Enterprise Ireland – Best Connected -

Dogs welcome is a strange introduction to the opening, next weekend, of the UK’s first new high street bank in over 150 years.   The newcomer is Metro Bank.   It promises to open seven days a week, including 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday, have a rapid account opening procedure and issue credit and debit cards within 15 minutes.   For those with jars full of pennies it will also have free coin counting with the Metro Bank Magic Money Machine.  And off course “the bank will provide free bowls of water and chewy bones to ensure that your four-legged pals are as happy as you are”!  The initial plans are modest.  Two branches this year and twelve within the next two years.

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In the middle of our doom and gloom a bit of good news is always welcome.   Intel last night reported its best ever quarter results in its 42 year history.  Year-on-year revenue up 34% and a net income of €2.9bn.  Why is this good news for us?   Well, Paul Otellini, chief executive, said that Intel was running ahead of a global economic recovery because of a fundamental shift towards working on the internet.   Sales of server chip were up 170% on a year earlier due to a move to hosting applications and services in the cloud.   ”As internet traffic continues to boom, the cloud build-out is accelerating in order to keep pace,” he said.

So the move to the cloud continues unabated and confirms what many of Enterprise Ireland’s software clients believe – that SaaS and the cloud are here to stay.

We should also not forget the 4,000 people who work directly for Intel in Leixlip and the many hundreds of others whose jobs depend on Intel Ireland.   This is great news for them.

For those of us of a certain generation it is hard to imagine that the Leixlip plant was originally established to produce the i486 microprocessor.   A breakthrough in technology, it had a 50MHz chip set with 8k of on-chip SRAM!!!

We have recently completed a programme around Managed IT Services for a bunch of our clients (EI) and we gathered some useful insights in to the whole area of delivering remotely managed IT Services. Late last year we identified the need for a greater focus on this area and felt there was a sufficient context around which to build something, in particular:

• Growing need from their customer base to reduce implementation costs and maintenance costs
• Growing acceptance of new service delivery models (such as SaaS and cloud computing).
• Reliable and ubiquitous broadband access, successful take-up of software delivery models and significant investment in next generation IT architecture is accelerating enterprise adoption of the IT as a service paradigm

As the SaaS model matures, fewer enterprises require the middleware – the onus of providing vital application integration is shifting to service providers  – Applications, processors, databases are becoming utilities and charged dynamically.

Our research identified that Financial services, public sector and manufacturing have heaviest spend in IT services and already 18% – 25% of companies using some form of managed IT service, with a further 37% – 48% either planning such a move or considering (source Datamonitor)

Early in the programme we had a discussion with each of the clients, most of whom had a strong desire to “get on” the cloud. Here is some of the thoughts that came back:

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Some of my colleagues in Enterprise Ireland were debating the other day an ongoing SaaS issue – whether it is an all or nothing business model or can you run your old on-premise business hand-in-hand with your new SaaS business, i.e. a ‘Hybrid Model’.   Salesforce.com and other SaaS zealots go for the purity of SaaS only and see the hybrid model as a bastardisation that will ruin both businesses.   The issue I think is more fundamental than alternative ways of applying technology, it is about leveraging your company’s strategic strengths through the key generic strategies of cost leadership or differentiation.

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From September 9th – 14th 2010 Amsterdam RAI will host the IBC Conference & Exhibition. See www.ibc.org for exhibitors and the conference program.

IBC is committed to staging the world’s best event for professionals involved in CONTENT CREATION, MANAGEMENT and DELIVERY.

IBC2009 attracted 45,000+ visitors and 1,300+ exhibitors from more than 130 countries.

If clients are planning to attend, they should get in touch with Jan Jaap Dijkman (janjaap.dijkman<at>Enterprise-Ireland.com) or Patrick Torrekens (patrick.torrekens<at>Enterprise-Ireland.com)
at Enterprise Ireland.

As I have mentioned previously Enterprise Ireland is running a programme to transition ten on-premise software companies into a SaaS business model.   At the start of the programme we thought the biggest issue to be tackled would be the technology of delivering a SaaS solution.   And by we I include the CEO’s of the ten companies.   While the technology element is obviously a key issue, what has emerged from the programme is that the biggest challenge facing the companies is the development of a new business model.  The type of questions the CEOs are now asking themselves are: What is the new business message?   What is the new marketing pitch?   What is the marketing vehicle?   What is the revenue model?

