Events like Hacktivate and the recent Manukau Institute of Technology Junior Hackathon play a crucial role in spurring on interest in technology – and specifically, programming – as a career choice. At a recent lunch, Orion Health CEO Ian McRae expressed his frustration at the lack of skills being developed from the schooling system, saying the industry faces a challenge ‘on the scale of the Auckland housing crisis’.

The event was Hacktivate’s sixth tournament and marked the launch of ‘Battleships – The Online Asia-Pacific Hackathon’, scheduled for October 2015.

Winning Orion team members Bryce Van Dyck, Ian Paterson and Kylie Xie said: “We had a great experience taking part in Hacktivate. It was a really interesting challenge to code something in such a limited time frame, but it galvanized us as a team, and meant we had to make every moment count. Winning was awesome, but it was also awesome to see so many other talented people attacking the same problem in their own ways.”

Hackathons have become popular around the world, but none have adopted the characteristics of sports like Hacktivate has. Co-founder (with Shane O’Connell) Matty Blomfield said that even in its early days, Hacktivate had crowds cheering and screaming as they do at sports games. “Participants compete for glory and fame – to be the best. It’s a short and entertaining spectacle with commentators, spectators and all the side pieces that make a sport.”

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1. Double your failure rate: Fail fast, fail often. It’s the simple fact that you learn more from mistakes than from successes. Increase success rates by doubling failure rates. Foster failure as a source of learning by asking big questions and encouraging lively debate.
2. Embrace risk: Every day we encounter opportunities to take risks which can end up a total mess or a beautiful innovation.
3. Stories, not ideas: Stories convey ideas in an easy to comprehend format. Storytelling is a powerful way to put ideas into action.
4. Select the right people: The next big idea is not enough – you need a team to execute and contribute or the idea can prove worthless. Things to consider when team building include agreed and shared visions and goals; shared accountability; transparent communications and an environment which maintains respect while resolving conflict constructively.
5. Think Bigger: Have big goals. True innovation can mean 95 percent of people think your idea will never work, while the other 5 percent think it’s brilliant. Stay true to the goal.
6. Data-driven value creation: Focus on the value of the creation, its potential growth as well as adoption before considering revenue. Are you building something that people value? Engaging with customers and create to suit their needs and align with the market.
7. Scr-happiness: This is all about teaching people to be ultra-efficient (scrappy) while enabling them to reach their goals (happy). To maximise the principals of scr-happiness, get comfortable with discomfort: 80 percent of the benefit comes from 20 percent of the effort, so focus that part. Don’t get stuck in fads, have fun with your customers and practice playful creation.
8. Open innovation: Foster a ‘connect and develop’ philosophy by bringing in minds from around the organisation to develop ideas. Anyone can come up with a good idea.
9. Zen innovation management: It’s not about having great ideas but rather fostering them. With the Zen management approach, creative teams are nurtured from the bottom up rather than having a vision pushed on them from the top down.
10. Feedback culture: Encourage teams with constant feedback – the good, the bad and the ugly. Getting used to feedback will reshape the perception of failure.

By shifting the focus from buzzwords to workplace behaviour and culture, these practical steps can support a transition to an innovative mindset.

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Clarke joined the company 16 years ago and has fulfilled various roles including CFO, GM operations and GM Wellington.

Chairman Jon Mayson said that since taking on the role of CEO, Clarke has driven significant growth and expansion of the business.

Clarke is credited with early recognition of the opportunity presented by cloud computing and the disruption it would have for the market. Under his leadership, the company grew its revenues from $25m in 2010, to $60m by 2013.

“He also cemented Fronde’s position through key partnerships with Google, Salesforce, NetSuite, AWS and Citrix,” said Mayson, who added that Clarke was instrumental in the near doubling of Fronde Australia’s revenue in 2014.

Clarke expressed nostalgia at stepping down. “I feel the time is right for me to seek new challenges and for Fronde to enter the next phase with fresh leadership.”

He remains a shareholder in the business and supportive of its strategy. Clarke will step down later this year on appointment of a new CE.

