Monday 2 June 2014 – London, UK – New research from Infovista, the industry leader in network solutions allowing enterprises to guarantee their application performance, reveals that technology challenges are significantly hampering retailers’ attempts to meet changing consumer expectations and deliver an optimum shopping experience via a single, seamless purchasing platform. 79% of respondents say that getting the omni-channel experience right is crucial for survival but most (65%) admit that realizing this goal is a challenge and cite underperforming technology, changing IT trends and the complexity of the organizational infrastructure as the primary reasons. 

Key findings: The customer challenge

Retailers’ increasing focus on customers is driving the omni-channel challenge. They see the customer-centric experience as comprising of a number of important elements including excellent customer service (58%), fast transactions (55%) and interchangeable purchase channels (49%) but with only 35% of respondents describing their customer experience as excellent, it is clear that retailers are grappling with this challenge. 

Key findings: The technology challenge

Back-office technology underpins the delivery of the omni-channel experience but respondents cite a number of technology issues hampering their omni-channel efforts including a sprawling IT infrastructure (74%), business pressure to provide technology innovation (71%) and cost pressures. In addition, companies are wrestling with a host of IT priorities such as cloud deployment (57%) and mobile application development (55%), supply chain optimization (54%), which are creating the need for a host of network design changes, including:

• Increasing bandwidth (52%)
• Server virtualization (52%)
• Network architecture (47%)
• Content delivery (43%)
• Hybrid networking (39%)

Key findings: The application imperative

The vast majority (76%) recognize the importance of excellent application performance but lack confidence in the ability of their IT infrastructures to deliver it (78%), roll out new applications (78%) or manage application SLAs (77%). 
In addition, retailers believe that guaranteeing consistent and high levels of application performance can have a major impact on:

• Customer / shopper satisfaction (54%)
• Employee productivity (50%)
• Brand reputation (49%)
• Company financial targets (41%)

In fact, if retailers made significant improvements to their omni-channel approach by the end of the year, more than half would expect to see an increase in sales (55%), increased market share (47%), positive word of mouth (47%) and cost savings (46%). 

Commenting on the research findings, said Matthieu Silbermann, Product Management Director, Ipanema solutions, at Infovista, said, “As the trend towards the omni-channel continues, so will the pressure on IT departments to close the application gap so that the business can deliver on commercial objectives. The ultimate shopping experience depends on a robust omni-channel that delivers speed, quality of service and a seamless channel service and guaranteeing the performance of key retail applications is the surest way to close the gap and deliver that experience.”

To know more:

• Download the retail survey report and infographic: The application gap in retail
• Watch the retail video: Delivering engaging shopping experiences & maximizing your business efficiency

About Loudhouse

Loudhouse is an independent research agency based in London.  As part of Octopus Group, it is one of the UK’s leading performance and influencer marketing agencies, working with blue chip clients in technology, business services, finance and retail sectors.

About the research

InfoVista commissioned the survey to understand the opportunities and challenges retailers are focused on in an evolving consumer culture and retail marketplace.  Independent research agency Loudhouse interviewed over 400 IT decision-makers involved in networking in retail organizations. The respondents’ organizations had at least 1,000 employees and between 10 and 250+ global sites linked via wide area networks.  Interviews were carried out with participants in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Benelux, Switzerland and the United States.

PARIS, France and HERNDON, Virginia – April 28th 2015 – Infovista, the leading provider of network performance orchestration solutions for a better connected and collaborative world, today announces the new release of Dynamic WAN Selection (DWS), embedded in Ipanema, the company’s Application Performance Guarantee solution. With this new release, Infovista now offers application performance guarantee together with VPN tunneling and OS-level firewall capabilities, all in a single box, which removes the need for enterprises to add firewall devices at every branch of their organization.

With the new release of its DWS, Infovista offers the most comprehensive solution to guarantee application performance on large and complex hybrid deployments.

Ipanema’s dynamic hybrid network management solution automatically selects the best network access for each application flow, taking into account the actual end-to-end conditions of the entire hybrid network – capacity, availability and quality – in order to maximize the end-user experience and optimize the usage of each available path.  Natively integrated with Ipanema’s Application Visibility, Control and WAN Optimization, DWS allows enterprises to successfully regain control and protect their application performance across hybrid networks.