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As you are aware – or you should be aware if you have been reading this blog – we are currently running a programme aimed at transitioning ten of our clients from an on-premise to a SaaS business model.   The company workshops, very ably run by Saaspoint, have been highly interesting and very educational.   The most recent workshop that I attended covered PR in the cloud environment.

Many people perceive public relations as something less than respectable – as clever guys trying to convince the public that what’s wrong is right.  Some see public relations professionals as manipulators of the public mind, rather than conveyors of truth.   From what I gleaned over the last week PR professionals are coming back into their own.   The rules of the game, however, have changed radically over the last ten years.   If you are informing Joe Public about a web based product or service then naturally you have to use the web to do it.   Using the printed word just won’t hack it.

Media coverage in the web is new and offers great possibilities to Irish software companies.   If done correctly, media coverage, can generate direct enquires and web hits.   More importantly by using tools such a Google Analytics you can get a reasonably direct correlation between your PR effort and new traffic to your web site.

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Origina is a leading IT managed services & solutions company providing innovative IT solutions to public & private organisations in various sectors within Ireland, UK, mainland Europe and the USA.

The mission of Origina, is to make ‘IT the Hero’ for their clients through Innovation, Dedication and Teaming.

Products & Services
- Consultancy: A recognised thought leader & trusted advisor, Origina are well placed to provide clients with expert IT advice & guidance in order to achieve optimum results from their IT environment.
- IT Solutions: Origina’s IT solutions help organisations derive greater value from IT. Their technology portfolio is best of breed and is constantly reviewed to ensure they have the right technology solutions for their clients.
- Teaming: Origina Teaming service can take many forms, with examples like their helpdesk support, virtual administrators, managed backups, managed Storage, 24×7x365 technical support, remote support and consolidated hardware maintenance and more.
- Training: Origina IT Training focuses on providing value-added IT training solutions to organisations throughout Ireland, Europe and Internationally. They are a trusted IBM training delivery partner, also delivering in-depth courses across a range of other vendor technologies offering insight and practical experience through an expert-led training approach.

Key Benefits
- Focused on maximising existing technology and skills investments.
- Increased agility within your IT infrastructure.
- Reduced cost of running your IT systems and associated operations.
- World class independent advice.
- Tailored best of breed IT solutions.
- Some of the industry’s best IT professionals within a range of different disciplines including High Availability, Server & Storage Virtualisation, Disaster Recovery, Private Cloud Infrastructures.
- Origina’s innovative approach and industry thought challenging leadership ‘Origina Thinking’ has seen them win numerous high profile awards including the 2010 European IT Excellence Award, ‘SMB Solutions Provider of the Year’.

Clients
Lakeland Dairies Group, European Fund Services (Société Générale Securities), Department of Education, Health Research Board, RSA Insurance, HSE South Eastern, Department of Justice, Equity & Law Reform, Omnipay, Galway University Hospitals (GUH), Cork City Council

Partners
IBM, Microsoft, VMware, Symantec, Compellent, Commvault, Riverbed and Oracle.

Web www.origina.com

Tel +353 (0) 1 2942300

Email info@origina.ie

Address
Unit 2 First Floor, Bracken Court, Bracken Road, Sandyford, Dublin 18.

Zarion is specifically focused on the financial services sector and specialises in improving human centric processes.

Products/Services
TouchPoint2 is Zarion’s process optimisation software for the banking, insurance and capital markets industries.
• Loans/insurance customer enrolment.
• High value processes such as swap payments.
• High volume, low value processes such as claims settlements.
• Zarion’s business process consulting organisation aligns strategic objectives with operations and business processes.
• Zarion’s Lifetime Support team provides ongoing support for customers.

Key Benefits
• Build on rather than replace, existing work management platforms including Global 360’s Execute360
• Achieve quick implementations.
• Reduce long term support and maintenance overheads.
• Require minimal customisation.
• Reduce or eliminate custom build and integration work.

Clients
AIB, Bank of Ireland, GMAC Commercial Finance, Irish Life and Permanent, ING Group.