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Unisys Security Insights is a global study that provides insights into the attitudes of consumers on a range of security issues. The study, conducted in New Zealand by Newspoll, surveyed 503 adults during April 2015.

The survey asked consumers in 12 countries about the likelihood that their personal data held by seven types of organisations (airlines,
banking/finance, government, healthcare, retail, telecom, and utilities) would be accessed by an unauthorised person, accidently or deliberately, within the next year.

Fifty-three percent of New Zealanders surveyed expect a breach of their personal data held by a telco within the next 12 months. The majority of New Zealand respondents say a data breach is not likely at an airline, healthcare provide or utility such as a power or water supplier.

“This survey reveals which organisations Kiwis don’t trust to protect their personal information,” said Steve Griffin Unisys NZ country manager.

“Consumer trust must be earned. To build public confidence, an organisation needs to not only take preventative measures, but also communicate to their target customers that they have taken those measures.”

He said such investments can offer a competitive advantage between brands within a category.

“Many Kiwis have experienced a data breach or have seen media reports of breaches by telcos, government and banks, so they expect data breaches in those organisations. However, telcos and government would do well to learn from the way banks quickly communicate breaches to their customers to minimise the impact and rebuild confidence,” Griffin added.

While airlines are currently the most trusted type of organisation for Kiwis, the position isn’t assured. “They will need to work to maintain this trust as they continue to capture more and more information about their passengers in a bid to provide personalised end-to-end services such as delivering luggage direct to hotels – as well as assisting with border security measures,” Griffin warned.

The Unisys Security Index research 2011 asked the New Zealand public what actions it would take if their personal information being held by an organisation had been accessed by an unauthorised person. The majority 80 percent said they would stop dealing with that organisation – highlighting, said Griffin, that public confidence in an organisation’s ability to protect data needs to be a business priority, not a mere IT issue.

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The new research, enticingly named ‘Mobile & Online Purchases: Cards, Carrier Billing & Third Party Payment Platforms 2015-2020’, observed that players such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram have already launched ‘buy’ buttons from their mobile apps. It claimed that such players are also likely to enhance their sales prospects through strategic retailer partnerships, with Twitter already enabling users to link their accounts to Amazon.

The research also argued that online retailers were increasingly seeking to reduce time-to-consumer by launching same-day delivery. At the same time, it noted that ‘bricks and mortar’ stores now widely offer next-day in-store collection, often charging a premium for this option.

However, the research cautioned that retailers need to deliver consistency of message, branding and shopping experience across all channels. It argued that integration between in-store and online is also critical if retailers want to maximise the extent to which they can identify a unique individual’s omnichannel shopping habits.

According to research author Dr Windsor Holden, “The key is to ensure that consumers are allowed to choose their own path to purchase rather than have it effectively mandated by channel limitations.”

The research also anticipated that smartphones will account for more than 40% of eRetail transactions by 2020, but noted ‘while carrier billing should provide content providers with a key mechanism for monetising digital content, its use for physical goods purchase is likely to be limited by comparatively higher share of revenues demanded by network operators and billing platforms.’

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Jim Hamilton, CompTIA VP of  member communities, said SMBs’ relationship with technology is becoming more critical. “Without an abundance of capital to invest in technology initiatives, many firms seek the best value or the lowest cost option. On the other hand, there is an increasing sense of urgency since many technologies available today can significantly increase the abilities of a smaller business and create capabilities on par with a larger enterprise.”

Hamilton added that as small and medium businesses consider their technology strategies for the future, the ultimate goal is to build systems that help them move forward. “The challenge is that building these systems, and integrating them with each other and with a company workflow, is more complicated than ever, thanks to a wider range of options and a dynamic environment.”

