Quanta blog posts by Marcus White-Bower

By 2025, IDC predicts there will be 163 zettabytes of digital data created worldwide. That’s roughly 163 billion Terabytes. Data analysis is becoming the focus point of corporate strategies the world over. If you need to make important strategic decisions, with sound reasoning, you need a team of great data analysts. Forget oil, these are the people that will drill for the world’s most valuable resource – and then refine it to its purest, most usable form.

Being the top dog in any group is a big responsibility. Therefore, we understand the value in being straightforward when talking leadership. There are two tangible pain points for leaders: the first is the impact of failure and the second is having to gain relevant experience over many years. Whether you’re the lead on a building project, the manager of a retail chain location or the MD of an entire organisation – you’re in a position where your team’s performance is predicated by your ability to lead them appropriately. However, every leader is struck by failure sooner or later. They will encounter a potentially unconquerable trial due to a lack of pertinent experience.

Who would have guessed that an old family film would help to illustrate service management principles? We take a look at how ITIL®4 can provide value for those of you making chicken pies out there.

Our lead ITIL® trainer, Adam White-Bower, kindly sat down with us to answer any questions that ITIL4 novices may have. He also explains that it doesn’t matter if you’re already on board with the ITIL way of thinking - the latest iteration will make the difference in your services.

For the uninitiated, ITIL® can be a hard beast to tame. Emphasis on “can”. Well-versed ITIL masters know to consistently consult the 7 guiding principles of ITIL in any applicable circumstance. The recommendations from these principles support ITIL’s “adopt and adapt” approach. Guiding principles are best practice that can be applied by organisations in almost any service management initiative. We’ve compiled basic definitions and applications for each of the 7 guiding principles to encourage continual improvement within your organisation.

“What’s urgent is rarely important, what’s important is rarely urgent.” Organisation and using your time in the most effective way is the greatest struggle we face as humans. Take a minute to learn about how “eating the frog” and harnessing procrastination can make great changes to your productivity and efficiency!  

We know that our Leadership in Action (LIA) course is an experience that changes the way people perceive not only their roles, but themselves too. The team tasks involved will encourage a cycle of action, reflection, conceptualisation and experimentation, provided by a powerful learning environment in which you receive individual attention from facilitators. Becoming a more effective leader is something that only you can achieve, but we can provide the very best tools for you to reach your potential with. 

The world is constantly evolving. Businesses are growing and declining at a more rapid pace than ever. So, if you’re standing still amongst this world then you are, in effect, moving backwards. Businesses with learning and development (L&D) at the core of their priorities and strategies are always going to outperform those who simply do not bother. It might be easy to excuse yourself from buying into training under the pretence of it being a concern for industry giants. The reality couldn’t be further from this. Success stories emanate from teams of all sizes!

The issue of cyber security is an important one, because once your system is compromised it can be hard to even recognise a breach – with the average SMB in the UK not finding breaches for 101 days in 2019. An adept intruder only needs hours network access to compromise large swathes of information should they bypass security measures, so consider what can be achieved in over one hundred days. This is why every business needs a management  that can identify and implement ideal cyber resilience frameworks.

Loopholes are great. They allow people to squirm out of certain situations on technicalities, but sadly the converse is also true - they allow people to get into things that they shouldn’t. Loopholes in IT networks are weaknesses that can be exploited by hackers. Just because you don’t know the weak point exists, doesn’t mean an attacker can’t find it. Read on to learn more about the heroes in shining white hats that protect our systems through ethical hacking!

Online security is an imperative for any business. You only have to look at the range of terrible outcomes for those targeted. From ethical hacking, to ransomware, to good ol’ fashioned IP theft – the digital landscape is too unpredictable to make any assumptions about your cyber wellbeing. There are precautions that you can take to recognise and avert potential cyber crises, but no one is without flaw and no system is impenetrable. Being aware of cyber weaknesses and the damage that these weaknesses leave you susceptible to will open your eyes to the value of cyber security improvements. Beware – there are some horror stories ahead.

Agile is a wonder, but it's also not a mindset that can be instantly engrained into your head with a cheat code. If you’re completely new to Agile as a concept, then suddenly jumping into an agile project will likely be completely bewildered. But Agile can provide an incredible uptake in efficiency and profitability for those who undertake the change, with a 27% increase projects reporting cost reduction in 2019. This is partly why we took it upon ourselves to compile a cheat sheet of our own, for those who are either new to Agile or are considering an Agile mindset for upcoming project or product development.

All good things must come to an end. Even the best of products cease to be relevant once a superior successor enters the market. Microsoft has sent out the message: Windows 7 will have reached the end of its lifespan on January 14th 2020. But don’t enter a period of mourning just yet, because for those not yet transitioned to Windows 10, there is an opportunity to develop your systems through adopting Windows 10.