Partners
Microsoft, Kofax and Global 360.

Tel +353 (0)1 240 5200

Web www.zarion.com

Address
Marine House, Clanwilliam Place, Dublin 2.

WorldSpreads provides ordinary/individual investors with a quick, easy and cheap way to trade individual shares, foreign exchange, stock indices, commodities and interest rates by telephone or online.

Products/Services
Online and telephone financial spread trading in the following markets:
• Irish and International Shares; All major Irish, UK and US stocks are quoted as well as a selection of international institutions.
• Major World Indices; Trading available on the movements in all the major international indices, DOW, FTSE, DAX, CAC etc.
• Currencies: All major currencies are traded.
• Commodities: Trading of the major commodities, oil, wheat, silver, platinum etc.
• Bonds and Interest Rates: Trading on bonds and interest rate movements.

Key Benefits
• No capital gains tax, broker fees or stamp duty.
• Fully interactive on-line service.
• Immediate execution trading.
• Narrow spreads.
• Fully regulated by MIFID and FSA.
• Ability to short the market.
• Trade in small sizes.

Clients
All private clients.

Partners
M&G Valores, portfolio, Phumelela, AVD, Testra.

Tel +353 (0)1 660 9835

Web www.worldspreads.ie

Address
8 The Anchorage Business park, Charlotte Quay, Dublin 4.

WBT Systems is a provider of intelligent learning solutions and is part of the horizon Technology Group.

Products/Services
• Together with a network of content, business consulting and systems integration partners, WBT provides tailored solutions mapped to the unique needs of each customer.
• Sales productivity.
• Regulatory compliance.
• Extended enterprise.
• Customer service.

Key Benefits
• WBT’s implementation experience spans a variety of industries, including financial services, healthcare, government and pharmaceuticals.
• Decreased Risk, A single report can summarise the compliance readiness of the organisation.
• Decreased Costs, Tracking and proving compliance are no longer a labour-intensive task.
• Increased Sales Revenues, Adopting professional sales methodologies across sales channels increases effectiveness.
• Decreased Cost of Sale.

Clients
Alexander Forbes, Basler, Blue Shield California, ConnectiCare, Empire, Firstplus, Liberty, Wellpoint, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, Mellon, Bank of America, ING.

Partners
WBT Systems has formed strong partnerships with over 40 technology and consultancy companies.

Tel +353 (0)1 417 0100

Web www.wbtsystems.com

Address
Block 2, harcourt Centre, harcourt Street, Dublin 2.

Waterford Technologies provides email and data management solutions that enable businesses to effectively manage their email and data infrastructure, thereby ensuring that customers operate a secure and productive email and data environment.

Products/Services
MailMeter is a suite of products that span multiple functional areas for a complete email/data management, analysis and reporting solutions.
• MailMeter Archive can store all incoming, outgoing and intra-company emails, including body text and attachments for search and retrieval.
• MailMeter File Archiver: intelligent file reporting, destruction and archiving

Key Benefits
• Awareness of the patterns of messages about your company entering and leaving the organisation.
• Increased knowledge allows companies to take action and fix or optimise messages and employee behaviour.
• Reduced risk liability by enforcing usage policies.
• Improved corporate governance and policy compliance.
• Increased legal confidence in data integrity to support litigation cases.

Clients
BW Bank, Bausch & Lomb, Coventry City Council, Pennine Acute Hospital Trust, Armagh District Council, Davies Turner, South Dublin County Council, Eagle Star Insurance, North & West Belfast NHS Trust, Severn Trent Water, Kingston Technology.

Tel +353 (0)51 334 967

Web www.waterfordtechnologies.com

Address
Unit A, Waterford Business Park, Cork Road, Waterford.

Vision is a management and IT consultancy specialising in delivering innovative customer-facing service promises. Vision delivers operational breakthroughs, strategy implementation with culture change, management training/coaching, architecture and system design along with system integration.

Products/Services
• Business Performance Improvement through introducing bold, new, recurrent service promises among value chain members.
• Technology Integration Services drives systems design and integration to maximise business potential and optimal cost reduction. Vision specialises in service oriented architecture (SOA).
• Strategic Change Services assist with the implementation of new strategies, new ways of working, and committed behaviours to achieve strategic goals.

