With the flexible office model slowly but surely supplanting the traditional working environments in favour of dynamic co-working spaces for a number of years now, we have seen many organisations reconsider the way they think about commercial real estate.
The media sector is amongst the most dynamic and rapidly evolving in the UK, with audiences consuming higher volumes of content than ever before, across a tremendous range of platforms. This means its IT infrastructure must reflect that, ensuring data-intensive content can be made available on-demand, both online and offline.
A secure, high-performance network is essential, as is a robust business continuity strategy and scalable, cost-effective storage.
An intelligently designed and implemented IT infrastructure, utilising cutting-edge Cloud technology, will not only ensure a great end user experience, but drive creativity and collaboration between teams across multiple sites, even when remote working. This way, the UK's media sector will be perfectly placed to retain its stellar reputation around the world. Exponential-e utilise our full range of solutions to ensure this success, acting as a trusted partner for numerous UK media organisations, as these case studies will illustrate.
The past year has challenged the UK's education sector in ways that would previously have been inconceivable, with children learning from home the majority of the time since March.
The way the hospitality & leisure industry interacts with guests is constantly evolving, with cutting-edge technology offering new channels for everything from making bookings, to checking in, ordering additional services and entertainment, and billing.
This type of multi-channel service delivery must be underpinned by a secure, scalable and cost-effective IT infrastructure, which will allow hospitality & leisure organisations to pivot in response to an ever-evolving landscape, optimising application performance, protecting guests' sensitive data, and taking advantage of new channels for marketing and gathering feedback - all while retaining the all-important human touch.
Putting all this into practice requires a successful digital transformation process and the ongoing support of a trusted IT partner – a role Exponential-e is perfectly placed to fulfil.
These case studies offer real-world examples of how Exponential-e has helped organisations across the UK's hospitality & leisure sector affect their own digital transformations, ensuring they can continue to offer their guests incredible experiences, every time.
Throughout these unprecedented times, many Resellers and Systems Integrators have been forced to furlough team members or reduce headcount, creating leaner operations in order to weather the economic downturn. But as we now approach an economic return and ramp up our trading levels, these resourcing gaps can limit the services that resellers can take to market.
To say the past year has been challenging would be an understatement. But as we look back on the challenges our organisations have overcome - and the ones we expect to face going forward - it's important to not lose sight of the fact that people are the lifeblood of any company.
Selecting the right storage architecture is essential for organisations that are leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Big Data and IoT analytics. For example, AI applications that involve scientific and medical research create and interact with numerous large files, and therefore need a storage system that can scale to a petabyte level, with zero restrictions. Similarly, ML applications and Big Data projects require a scalable, cost-effective storage solution to accommodate the high volumes of data that will be produced. This raises the question of which storage solution enterprises should use to underpin their overall analytics strategies.
Even as the end of lockdown approaches, it is clear that hybrid working is here to stay, with organisations utilising remote and office-based working on a flexible basis, in order to combine the advantages of both.
Failure Demand: "Demand caused by failure to do something or do something right for the customer"
Seddon, 2003
In July of 2019, Exponential-e hosted a roundtable at The Ritz London, bringing together 18 top UK architects to discuss topical issues across the sector and sharing views on the matters at hand. One of the topics raised was the newly launched Architects Declare manifesto and its 11-point plan for tackling climate change and biodiversity loss. From 16 founding signatories, word spread like wildfie and within weeks, hundreds of practices - large and small - signed up, signalling that our architects were ready commit to operating in a greener, more sustainable manner.
Attracting top talent is just part of the picture when it comes to building a thriving, successful organisation. If employees are to achieve their full potential in both their professional and personal lives, it is essential to nurture their talents and cultivate the skills that will help them progress along their chosen career paths.
"Not-for-profit organisations have provided a trusted and valued source of independent advice for people throughout England for many years. They are a vital part of our national support infrastructure and somewhere to turn to in times of crisis."
Nick Hurd, MP
"In the new contact centre, we're no longer reliant on hunt groups, and can onboard new services and new desks very easily, which has allowed for a much higher level of agility in terms of how we connect and collaborate with our colleagues and partners. We've also got a much higher level of control, so we don't need to go through our IT teams to make changes or updates when we need to, and can constantly refine our call flows."
Stacey Whyte, NHS Digital
The past year of upheaval in the digital landscape has created a number of singular challenges for the Legal sector, in addition to firms' longstanding obligations around security and data governance.
I spoke to a globally recognised thought leader on the role of technology and innovation in the Construction industry. Aarni Heiskanen shares his thoughts and vision with me, which are no doubt helping to shape the construction landscape today and more importantly, the future.
Today we are delighted to announce that Exponential-e has been listed at 46 in The Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100 - a rise of 43 places following our debut last year at 89. Our inclusion was driven largely by our work in Digital Transformation, offered through our industry-leading SD-DP, the benefits of which have been seen by a diverse range of customers. Another key factor behind our inclusion are the record-breaking numbers we've enjoyed for the financial year ending 31st January 2019. Currently, we are on track for £150m revenue, with no acquisitions or VC funding along our business journey.
The Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100 league table ranks Britain's top 100 private companies according to which has seen the fastest-growing profits over the last three years. Compiled by Fast Track, it's published as a supplement in The Sunday Times every April, with a national awards event held in June. This prestigious league table is a clear indicator of businesses that have developed and refined their offerings to grow at an economy-leading rate.
