11/1/2010 3:36:45 PM
IT Comms news: Internet lethargy costing UK economy £70bn
I recently blogged about the UK's embarrassingly
low ranking in the global internet league tables. It's
gratifying to know I'm not the only one who worries about this:
Vodafone reckons that UK business is suffering because firms can't
be reached fast enough by customers.
Vodafone's 'Critical Response Time Index 2010' surmises that the
average cost of not responding quick enough to a new business
enquiry is as much as £30,000 for an average company. This is a
£10,000 rise of the 2009 figure and calculated up equates to the
£70bn in this blog's headline.
Over the past year 39% of businesses cancelled a supplier
contract because of poor communication. A slow response to an
urgent call was cited as a deciding factor in terminating a
contract.
Long term relationships don't offer businesses any protection as
71% of companies polled said there is now less room for goodwill,
personal relationships and giving suppliers any kind of benefit of
doubt.
So what is the solution? Unified Communications is my solution,
and indeed arguably THE solution. I have recently established a
sub-division focusing solely on this and while this is going well
for a relatively new start-up, it appears that the end-user demand
for UC is still relatively stagnant. 'Why' I hear you ask?
Complexity and Cost are often the biggest barriers to entry,
something that the UC vendors we know of are looking into.
Damian Hicklin
IT
Security & Communications Manager
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ARM