by DavidSpratt | Dec 19, 2012 | ICT
David Spratt, ICT analyst from Total Utilities Management Group, reviews 2012 with a mixture of humour, bile and straight up taking the mickey.
Up’s
The tired old voices of vested interest have been drowned out in the rush to take advantage of lowers costs, flexibility and superior availability of cloud services.
When was the last time you heard some conceited individual from vendorland asking you to “define cloud services”? It’s been a while – because they have either been laid off or work for Google now.
- Hosting Cloud Services in New Zealand.
Revera, Gen-i and Datacom take a bow. Hosting Office 365 in New Zealand breaks the back of anti-cloud arguments around sovereignty, ownership and control of applications and data. (more…)
by DavidSpratt | Oct 29, 2012 | ICT
We are delighted to hear that tech giant HP has just confirmed its commitment to cloud computing. It will come as a relief to many of HP’s customers around the globe that the company has finally moved to address their lack of a viable cloud computing offering.
Their Converged Cloud – a ‘technology framework incorporating public and private clouds plus managed hosting’ – is HP’s open-source answer to the market-leading Amazon Web Services cloud. HP has hinted at some major announcements ahead – at December’s HP Discover Event in Germany – and industry whispers are that these will include details of their refined cloud services offer.
Over the past few years, a noticeable lack of communication around their offering in this key area is reflected in HP’s increasingly poor financial and share price performance – the company having recently hit its lowest stock price in a decade. (more…)
by RichardGardiner | Sep 14, 2012 | Energy
Coping with the worst recession in living memory has forced businesses to leave no stone unturned in the quest to improve their bottom line. Electricity is one cost that impacts on everyone and businesses impacted by the deregulated NZ energy markets fall into two basic categories:
1. Non-time of Use customers
Businesses with energy usage per ICP (Installation Connection Point) below approximately 200000 kWh per year (the actual figure varies dependent on the local lines company) are likely to be supplied on a non-time of use basis. These sites will have a standard non-TOU meter and be billed per kWh used and days supplied. This billing approach is similar to the metering of residential customers, although business electricity rates are generally significantly better.
2. Time of Use customers (TOU)
Businesses with energy usage per site above the 200000 kWh threshold will most likely be TOU customers. TOU rates are typically split into either 48-rate pricing (4 energy rates per month) or 144-rate pricing (12 rates per month). TOU pricing is customer specific although it is heavily impacted by prevailing market conditions when going out to tender. (more…)
by RichardGardiner | Sep 3, 2012 | Energy, ICT, Waste
The TUMG Team
Marc Wendelborn looks at why negotiating new utilities contracts doesn’t have to be a painful process.
Negotiating supply contracts for electricity, natural gas, waste, and telecommunications is no fun. You have to do your homework, have meetings with potential suppliers, negotiate a mine-field of small print, and possibly still not get the best deal available.
This is where a utilities broker can be useful. A broker can provide unbiased, expert advice on the services and pricing across all suppliers, answering questions such as which retailer you should buy from, how to compare confusing contract offers and how to negotiate the right contract terms.
Analysts take your utilities needs to market through an Request For Proposal process and come back with a clear and concise range of contract options with the aim of minimising cost on a ‘like for like’ pricing analysis of all offers. They also look to benefit you tactically by advising and negotiating supply agreements that expire at the best time of the year.
For telecommunications, a utilities broker looks to find the best supplier to meet the current and future requirements of the business. Analysts should follow a transparent selection process with measureable criteria that takes into account reliability of service provider, reduced costs and any other specific business needs.
And for waste services, minimising costs and maximising the proportion of waste that is recycled are the markers of a good utilities broker.
We looked at four businesses using the services of utilities broker Total Utilities Management Group (TUMG) to see how well they’d been served by a broker.
The Textile Centre
The Textile Centre is home to some of the city’s high flying technology, public relations, advertising companies and other businesses. The commercial property business owns properties covering 27,000msq.
Chief Executive, John Morgan, used TUMG to investigate power savings.
“We felt that they would be able to get better market information than we could access on our own. We grew up with Mercury and Vector and felt TUMG would be able to research the whole market independently, rather than us spending time and energy going out and doing the job ourselves.”
“There were no issues around small print at all and the contracts were presented on a like for like basis. All the contracts came back with prices based on between three and five years’ supply. Four companies offered comparative quotes, one of which was dismissed pretty quickly, and our existing supplier actually won back the right to continue to supply the company.”
“We saved about $140,000.”
“The process was very smooth. It’s probably one of the best examples I’ve seen. It was done promptly and there was a visit here to me. We had to provide two or three months indicative billing so they could get the number of kilowatts that had been used and the money paid. Armed with that information they did their research, went out to the suppliers and they were back to me within a fortnight.”
Swimtastic
Swimtastic is a learn-to-swim school running structured lessons for pre-schoolers, school age children and adults in a purpose built facility in the Eastern suburbs of Auckland.
“We use a lot of gas and electricity,” says Swimtastic’s founder and director Mark Bone, “and we felt that a utilities broker could seek out the best deal for us, allowing our company to focus on its core operation.”