As the technology landscape grows broader and more complex, SMBs need help with a range of technology issues including security, data management and modernising architecture. Work in these areas will require not only new technology, but also new workforce education and new processes. The three main technology areas causing SMBs concern are:

1. Security: Quickly becoming a top priority for all businesses as breaches occur more frequently and carry more serious repercussions. Small businesses are not immune to attacks simply because their data sets are smaller. Cyber attacks have a growing variety of motivations and occur in small businesses just as often as attacks on the largest enterprises. Further, the impact to an SMB is proportionally larger. The Ponemon Institute’s October 2014 Global Report on the Cost of Cyber Crime found that the per capita cost of a breach for the smallest businesses was significantly higher than at the largest firms—$1,601 versus $437.

2. Data management: Keeping data safe is just one aspect of data handling that is cause for concern among SMBs. As businesses undergo digital transformation, data turns into a more critical asset. The big data movement has also raised interest in using data for analysis and decision-making and, even when the data sets are not massive, there are tools and techniques required for performing good analytics. Many small businesses have never managed data as a primary resource, and they must take steps towards consolidating data silos, handling rapidly growing data collections, and establishing strong business continuity/disaster recovery plans.

3. Modernising architecture: The smaller the firm, the less infrastructure there is in place. In the early days of cloud computing, this slowed adoption since small or micro businesses did not see a return in migrating small installations to the cloud. The thinking has shifted as these firms begin to understand that cloud systems can give them expanded options at a reasonable price. As current pieces of infrastructure move towards the end of their lifecycle, SMBs need to understand how to choose the best mix of cloud and on-premise systems. That will lead to the challenge of managing a complex architecture.

Hamilton said, “Many SMBs have no IT department to address these concerns, choosing to handle technology issues internally using employees who may be tech savvy but actually hold other jobs such as sales or accounting. Other companies, especially those on the medium-sized end of the spectrum, will build a formal IT function as infrastructure demands grow.

“However, without the resources for large internal IT departments, SMBs should look to third-party IT service providers to help them meet their business and innovation needs for less.”

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Matt Goss, managing director ANZ, Concur, said, “Businesses may think they have an automated AP system because they have implemented workflow for invoice approval and reduced the number of manual checks. However, an AP department isn’t automated unless your system is integrated across every department, providing maximum visibility of data for line of business managers, the accounts team and executives.”

The five signs that indicate it’s time to rethink your AP systems are:

1) Whose desk is it on?

Organisations that don’t have monitoring and reporting systems find it difficult to understand how many invoices have been received and are awaiting payment.

2) Is the invoice approved?

Without visibility of where and who an invoice is with, it is time consuming for AP departments to determine whether an invoice is in the approval process and ready to be paid.

3) Can more money be saved?

AP departments without streamlined processes often need to do more manual work to see the aggregated spend. This makes it more difficult to take advantage of supplier discounts.

4) Can more time be saved?

Automated systems can help cut down cycle time and let employees review invoices faster. This not only saves time but can also help the business receive early payment discounts.

5) Where are the right people?

Finding the right person to approve an invoice can add weeks to the process cycle. A streamlined process has a clear workflow that lets employees know who to pass payments on to.

Goss noted, “A streamlined AP process automatically matches open invoices, credits and on-account payments to ensure that organisations have a clear view of payments pending.”

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In a statement, HP said HPC is becoming relevant to companies of all sizes that want to accelerate the pace of big data analytics and business insight. The IDC forecasts that the base HPC compute server market will reach $US15.2 billion in 2019, driven by organisations seeking to run advanced analytics and big data workloads.

HP said market dynamics driving accelerated demand for HPC include big data sources from the adoption of mobility, cloud computing, multimedia, social collaboration and the Internet of Things (IoT);  transformation of business processes; and advancements in processing technology.

“As data explodes in volume, velocity and variety, and the processing requirements to address business challenges become more sophisticated, the line between traditional and high performance computing is blurring,” said Raj Thakur of HP South Pacific’s Enterprise Group. “With this alliance, we are giving customers access to the technologies and solutions as well as the intellectual property, portfolio services and engineering support needed to evolve their compute infrastructure to capitalise on a data driven environment.”

