Feature

Concurrent Countdowns?

MSPs
Contributing Editor Ian Hunter writes...

Concurrent Countdowns? Correct – this has nothing to do with Carol Vorderman but a lot to do with the fact that the clock ticks down on many issues at the same time.

Here are two examples:

I could not help but notice last week as I opened my weekly Mitel blog post that the boots are still flying in on a very prone Avaya (a.k.a. ‘It’s Business as Usual Inc.).

The first sentence of the blog was innocuous…

‘The desk phone continues to be a core part of many organisations. However, the demise of certain older PBX companies (Nortel), and the financial state of some current players, like Avaya, has brought the long-term viability of these systems into question.’

The copywriter is skilled. So, he says, did you know that ‘In a retrospective review of 14,000 in-hospital deaths, communications errors were found to be the leading cause, twice as frequent as errors due to inadequate clinical skill.’

Note to self: ‘Check the PBX before getting on the ward as BUPA won’t cover you.’

Unsurprisingly, Mitel would appear to have a solution or three available as does Genband when you Google ‘CS1000 support’. Is this possibly the most unfortunate phone system on the planet – designed by Nortel and bought by Avaya!

Secondly, and without the smirk this time please, today marks the start of the 12-month countdown to the introduction of the GDPR throughout the EU, including the UK and any third country that keeps personal data on EU citizens.

I’ve been swotting. This is the War & Peace version of all of security directives that makes MiFID II look like the Beano.

There’s a lot to do and I see that TalkTalk and UKFast amongst others have been reasonably quick out of the blocks with channel advice and white paper downloads.

My advice is simple; doing nothing is not an option. So if you have not done so already, get a plan together and start taking action before you get hit with fines that will make more than your eyes water.

Have a great week

Date Line: 22 May 2017