“The utilities broker talked me through all the contract small print, reducing any misunderstanding and focusing on the best deal.”
“The broker sought out and negotiated the best deal on our behalf. The process was smooth and hassle free. Savings have been significant. It was a fantastic experience.”
Mamaku Blueberries
Mamaku Blueberries grows about 30 tonnes of blueberries per year for wines, liqueurs, pure juices, jams, sauces, chocolates and real fruit ice cream in addition to offering farm and winery tours.
“We were looking to cut costs and thought we’d give TUMG a try,” says Harry Frost of Mamaku Blueberries.
“Their analyst came back to us with four options, showed us they compared and the savings each offered per year – the best was $4000 a year. That sounded like a fair bit to me.”
“He went through everything pretty carefully, the different situations, rules and regulations, the fine print, which was very helpful as it cut through the technical jargon.”
“Because we were so impressed, we were able to refer them onto other small businesses in the area like dairy farms and so on.”
Galvanising Services
Onehunga company Galvanising Services Ltd. applies molten zinc as a protective coating to industrial steel to prevent corrosion.
Manager Andrew Lonsdale Cooper says that prior to contacting TUMG he spent a lot of time messing around with different companies and getting the run around.
“TUMG came along and offered me a the chance to join a bulk tender that looked pretty good, because I could jump on board with a whole lot of other small manufacturers like ourselves and take advantage of some economies of scale.
“They negotiated gas and power contracts for us, and the best part was the convenience – it saved me a hell of a lot of time dealing with people in areas outside of my expertise.”
“The process was smooth. The contracts were presented to us in a report that made it easy for me to compare the various offers on the table. There were no problems with small print and ultimately it’s saved me thousands of dollars.”
“Overall, it’s a pretty efficient, effective, reasonable service to have.”
As published in NZ Business Magazine September, 2012
by DavidSpratt | Aug 2, 2012 | ICT
Who owns your data if it resides in the cloud somewhere? Let’s say that you are using a cloud based CRM system and the company delivering it goes into receivership. What happens to your data? Can the receiver sell it to a competitor? Can they even demand that you buy it back from them under threat of refusal to give you access to it? Even worse (if that’s possible) they could just decide to blank the disk storage and sell it for scrap to recover funds.
Microsoft’s announcement last week that it will collaborate with NZ hosting company Revera to provide its public cloud systems on Revera’s private cloud infrastructure goes a long way towards addressing this issue for New Zealand businesses
The alliance will create a hybrid cloud service that Revera has called ‘Homeland Collaboration’. In real terms what this means is that cloud computing services – originally developed for the retail/consumer market driven mainly by US companies – are now more aligned to the needs of the New Zealand businesses adopting them.
Data sovereignty relates to the Laws under which cloud services operate. These Laws are usually focused on the physical location of the servers that deliver the service. Prior to this new hybrid cloud service, a New Zealand user could end up subject to US Law or the Law of one of its States in the event of any dispute. This is potentially confusing, complex and very, very expensive. Put simply, the hybrid cloud service brings New Zealand businesses back under the jurisdiction of New Zealand law.
Hat’s off to Revera – a fantastic example of a Kiwi company seeing the gap and taking the initiative to fill it – to the benefit of all. But don’t be lulled into a false sense of security, data ownership is still covered by the contract in place with the service provider (eg Microsoft, Rackspace or Salesforce.com) so READ THE SMALLPRINT carefully and make sure that you know how they deal with data ownership before you sign up.
by DavidSpratt | Jul 16, 2012 | ICT
In the 36 hours since Vodafone announced its intention to acquire TelstraClear there has been a flurry of conflicting opinions regarding the potential impact on the NZ telecoms market. Pundits’ opinion on the consumer impact of this move has ranged from there being a ‘limited’ impact to predicted price decreases and Consumer NZ’s view that a beefed up Vodafone offering could actually act to drive Telecom’s prices up.
So, while the decision whether or not to let the sale go ahead sits with the New Zealand Commerce Commission, Overseas Investment Office and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment – it’s worth considering the other impacts that this potential duopoly could have on our telecoms market?
What does it mean for smaller niche players trying to break into emerging markets? How can they compete with a couple of monsters who can bundle services in a way that a niche player’s offering can’t possibly match? This is how Microsoft destroyed web browser providers in the 1990’s (whatever happened to Netscape and its Navigator product?)
Having another full service provider in the market could certainly make things simpler for the consumer. It’s convenient to get all your bills from one supplier, have one customer service department to deal with and have one other competitive price offer to benchmark your bills against.
However, if we step back and look at it from a wider perspective, what impact will this acquisition have on the speed of new products and innovation in the NZ market? A market that’s a cosy duopoly with no agile innovators nipping at the big players’ heels could become sluggish and complacent.
A final thought. Now that Vodafone has such a powerful set of services and all the cash that comes with being a global multinational – will we come to regret the concerted efforts by Government to clip Telecom’s wings?
David Spratt, ICT analyst from Total Utilities Management Group, reviews 2012 with a mixture of humour, bile and straight up taking the mickey.