While the promise of access to HPC CoEs is undoubtedly attractive, businesses in Australia and New Zealand can temper their enthusiasm: one is located in Grenoble, France. Another is expected to open in in Houston, Texas ‘to better support the North American market’.

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Announcements from the first day of WPC include:

• Project GigJam is a new way for people to accomplish their business tasks and transform business processes by breaking down the barriers between devices, apps and people. GigJam empowers workers to summon information from their line of business and SaaS apps, spontaneously divvy up the specific information and actions needed to get work done, keep track of each part, and bring it all to closure.

• Cortana Analytics Suite is a set of services to help transform data into action. It brings together machine learning, big data storage and processing with perceptual intelligence such as vision, face and speech analysis. Cortana Analytics Suite integrates with Cortana, Microsoft’s digital personal assistant to get things done in more helpful, proactive, and natural ways.

• Microsoft HoloLens is, says the vendor, the world’s first fully untethered holographic computing device. On-stage at WPC, CEO Satya Nadella demonstrated how a partner will use HoloLens to change how design professionals and create, communicate, visualise and work.

To enable partners to take advantage of these innovations, Microsoft announced:

Expansion of its Cloud Solution Provider (CSP)program to cover additional markets (bringing the total number to approximately 131), as well as additional cloud solutions – CRM Online and Azure will join Office 365, Intune and Enterprise Mobility Suite.

Creating additional Surface opportunities: More partners will be able to sell the device – from ‘a couple hundred to a few thousand partners’ globally, in the coming months.

• Investing in mobility: Competencies for Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility Suite, which will enable partners to differentiate and grow their mobility practices, are in the pipeline.

• Additional productivity investments: A new premium Office 365 enterprise suite called E5 will be available before the end of this year. The suite will provide a new opportunity for partners to build service offerings around real-time communication and analytics.

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These services include business IT and IP applications, compute and hosting, enterprise mobility, managed networks, professional services, and unified communications. They represent the new generation of dedicated IT and IP communications services that telecoms service providers are able to offer under contracts with enterprise customers.

“Telcos have relied on adapting traditional voice and data services to serve increasingly complex enterprise business users, but now have a powerful range of ICT services that have been integrated across the operators’ global networks,” said David Molony, principal analyst in Ovum’s enterprise practice and author of the report. “Telco revenues from strategic ICT services are growing faster and, according to our calculations, will overtake legacy service revenues in 2018.”

By definition global services means there are prospects for growth worldwide, but regionally the growth areas for telco strategic services are in Latin America (17.8 percent CAGR), Africa (17.5 percent), the Middle East (16.4 percent), and Central Asia (13.0 percent). The big markets of 2015 – Europe and North America – will grow more slowly, but will still be the largest in 2020.

In addition to growing their service portfolios, more telcos are offering enterprise managed services through dedicated business units or divisions. They are also increasingly challenging (as well as partnering with) systems integrators and IT services providers in the large enterprise sector.

“Telcos have taken more than 14% of the global ICT services market in the last couple of years,” said Molony. “We expect that share to reach more than 18% by 2020.”

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Market analysts are enthusiastic in their anticipations for big data. In 2014, the IDC said unstructured (human-generated) data volumes are increasing 43 percent annually; last week, Ovum said it expects growth of 50 percent for ‘big data software’ by 2019.

HP’s getting in on that action with these new products. Storage Optimizer is a file analysis tool – software which analyses, indexes, searches, tracks and reports on file metadata and, in some cases, file content. It enables various actions to be taken depending on what is identified.

Storage Optimizer, said HP, combines file analytics with policy-based storage tiering and information optimisation. That allows intelligently distribution of information across multiple storage repositories including the cloud. ‘With deeper information quality and insight, more granular policies can be applied for each set of data, before the data is stubbed and stored according to policy. This provides a holistic view of all unstructured data within the organisation’, said HP’s statement.

Storage Optimizer provides connectivity to a wide range of repositories including Hadoop, SharePoint, Exchange and others, scales for the enterprise, includes workflow security and auditability features, and retrieval by end users.