There's no doubt that the past year has been the best yet for Exponential-e, with our industry-leading SD-DP solving Digital Transformation concerns all over the UK and beyond. The SD-DP integrates core and edge computing, bonded with SD-WAN and SD-Data Centre, to form an underlying advanced network that enables data to flow freely yet securely between multiple clouds, from wherever it's stored through to the end user.
For those using the SD-DP, further improvements come from the Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), launched last year, which monitors for compliance to multiple standards. The most recent technological development for the SD-DP is our Cloud Management Platform (CMP), which enables customers to manage their data and costs of multiple cloud environments through a 'single-pane-of-glass' view.
But what makes this so important right now? To start with, countless organisations in a range of sectors are currently seeking access to more bandwidth-hungry services. Compounding this are a range of new technologies demanding ever-increasing computing power, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality (VR / AR / MR). The SD-DP offers customers fundamental access to real-time cloud performance and cost data, resulting in unprecedented levels of customer satisfaction - a pivotal driver of our place on The Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100.
At Exponential-e, we always put the customer first, an ethos reflected partly in our real-time NPS score. As such, we've been excited to announce new partnerships over the past year with a wide variety of industry-leading customers, including Virgin Atlantic, The Ritz, Guinness World Records, WWF, and the British Medical Association. We also laid the connectivity foundations for major companies in the US to broadcast the royal wedding when all our competitors said it would be unfeasible.
To be counted amongst the top 100 companies across the UK paving the way in terms of profit growth is testament to the services we provide and how our company's culture consistently looks forward.Connectivity is crucial for companies nationwide; at Exponential-e, we take pride not only in our technology but also in our expert consultancy. We strive to be visionary, constantly evolving and innovating in order to deliver the very best experience to our customers; we're therefore very much looking forward to celebrating our success in achieving these aims with The Sunday Times in June.
Would early favourites Silver Cloud (last year's champions) walk away with the trophy? How would the rivalry - now in its fourth year - between Sprout IT and Exponential-e's team play out? On the big day, Vonage, The Phone Co-Op, Sprout IT, Natilik, Silver Cloud, Net Premacy, and Blue Saffron all came together to 'channel' their inner Messi.
Natilik's No.10 Omar was the standout player on the day, scoring the most number of goals and coming inches away from hitting the bar in the Cross Bar Challenge. No mean feat from the halfway line into the wind! Silver Cloud came close to another place in the final, but their dreams were snatched away by Natilik.
Clearly enjoying the glorious sunshine, our Head of Channel Alp Kostem stepped up for the Cross Bar Challenge in his linen jacket and Ray-Bans, much to the amusement of the players. A valiant effort,but the general consensus was that he ought to stick to his day job. Once again, Exponential-e's own Eric Ascott took control of the microphone and nimbly guided everyone through the day with matchless witty banter. A weekend radio DJ gig should definitely be on his bucket-list.
In the end though, Vonage were crowned the winners, looking on course for a campaign to rival Liverpool's recent success. We look forward to seeing the team next year as they mount a defence of their title -- no doubt training's already well underway.
Each year we sponsor a different charity. This year, we chose Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), a globally renowned centre of excellence in child healthcare founded in 1852. Working with the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, GOSH forms the UK's only academic Biomedical Research Centre specialising in paediatrics. A clear reminder of how precious life is, we're tremendously proud to have raised £7,500 to help the organisation with their mission to fund research into children's healthcare and to finding new and better ways to treat childhood illnesses.
As the game ended, the Crystal Palace Hospitality Team did not disappoint. Hot showers, cold beer, and solid meal were provided after the tournament. Our Managing Director Mukesh Bavisi wrapped up the day by handing out the well-deserved awards to the teams and, more importantly, the presentation of the cheque to Amy from the amazing GOSH. For die-hards, the evening rolled on atWesthow House pub in Crystal Palace, recounting tales of their sporting prowess and dreaming of playing in the Premiership next Season. No doubt there were some sore limbs and heads the morning after, but it was all worth it for such a successful day.
Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen and for their generous donations to such an important cause. The amazing life-changing operations and treatments GOSH carries out every single day to children is just outstanding. We are delighted to be able to contribute to this and help the many GOSH children patients and their families. Till next year!
When the Mayor of London recently quashed the building of The Tulip, it raised troubling questions for the future of architecture in the UK. The Tulip was set to be London's next iconic piece of architecture, joining a long, illustrious line of pivotal buildings that have lined London's horizon and kept the city at the leading edge of architecture since Sir Christopher Wrenn re-designed St Paul's Cathedral in 1710. But can the UK continue to host such iconic buildings in the shadow of the looming impacts of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss?
For any future-facing organisation, the importance of ample learning and development (L&D) cannot be overstated. A few months ago, our L&D team entered the Princess Royal Training Awards (PRTAs) -- and we are delighted to announce that we were successful in the following entries:
In our offices, businesses, colleges and homes, barriers exist between people that hinder free and easy communication. Physics undergraduates rarely mix with the Philosophy students, our accounts teams tend not to lunch with our account managers, and I almost never speak to the lady who lives in the flat below mine. It's a natural result of living, working and studying in cities with millions of strangers.