Search Results for: technology

March 12, 2015

Firms not offering staff the technology they need, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

More than half (55 percent) of UK employees believe they do not have access to all the technology needed to do their jobs, according to research by Fujitsu. The study, Digital Inside Out, was based in a survey of just over 1,400 UK based employees and claims to reveal a significant disconnect between the needs of a digital-savvy working population and the digital services UK employers are currently providing. According to the report, 73 percent of UK employees believe that digital is vital to the future success of their organisation. However despite this, only 45 percent of employees feel they are provided with access to the technology services and applications they need to do their job sufficiently and 29 percent state that their ability to do their job is being hindered due to poor digital services. The report argues that the mismatch can be very costly for organisations.

December 12, 2014

Third of European workplaces to introduce wearable technology in 2015

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Technology

One third of European businesses plan to introduce wearable technology to the workplace next year, but the majority of organisations have yet to introduce a policy to deal with the change. A European online survey by Ipswitch to determine the readiness of businesses for wearable technology in 2015 has discovered that despite the widespread adoption of the latest BYOD devices over the next 12 months, very little thought has been given to the impact wearable technology could have on network performance and security. In fact, over three quarters of businesses in the UK, France and Germany (77 percent) admit they have no policy for managing the impact of wearables joining the corporate network and only 13 percent of organisations report that they have a policy in place to cover managing the impact of wearable technology. More →

November 24, 2014

Latest Insight newsletter: weaving together the strands of people, place and technology

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter

The latest issue of the Insight weekly newsletter is now available to view online. This week; reflecting on the key messages of this year’s Worktech conference, Sara Bean and Mark Eltringham concur that while the office may be entering a new phase, we still have a need for human interaction and a place we call the workspace. Ergonomics expert Lee Jones warns that the leap in the number of cases of workplace musculoskeletal disorders is a reminder there is a world of difference between an iPad on a sofa and a PC on a workstation and Sam Robins comments on Government plans to measure wellbeing. In news; why the UK’s largest companies are calling for the greater uptake of flexible working, green building credentials become a driver of investment performance and the gender pay gap reaches its lowest point in history. If you don’t already receive a copy, please sign up using the simple subscription form in the right hand sidebar and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

November 21, 2014

Worktech weaves together the strands of people, place and technology

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Events, Flexible working, Technology, Workplace

Day two of Worktech London and affirmation that far from dying, as so many headline writers would have us believe, the office is merely entering a new phase. The underlying theme of Worktech continues to be how we find new ways of weaving together the strands of presence and connectedness formed by cities, buildings and technology. Worktech is a constant reminder that while our world may be shaped by algorithms, we still need each other and need to be with other people at least some of the time. The event is admirably hosted by long time collaborator and MC Jeremy Myerson whose knowledge and donnish charm holds things together while the real Don, founder Philip Ross, beams from the sidelines. It is now de rigeur for such events to have a poet in residence and this year’s was Matt Harvey who summed things up at the end of the day with reference to Worktech’s longstanding idea of jellybean working but who popped up in between sessions with lyrical summations including one that showed some real spunk (you had to be there).

October 27, 2014

Majority of UK SMEs believe technology can help rebalance the economy

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Technology

The UK’s small and medium sized businesses believe that the regional divide in the economy can be bridged to a large extent by technology, according to a new report from Brother UK. According to the report, Regional Attitudes to Growth and Competitiveness, carried out in conjunction with Cardiff University and based on a survey of 600 SMEs around the country, over half (57 percent) believe technology was the key driver of their region’s competitiveness and only one in ten say the competitiveness of their region has declined since the start of the recession. Over two thirds (71 percent) believe technology can improve regional competitiveness and slightly more (73 percent) believe it’s possible to service customers and clients across multiple regions efficiently from their current location. The survey also claims that because each company spends an average of 244 working days a year on business travel and the UK has the second highest annual business travel spend of any Western European nation, despite its comparatively small size, many firms are turning to technology to enhance their competitiveness.

October 1, 2014

UK Government urged to do more to support country’s technology sector

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology

Silicon Fen in Cambridge

The technology sector trade association techUK has published a new report urging politicians and policy makers to acknowledge the UK’s role in the global technology market, create the conditions in which it can thrive and oversee the roll-out of new digital services across the public sector and beyond. The body, which has more than 850 members employing 500,000, claims that Securing our Digital Future: the techUK manifesto for growth and jobs 2015-2020 offers a blueprint for jobs growth in the tech sector and the chance for the UK to establish a reputation as a world leader in the global digital revolution. The report coincides with the announcement that the UK Government has commissioned a report to explore how Britain can lead the development of the sharing economy based on the success of firms such as Airbnb and Zipcar. Ahead of next year’s General Election, the techUK report calls on the next government to use technology to improve the quality and accessibility of public services, increase productivity and secure a million new jobs.