“With Storage Optimizer, one can materially lower cost on primary storage and backup-related storage, more intelligently tier storage, streamline backup processes and increase application performance,” said Josef Elliott, director, Oyster IMS

Meanwhile, HP’s ControlPoint file analysis product analyses enterprise information and automates data migration to the most appropriate on-premise, cloud, Hadoop, or virtual repository.

Branko Bugarski, GM HP Software said ControlPoint serves a critical role in migrating to the cloud, “ensuring that organisations are not simply transferring a data lake from a file share to the cloud, but instead moving the right information based on its inherent value.”

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That’s according to Russell Gordon, practice director, Business Process at UXC Eclipse, who said, “As well as helping organisations streamline internal processes, BPM systems are being used to reveal bottlenecks or failure points in operations that cause customer dissatisfaction. These systems are increasingly used to completely re-architect a business to create more customer value, increase competitive advantage and build sustainability.”

UXC Eclipse outlines four key ways in which BPM helps put customers at the centre of an organisation’s thinking, making it easier to personalise the customer experience:

1) Improving product and service quality and delivery times
BPM helps improve product and service quality, and delivery times. It does this by first defining the process from the customer point of view. Once the process has been defined, the organisation can begin considering how to improve that process, again from the customer point of view. This helps ensure that any changes will add value for the customer.

2) Improving customer service and personalisation
Many companies work in silos, with different departments responsible for different areas of the business. Not only can this traditional organisational framework hamper business operations, it can also prevent an organisation from providing a consistent customer experience. BPM can help unify customer touch-points, making it easier to personalise the customer experience, leading to happier customers.

3) Making decisions based on how they will affect customers
Traditionally, many companies have made decisions based on how they would affect company-centric elements such as costs, resources and capabilities. BPM, however, is increasingly helping companies see the ramifications of their decisions from a customer perspective. As a result, organisations can decide in favour of actions that are likely to improve the customer experience.

4) Lowering operational costs
Organisations can reduce costs by using BPM systems to streamline operations and minimise waste. These reduced operating costs can be passed onto customers in the form of lower prices for products and services. BPM achieves this by mapping out processes and illustrating where they can be changed, shortened or removed to reduce time and costs.

Gordon said, “Forrester predicted that 2015 would be a turning point for BPM. This prediction is coming to fruition as organisations use BPM systems for much more than simply mapping and improving internal processes. Customer engagement is emerging as the new ground for BPM’s future offering.”

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Available initially as a beta release on suitable Android devices, Semble said an estimated 50,000 Wellingtonians could potentially fire up the service right away.

Snapper’s original app and a partnership with 2degrees was launched three years ago. With Snapper in Semble, those on Spark and Vodafone networks can now also use the payment service, said Snapper CEO Miki Szikszai. “We want to provide our public transport users with the easiest way to pay for their trip and we think the smartphone is that way. Customers can now pay for their trip, top up and buy passes, all directly from their phone. This makes catching the bus, taxi or paying for parking even easier than before.”

But only if your public transport service works on Snapper; Auckland Transport’s HOP significantly, doesn’t. Encouragingly, however, the press release did state: ‘We will continue to have ongoing discussions with other transport service providers about partnering with Semble.’

Semble CEO Rob Ellis described the addition of Snapper as a ‘significant period of growth for the New Zealand mobile wallet’.

Using Snapper on Semble doesn’t depend on the app running; if set to ‘on’, it is always active, even when the handset is switched off.

To get Snapper in the Semble app, start by checking if your phone is NFC compatible, then download the app from Google Play and add your card to the wallet.

Existing Semble customers can just add a new card from within the app.

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Organised by the Manukau Institute of Technology and IT industry partners, the event took place over the first weekend of July. Working in teams of three under the guidance of 30 IT industry mentors, the teens programmed against the clock and each other to manipulate coding in Minecraft.

Organiser Edwina Mistry said the competition gives the kids a head start in coding: “We’re blown away by their enthusiasm. In the month leading up to JHack, the kids had completed more than 2,500 hours of programming in our online challenges.”

