Add in the ability to collect data and chatbots can be the first step towards building a detailed picture of a customer base. While it might be too early to talk about chatbots replacing call centres, they can definitely be a useful asset in supporting staff and providing customers with vital information.

How chatbots can improve customer service

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Many consider DevOps the way forward for modern businesses… but there’s still some confusion as to what DevOps actually is. A job role? A team? Throwing together the Development and Operations departments? It’s none of these; DevOps is a culture that emphasises greater communication, collaboration, innovation and automation.Modern businesses have had to evolve traditional operations to incorporate software development. But encouraging the diverse range of teams involved in these processes to co-ordinate and work together effectively is not always easy. DevOps attempts to solve this problem by providing a framework – a workplace culture – enabling greater collaboration. As it’s a specific approach that helps businesses develop software quickly, roll it out and update it regularly, no one person can implement the changes required. Instead, DevOps should be thought of as a group mindset.

If you’re trying to implement DevOps practices in your business, you’ll need to demonstrate the business case for such a move. Metrics are a great example, although it’s necessary to concentrate on specifics and to identify a particular focus for measurement. You could measure velocity – whether software is being delivered to users at a faster rate. Or quality – whether you’re having fewer stability and security issues once the software is delivered. Likewise, you could also look at how the DevOps culture has affected the workplace

by measuring improvements in communication, collaboration and innovation.

DevOps can be a game-changer, but it needs to spread to every corner of an organisation if it’s to succeed. As a business’s products change, the processes by which those products are developed and delivered also need to change. DevOps allows businesses to adapt to the new demands of the marketplace by providing organisations with the structure and mentality they require to stay on top.

Joining the DevOps culture club

Find out about Capita IT Resourcing and how we can help you: capitaitresourcing.co.uk

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Joining the DevOps culture club

Find out about Capita IT Resourcing and how we can help you: capitaitresourcing.co.uk

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@Capita_ITR Capita IT Resourcing capitaitresourcing.co.uk

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The government has unveiled plans to trial full-fibre broadband in certain UK locations, but what could it potentially mean for the country? The trial will see this specific type of broadband rolled out in West Sussex, Aberdeenshire, Coventry, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Bristol. Full-fibre broadband utilises high speed cables that run directly to homes, businesses and public institutions. In the past, high speed cables ran to local street cabinets and slower copper cabling connected customers to the cabinet. This reduced possible download speeds dramatically and has been proven to be less stable than full-fibre connections.

Full-fibre connections will benefit the public, business and state services; with possible download speeds of 1Gbps, the ability to share data, consume media and communicate information will be greatly improved. Moreover, it will boost technology

sectors needing to stay ahead in a fiercely competitive international market. It will also facilitate more effective integration of multimedia teaching into classrooms and enable the NHS to share higher quality images to assist diagnoses.

While there are not any real disadvantages to rolling out full-fibre across the country, some have concerns about cost and the technology’s ability to deliver potential upgrades. And although the technology is capable of increasing download speeds, consumers will be unlikely to reach such speeds owing to heavy use and internet traffic. However, it is generally accepted that full-fibre will be a vast improvement on the current internet infrastructure.

For the UK economy, it’s essential that the development and progress of technology and infrastructure continues at a steady rate. Ultra-fast broadband is a logical step in providing businesses with better prospects – especially when IHS Markit research suggests that the UK lags behind most of Europe in fibre-to-the-premises connections. Full-fibre will therefore represent a considerable step-up when and where it is available.

Would full-fibre broadband be good for the UK?

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The General Data Protection Regulation comes into force in all EU member states from 25 May 2018. It’s designed to unify and strengthen data protection across the European Union. It replaces the UK’s 1998 Data Protection Act and even though the UK remains on a “Brexit” path, the government has said that it will bring the GDPR into UK law following any withdrawal from the EU. The GDPR will apply to any organisation that manages the personal data of individuals based in the EU (even if the organisation is registered somewhere else). The GDPR requires organisations to implement reasonable data protection measures to guard consumer and employee personal data against loss or exposure. The regulation will affect all areas concerned with data management and processing, from how to deal with data breaches to setting up the right data protection practices.

So why has GDPR been introduced? Well, really there are two key reasons: first, it establishes a clear legal framework, harmonised across the EU. Second, it is

designed to strengthen the security of people’s online data, giving users more power over how their data is used.

The GDPR will split data control and collection into two distinct branches: data controllers and data processors. Basically, data controllers are individuals or companies that determine how and why someone’s personal data is being captured – for example, health services, educational institutions or really any business that holds data about customers and employees. Data processors, as the name suggests, process data on the controller’s behalf – they are the party actually capturing the data.

The guide to the GDPR

Find out about Capita IT resourcing and how we can help you at

capitaritesourcing.co.uk

Read our related blog: 'GDPR: 5 things you need to know':

https://www.capitaitresourcing.co.uk/blogs/gdpr-5-things-you-need-to-know-76231050229

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Controllers must make sure their processor follows GDPR, while processors need to keep records to show that they are doing so. Because GDPR is all about the data, even if both the controllers and processors are based outside the EU, if their data concerns EU citizens, they must abide by GDPR.

The significant change GDPR will bring for most companies concerns obtaining consent for using personal data. Instead of users choosing to opt out of an organisation’s use of their personal data (for example, for marketing campaigns), GDPR requires an active “opt in”. The idea of what qualifies as personal data also expands under GDPR, reflecting society’s increasing use of smartphones. So, as well as names, addresses, medical information

and the like, personal data will also now encompass IP addresses, SIM card IDs and cookies from websites, plus “pseudonymous” data such as Twitter handles and online usernames.

Controllers failing to comply with GDPR – and, by implication, ignoring users’ rights to privacy – could face significant penalties: €20m or 4% of annual profits (whichever is larger). The Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK may also discipline and prosecute data processors may also be disciplined and prosecuted by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

But if all this sounds daunting, proper preparation will ensure your organisation is ready for GDPR – and Capita IT Resourcing can help.

Protecting user data is of course vital, but so is the way users give their confirmation that you may use the data they provide. It’s also important to consider potential data breaches and whether plans are in place to notify the correct authorities if a breach occurs.

We’re working with our clients to formulate tailor-made solutions for each company so that the impact of GDPR on daily business interactions is minimal. We can supply GDPR experts as well as work on providing teams of permanent staff or consultants in order to make GDPR compliance straightforward. Contact us today and we’ll find the best way forward for your organisation!

The guide to the GDPR

Read our blogs: capitaitresourcing.co.uk/posts© 2018 Capita plc All rights reserved

@Capita_ITR Capita IT Resourcing capitaitresourcing.co.uk

Get in touchE: itresourcing@capita.co.ukT: 0845 605 0564W: capitaitresourcing.co.uk

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