Key Benefits
• Hidden revenue or profit sources tapped.
• New organisational capacities delivered and morale lifted.
• Decreased cycle time through cross-departmental alignment.

Clients
Deutsche Bank, Zurich Financial, Bank of America, Hibernian, Credit Suisse First Boston, Nova/US Bancorp, JP Morgan, Intelligent Finance, Lloyds TSB, RSB. Cemex, Voith Siemens Hydro.

Tel+353 (0)1 240 0200

Web www.vision.com

Address
Eastpoint Business Park, Fairview, Dublin 3.

VigiTrust is a leader in the provision of security assessments and security learning solutions in corporate and IT security.

Products/Services
• VigiTrust provide security awareness workshops, security audits as well as technical security solutions.
• VigiTrust offer an eLearning security platform covering physical, people, data and IT security as well as disaster recovery and business continuity.

Key Benefits
• VigiTrust helps organisations  by providing an end-to-end security solution starting by formulating security strategies, providing security benchmarking against key standards and legal frameworks (PCI DSS; ISO 27001)  and also providing employee security training across all levels of the organisation.
• VigiTrust helps organisations maximise on previous security investment and on staff productivity (ROI).
• Vigitrust helps organisations take a pro-active approach towards security, compliance and corporate governance.
• Reduce potential legal liability and increase security levels.

Partners
HP and IBM.

Tel +353 (0)1 410 0864

Web www.vigitrust.com

Address
Guinness Enterprise Centre, Taylor’s lane, Dublin 8.

Valista is a provider of multi-channel merchandising, payments, and settlement solutions aimed at accelerating and automating digital commerce.

Products/Services
• PaymentsPlus is a payments and transaction processing solution designed for enterprises such as mobile operators, aggregators, broadband / cable operators, media and entertainment companies.
• Operator Payments Service is a managed service for on-deck and off-deck payments tailored specifically for mobile operators.
• OffersPlus is an end-to-end solution providing the widest range of offerings, from pay-per-use to subscriptions and multi-merchant bundles.
• SettlementPlus is designed to manage the advanced settlement requirements in complex payment relationships and third party service offerings.

Key Benefits
•Valista enables wireless, fixed line and cable operators, ISP’s, media/entertainment companies to create new relationships with customers by facilitating the purchase and delivery of digital content and goods/services.
• Operator Payment Service is designed to provide the maximum up time thereby allowing customers to purchase whenever they wish.

Clients
America Online, Cricket, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, France Telecom’s W-HA, Orange, mBlox, Hong Kong CSL, Gtech.

Partners
Alcatel, CITI, eServ Global, Headstrong, HSenid, NEC, Vignette.

Tel +353 (0)1 276 4500

Web www.valista.com

Address
Glencormack Business park, Kilmacanogue, Co. Wicklow.

Trintech provides integrated financial governance, transaction risk management and compliance solutions for commercial, financial, and healthcare markets worldwide.

Products/Services
• AssureNET GL, accounting compliance software designed to automate and control key accounting activities.
• Reconciliation software, automation of transaction reconciliation processes and account balancing.
• XLNET automates inventory, risk assessment, analysis, auditing, and remediation for critical spreadsheets.
• Treasure eNET, a hosted treasury management software.
• On Demand Solutions, ReconNET, AssureNET and XLNET.
• DataFlow Transaction Network, simplifies business processes by completing the daily retrieval, processing, aggregation, and delivery of financial data.
• Bank Fee Analysis, detection and recovery of bank fee overcharges.
• ReconNET TRACKER, unclaimed property management software that ensures compliance.
• I-TRACS, a system designed to process and track all forms and types of collection items.

Key Benefits
Configurable and highly scalable solutions that improve performance through stronger management of the revenue cycle and disbursements.

Clients
North Fork Bank, 7-Eleven, Kroger, Regal Entertainment, Accor, UPMC, Farmer’s Insurance Group, Brands Restaurants, Rohm and Haas, Verizon Wireless, and Ameren.

Tel+353 (0)1 293 9840

Web www.trintech.com

Address
Block C, Central park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18.

Tradeshape is provider of cash and liquidity management solutions that empower financial institutions to better manage their capital once a trade has been executed and thus to ‘know their traded world’.