For fourteen year old Grace Hollamby from Glendowie College, JHack has motivated her to think about programming as a career. “I’ve always wanted to have a talent for something and I think I’ve found it,” she said.

Daniel Martushev, HP master technologist JHack mentor pointed out that demand for IT work in New Zealand is ‘phenomenal’. “There’s a huge skills shortage in the IT industry. We’re trying to get these kids to become part of the digital economic future that’s unfolding globally. We want to show them that technology can be fun and interesting, and then show that you can make a living out of it.”

Learning about teamwork was particularly important to twelve-year-old Paige Stephen, from Whangaparoa College. “We’re working well as a team because we’re communicating and cooperating. You can do a lot of things using code, and it’s fun to learn,” she said.

JHack was organised to encourage teens to think about a career in NZ’s digital industry, which has grown by 9 percent annually for the past seven years. In 2014 alone, the number of ICT jobs in NZ increased by 2,800, and the sector now employs more than 26,700 people.

Sacred Heart College’s Cannoning Routers and Epsom Girls’ Grammar School’s ScrambledEGGS earned coding gold; silver was scooped by Howick College, Whangaparoa College and Pakuranga College.  The top teams will participate in a ‘coding boot camp’ at MIT in October this year.

JHack was sponsored by MIT, Learn to Mod, HP, Propellerhead, Auckland Transport, Sovereign, Wynyard Group, Orion Health, Air New Zealand and Eagle Technology.

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As businesses consider whether to invest in staff or machines, for many the latter is becoming a more cost effective option. Globally, over half (56 percent) of firms surveyed told Grant Thornton they are either already automating business practices or may do over the next 12 months. By industry, 43 percent of manufacturing firms said they expect this to eventually replace at least 5 percent of their workforce. Cleantech was in second place on 39 percent, followed by the technology and food & beverage sectors on 35 percent. At the other end of the spectrum, just 9 percent of hospitality, education and healthcare firms expect 5 percent or more of workers to be replaced.

However, Michael Worth, Partner, Business Transformation at Grant Thornton New Zealand says, “While there will be job losses as technology transforms both the private and public sectors, technology will also enhance the skills and capabilities of humans. Our findings suggest that workers will be able to take on new roles and responsibilities created by increased use of technology”.

Globally, 54 percent of automating firms expect to redeploy workers in other areas, with 28 percent stating that workers will be trained to operate new machinery. Even in manufacturing, 44 percent plan to redeploy rather than remove staff. This is particularly the case in New Zealand – executives surveyed said that their people would either be deployed to other areas (44 percent) or trained to use new technologies (28 percent). And when asked their principal motivations for considering automation, 39 percent of New Zealand respondents identified freeing up staff for higher value add tasks.

Steve Perkins, global leader for technology at Grant Thornton said, “The roles reserved for humans could look very different years from now. Some will feel the effects more sharply. Driverless cars could render taxi drivers unnecessary, while Yahoo Finance recently announced its newsroom would be going fully automated, removing the need for human journalists. The taxi drivers and journalists of today could be the quality control analysts or machine servicing staff of the future. Automation in the first industrial revolution made us stronger, automation the second made us faster, and in the third we will have tremendously greater insights. The possibilities are enormous.

“History has proven that workforces are resilient and adaptable but the rise of intelligent machines, analytics and a ubiquitous ‘internet of things’ pose significant opportunities and challenges. No sector or profession is immune. Increased dialogue between governments, businesses and education institutions will help us better understand where gaps in the labour market will exist, to ensure we have a pipeline of people being educated and trained to fill those roles.”

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Sheers said there is a transformation happening at Microsoft. “You can see it in the accelerated pace of innovation, the renewed passion and energy of our people and the value that customers and partners tell us we are delivering to them.”

Muckleston has served as MD since 2010. He said the company is implementing a planned and structured transition from his leadership to that of Sheers. The two men will be working closely together over the coming months to ensure a smooth induction process.