September 25, 2014

New letting strengthens Cambridge’s growing reputation as a centre of technology

by Sara Bean • Company news, News, Property, Technology

In the largest office letting in Cambridge in over a decade, technology developer CSR plc has agreed with The Crown Estate to establish an expanded, 100,000 sq. ft. global HQ at Cambridge Business Park. Further lettings of a combined 11,000 sq. ft., to the multi-national computer technology company, Oracle, and to JDR Cable Systems, means that the 320,000 sq. ft. Business Park is now fully let, with over 2,000 people set to be working on site once these tenants move in. These latest lettings underline Cambridge’s growing reputation as a centre of technology – where its success this sector has even led to it being referred to as the “Silicon Fen”, the UK’s equivalent of California’s Silicon Valley. More →

June 17, 2014

England’s technology firms now employ more people than California’s, claims new report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology

As we reported last week, London and the South East of England remain the UK’s hotspots for new business start-ups and now new research claims that the region now has more people working in the vital technology and information sector than the capital of world tech, California. The report from South Mountain Economics and Bloomberg Philanthropies shows that there are nearly three quarters of a million people working for technology firms in London, the South East and East Anglia compared to 692,000 in California and that there are more firms working in financial technology in London than either Silicon Valley or New York. The report backs up new research from Oxford Economics, commissioned by the Mayor of London to coincide with London Technology Week, which claims that over the next decade, London’s digital tech sector is expected to grow at a rate of 5.1 per cent per annum, creating an additional £12 billion of economic activity and 46,000 new jobs, which in turn is driving change in the commercial property market. More →

May 1, 2014

Wearable technology will improve productivity and job satisfaction, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology, Workplace

It’s remains a cause of a great deal of rancour in workplaces and public spaces around the world but new research from Goldsmiths, University of London claims that wearable technology can boost employee productivity by over 8 percent and job satisfaction by around 3.5 percent. The study was carried out as part of the University’s Human Cloud at Work (HCAW) programme and was designed to explore the effects of wearable technologies such as Google Glass in the workplace and on employee wellbeing, productivity and job satisfaction. HCAW is a two-year collaborative project between the Institute of Management Studies and cloud specialist Rackspace to investigate how cloud-enabled wearable devices will impact on individuals and businesses.

April 9, 2014

Local Government is lagging behind in its use of digital technology

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Technology

A new report claims that the UK’s local authorities are not only lagging behind the rest of the world in their use of digital technology but in some areas their development has stalled completely, despite significant investment. The report, Smart People, Smart Places from the New Local Government Network claims that ‘whilst there is much good practice emerging, councils sometimes struggle to fully unlock the benefits of technologies that they do invest in [because] they are often uncomfortable, and risk averse.’ While it acknowledges that the problem does not apply to every council, with some showing exemplary thinking in certain areas, it also paints a general picture of organisations unable and unwilling to make the most of the technology in which they invest, lacking vision and leadership and intimidated by change.

April 2, 2014

New consortium aims to standardise technology to drive Internet of Things

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Technology

The development of the much talked-about Internet of Things has been boosted with the announcement that AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel have come together to form a group called the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) which will aim to standardise the way certain technologies function and so drive the uptake of the Internet of Things. The group has the apparent backing of the White House which has also announced that it will invest $100 million in research into the way physical objects can be linked to the internet, which is the fundamental principle of the Internet of Things. The IIC will be outlining its own plans in the near future to establish a common, global framework for the development of inter-connected digital and physical worlds and so sped up the adoption of an idea that promises to transform many aspects of our lives but which has not moved quickly enough, according to many commentators.

March 6, 2014

Business continuity report confirms technology still biggest threat to firms

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Forget the recent UK floods. When it comes to risks to their businesses, it’s still tech that keeps business leaders awake at night, according to the latest annual Business Continuity Institute Horizon Scan report. Technology related threats continue to rank higher than natural disasters, security and industrial action according to the report which gauges the threats that organisations consider to be their biggest concerns. Nearly four-fifths of business leaders fear that an unplanned technological event, cyber attack or data breach will harm their business. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) consider malicious attacks through the Internet a major threat that needs to be managed closely, while nearly two-thirds (63 percent) think that social media remains a challenge. Meanwhile, one of last year’s threats – supply chain resilience – dropped out of the top ten completely.