Products/Services
• TS Workstation will alert and display all transactions that do not process in a timely manner.
• TS Integration Server is a highly configurable solution suite that provides industry standard real-time connections to all disparate information sources, operational user configurable workflows and secure data store of all transaction history.
• TS Analyser allows operations management to quickly drill past surface issues and will allow the quick identification of the root cause.
• TS CAS Manager is a stock and cash management solution providing users with a realtime actual and projected view of their stock and cash balances.
• Professional Services
   o Analysis and project management.
   o Integration.

Key Benefits
• Uses a single technology platform that provides point solutions for real-time stock and cash ladder management, transaction monitoring and repair, transaction flow analysis and exception reporting.
• The Tradeshape single architecture can be extended to consolidate business silos by providing an up-to-the second single-window view on “At Risk” transactions across the entire enterprise.

Tel +353 (0)21 463 9374

Web www.tradeshape.com

Address
Unit 4, 2 Drury’s Avenue, Midleton, Co. Cork.

Taxback International provides services to international businesses which make it easier to do business overseas.

Products/Services
• International Payments for companies who pay or receive money from overseas, or buy and/or sell products or services overseas.
• Foreign VAT Refunds for companies who pay VAT on overseas expenses e.g. exhibitions, conferences, hotels, meals, warranties, telecoms, transport, diesel, etc.
• Travel Visas: Terrorism fears have lead governments to introduce new requirements for travel visas. Taxback International provides travel visa services to business travellers.

Key Benefits
• Taxback International’s regulated payments system provides a faster, easier, and cheaper means of international payment.
• A guarantee of lower transfer fees, better exchange rates, and much quicker transfers.
• Taxback International’s regulated payments system provides a faster, easier, and cheaper means of international payment with a guarantee of lower transfer fees, better exchange rates, and much quicker transfers.

Clients
BMW Sauber, Excel Centre, Fujifilm, Narutis, iBooks, Neopharm Inc, Siemens, Sulzer Chemtech, Televizja Polska, Tyco International.

Partners
3GSM, Barclays Bank, Gelco, IFP, Informa Telecoms & Media, LSO, Marriott hotels, STA Travel, Thistle hotels, Visit London.

Web www.taxbackinternational.com

Tel +353 (0)1 878 3361

Address
12-14 College Green, Dublin 2.

Sysnet Global Solutions is a consultancy and services company that delivers information security assurance to its clients.

Products/Services
Sysnet helps organisations implement ‘best practice’ in information security and ensures that risks arising from a compromise of information assets or operations are properly identified and addressed.

Key Benefits
• Sysnet’s operations are certified to the leading standard for information security, ISO 27001.
• Sysnet are certified to validate information security compliance with the payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standard, which includes the security requirements of all the major credit card associations.
• Sysnet have also developed a PCI compliance management portal which will generate automated security scans, issue automated reports for compliance and allow remote login.

Clients
Vodafone, Anglo Irish Bank, Fyffes, FBD Insurance, NTR.

Web www.sysnetglobalsolutions.com

Tel +353 (0)1 495 1300

Address
Unit 5, Grange Road Office Park, Grange Road, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16

SkillSoft is a provider of eLearning content and technology products for business and IT professionals.

Products/Services
• SkillSoft Content is an array of multi modal content to support all aspects of corporate learning including:
   o Business, IT and desktop skills courseware.
   o Legal and ES&h compliance courseware.
   o SkillSim business simulations.
   o Job Aids, skillbriefs, testprep, exams and mentoring.
• SkillSoft Technology is a flexible delivery system to enable learning within the daily flow of work and integration with other enterprise systems including:
   o Learning management system.
   o Virtual classroom.
   o Course customisation toolkit.
   o Search-and-Learn.

Key Benefits
• SkillSoft solutions are designed to link learning strategy to business strategy and to maximise human capital investments.
• Comprehensive learning solution, comprising high-quality learning resources and flexible technology approaches.

Clients
Accenture, AXA, PNC Financial Services, Booz Allen hamilton, Deloitte, ING, Mellon Financial, PSCU Financial Services.

Tel +353 (0)1 218 1000

Web www.skillsoft.com

Address
Belfield Office park, Clonskeagh, Dublin 4.