Sheers officially joins on July 6th 2015, and will report directly to Microsoft APAC president Cesar Cernuda.
Muckleston confirmed that he will be staying with the company.

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In Gartner’s previous forecast in April, it had forecast IT spending to decline 1.3 percent in U.S. dollars and grow 3.1 percent in constant currency.

If that has you scratching your head, Gartner’s Sydney-based research VP Derry Finkeldey steps in to help. “Currency fluctuation is always a factor particularly in Australia; we’ve seen the impact go both ways. In the past, a weak dollar increased buying power, now it has gone the other way. The present strength of the USD now impacts on local providers, so they will have to take a hit on margin or increase their prices,” she said.

The most significant impact of that strength, she added, is a likely impact on local business confidence. “That makes a difference in terms of whether firms are hiring or not, whether they are investing or not. However, we are still seeing robust demand [for IT] from most of our clients and there is a lot of interest in innovation.”

In a statement, Gartner research VP John-David Lovelock took pains to deflect obvious conclusions being drawn. “We want to stress that this is not a market crash. Such are the illusions that large swings in the value of the U.S. dollar versus other currencies can create,” he said. “However, there are secondary effects to the rising U.S. dollar. Vendors do have to raise prices to protect costs and margins of their products, and enterprises and consumers will have to make new purchase decisions in light of the new prices.”

The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast said communications services will continue to be the largest IT spending segment in 2015 with spending at nearly $1.5 trillion. However, this segment is also experiencing the strongest decline among the five IT sectors. Price erosion and competitive threats are preventing revenue growth in proportion to increasing use within most national markets.

In the device market, mobile phones continue to be the leading segment, with growth in Apple phones, especially in China, keeping overall phone spending consistent. However, overall smartphone unit growth will start to flatten.

The PC and tablet market continues to weaken. The expected 10 percent increase in average PC pricing in currency-impacted countries is going ahead, delaying purchases even more than expected. Excessive PC inventory levels, especially in Western Europe, need to be cleared, which will delay Windows 10 inventory in the second half of the year.

Within the data centre systems segment, storage and network markets are both expected to see weaker growth in U.S. dollar terms as a result of the appreciation of the U.S. dollar. Enterprise budgets for data center systems in local spending are expected to remain stable for the year, with users expected to extend life cycles and defer replacements as a means of offsetting the price increases. The overall near-term data center weakness is slightly offset by a more positive outlook for the server market. The server market is benefiting from a stronger-than-expected mainframe refresh cycle, as well as increased expectations for hyperscale spending.

Enterprise software spending is forecast to decline 1.2 percent in 2015, with revenue totaling $654 billion. Gartner analysts said many software vendors will try not to raise prices because software as a service (SaaS) is about market share, not profitability. Raising prices could take software vendors out of a sales cycle, and these vendors don’t believe they can afford to lose a client.

IT services spending in 2015 is projected to decline 4.3 percent. Gartner expects modest increased spending on consulting in 2015 and 2016, as vendors have demonstrated their ability to stimulate new demand from buyers looking for help with navigating business and technology complexities, particularly related to building a digital business. However, the forecast for implementation services has been slightly reduced. Increasingly, buyers prefer solutions that minimize time and cost of implementation, driving demand for more-efficient delivery methods, out-of-the-box implementation, and lower-cost solutions.

“IT activity is stronger than the growth in spending indicates. Price declines in major markets like communications and IT services, and switching to ‘as a service’ delivery, mask the increase in activity,” Lovelock said.

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Touchpoint said it hopes to use Radiant to improve customer service by predicting customer needs and assisting with decision-making.

In an interview with iStart, TouchpointCEO Frank van der Velden explained that Radiant intends to grab customer feedback information – and van der Velden said it is strictly limited to that – and rapidly produce operational intelligence to enable improved handling of various customer situations. “By understanding the context of a complaint in a call centre, for example, the agent can be provided with the relevant information to handle that complaint as well as a suggested workflow.”

The raw customer feedback data is difficult to analyse because it is typically unstructured, or poorly structured. “We’re looking for the ability to use machine learning to deliver specific outcomes for specific organisations. We’re meeting expectations in terms of what’s coming out so far, but we have a ways to go.”

Be that as it may, he said Touchpoint intends to commercialise the research by the first quarter of next year. “That doesn’t mean the bits and bytes will be productised yet – there is a lot to learn here – but we should see it being applied in terms of our people making it work in practice.”

R&D Project Grants are administered by Callaghan Innovation and are designed to support greater investment by businesses in R&D activities.

The Radiant program will run over the next six months and involves data scientists based in New Zealand and Australia. The team has assembled one of the largest data sets of its kind to simulate millions of discussions between virtual customers and corporations.

Van der Velden said the difficulty with analysing customer interactions is the number of variables that can come into play. “Many businesses are often left scratching their heads wondering what went wrong, let alone how to fix it. We hope Radiant will provide some of these answers.”

When completed, the research findings will be used to extend the capabilities of its TouchpointCX Customer Experience software. The company said it could also lead to the development of standalone products which draw on data to identify root causes of both poor and great customer experience – and to measure how these impact on commercial KPIs such as churn, revenue and loyalty.

Van der Velden was effusive in his appreciation of Callaghan’s contribution. “It is effectively providing 40% of the cost of the research. Without that, doing this project would be very tight.” He added that securing the grant is itself no mean feat. “They do put you through the wringer and that’s good, because the grant is taxpayer money.”

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In a statement, Westpac NZ chief digital officer Simon Pomeroy said “Westpac chose Black Pearl Mail because we saw the opportunity to leverage outgoing emails from a branding perspective. We particularly liked the fact that our TV commercials or a new product launch could be embedded – giving us further brand and marketing reach. We realised that by using Black Pearl Mail, an existing communications tool could be turned into a digital marketing channel with millions of potential views each year.”

Founder Nick Lissette said Black Pearl Mail represents the evolution of business email. “Email is the number-one form of business communication and yet has fundamental flaws that our patent pending technology solves. Ensuring all employees’ emails and email signatures have a consistent appearance on all devices, and via all global servers, is a step change and a significant branding benefit.”

He said Westpac’s bespoke system enables employees’ email branding to be centrally controlled, with signatures no longer set up at the device level and no deviation in format, “which is often an issue for large companies like retail banks.”

Black Pearl Mail enables clients to measure and analyse the effectiveness of their emails as a communications tool through analytics such as percentage of emails opened and links clicked. More immediately, users can opt to see if an email they’ve sent has been opened.

The company said it is currently in discussions with over 100 companies globally, including other banks, and has a downloadable cloud-based version available to SMEs. The three-year old business is headquartered in Wellington and opened an office Sydney in June 2015.

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“Building on the beach and river quality information already available on LAWA, the real-time flow and water level data will allow those who rely on water for business or recreational activities to see the current state of the river or aquifer.”

LAWA shows how much water is available in different regions and how it is being used.

“Over 27 billion cubic metres of water is consented to be taken from our rivers and aquifers each year to meet our cities’ and towns’, industry, agriculture and hydroelectricity demands. That’s enough to fill almost half of Lake Taupo,” said Wilde.

“In addition to being a life-giving necessity, water is a vital input for the industrial and primary sectors and tourism upon which the New Zealand economy relies. In some regions we are approaching water resource limits where water demand outstrips supply. This can constrain economic opportunities and put pressure on our river ecosystems.”

Launched in 2014, LAWA is a collaboration between New Zealand’s 16 regional and unitary councils, the Cawthron Institute and the Ministry for the Environment. It has been supported by the Tindall Foundation and allows anyone to access information about the quality and availability of New Zealand’s natural resources.

Wilde said LAWA would be adding more data about the quality of New Zealand’s lakes in the next few months, followed by air quality monitoring.

LAWA will also contribute to a new national environmental reporting regime being designed by the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand.

LAWA can be accessed on www.lawa.org.nz

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