The enhancement of Ipanema’s Dynamic WAN Selection solution with additional VPN tunneling and OS-level firewall capabilities offers the following benefits:

• Enable Ipanema’s ip|engines to establish VPN tunnels via the Internet, towards remote data centers that have VPN concentrators (public or private) or web security gateways such as Zscaler
• When combined with Zscaler, there is no more need for an additional firewall device in every branch
• The provision of these VPN services is managed via dedicated configuration screens in the SALSA central management platform

Supporting quote:
“Enterprises are undergoing digital transformation and this is creating application proliferation and traffic explosion on the WAN. Companies need to be able to embrace this transformation while supporting new usages and protecting business efficiency. Hybrid networks have become the norm and enterprises are increasingly using the Internet as a business network and keeping MPLS for specific, in-house and business-critical applications. It’s very important to intelligently manage performance and security to cost-efficiently take advantage of hybrid networks,” said Matthieu Silbermann, Product Management Director, Ipanema solutions, at Infovista. “Our aim is to make the transition and utilization of hybrid networks as easy, efficient, cost-effective and secure as possible for our customers by providing the most comprehensive and advanced network solutions and our enhanced Dynamic WAN Selection offering is testament to this mission”.

Half of manufacturers have suffered unplanned critical application performance problems in the last 12 months, according to Infovista’s new research

October 8th, 2014 – Paris, France – New research from Infovista and Loudhouse reveals that manufacturers are struggling to deal with increasingly complex IT estates, as 83% of firms report a rise in IT complexity driven by more users, increased locations, new applications and cloud computing adoption. Set against this backdrop is a concerning rise in IT performance problems, with a third of manufacturers reporting that ‘application downtime’ is on the rise, compared to just 20% of firms that have seen a reduction in application downtime over the past 12 months.

IT leaders at manufacturing firms are in agreement that application performance remains critical to their bottom line, as research suggests poorly performing IT applications result in an average reduction in overall revenue of 20%. Common business problems caused by poorly functioning IT systems over the past 12 months have included: products being shipped late (42%), lower employee productivity (42%) and customer complaints (38%).

Today, manufacturers are struggling to address these challenges as 87% of IT leaders agree that guaranteeing application performance is a priority but only 27% have confidence in their company’s ability to rollout new applications quickly and easily. A large majority (70%) of firms also confirm they do not have confidence in the ability of their firm to troubleshoot application performance problems when things do go wrong.

Matthieu Silbermann, Product Management Director, Ipanema solutions, at Infovista commented: “Manufacturing firms are facing a perfect storm of IT challenges. The business is asking CIOs to do more with less whilst demanding the benefits offered by new advanced applications like Unified Communications, cloud applications or Video Conferencing, which can be transformative for collaborative product design.” She continued: “Our research shows that as IT estates become more complex, application performance problems are on the rise and this is costing manufacturers.”

The sector’s top three IT objectives include productivity improvement (70%), cost reduction (71%) and implementing new applications such as Unified Communications (66%), all of which can potentially be jeopardized by networked applications that suffer slowness or non-responsiveness.  In terms of specific IT projects, the sector is heavily focused on virtualization (69%) and supply chain IT projects (60%).

Matthieu Silbermann added: “As manufacturers embrace trends like Cloud Computing, Unified Communications and BYOD, IT leaders need to consider a strategy for achieving an ‘application performance guarantee’. If not, they ultimately risk falling productivity as frustrated users find applications are increasingly slow or unavailable with the Wide Area Network struggling to handle competing demands.”

For further information or to download a copy of the full research paper please visit http://www.Ipanematech.com/library/SR_Manufacturing_EN.pdf

About the research

More than 400 interviews were conducted with IT decision-makers involved in networking in manufacturing organizations. The respondents’ organizations had at least 1000 employees and at least 10 sites globally linked via a Wide Area Network (WAN). Interviews were carried out in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Benelux, Switzerland and the USA. Respondents completed a survey in H2 2014. Research was undertaken by Loudhouse, an independent research agency based in London.

Products selected will be featured in November issue

San Diego, Calif. - OCTOBER 26, 2012 - Public Safety Communications (PSC), the official magazine of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International, announces its selections for 2012 Hot Products. The products, displayed at APCO International's 78th Annual Conference & Expo in Minneapolis in August, will be featured in the November issue of PSC.

This year, 57 companies submitted 73 products for consideration in the Hot Products review opportunity. Of these, 25 entries were selected as Hot Products:

• Avtec Inc.: Scout Frontier
• BrightPlanet Corp.: Social Media Monitor for Law Enforcement 
• Cassidian Communications: Broadband Vehicle Router 700 
• Console Cleaning Specialists (CCS) 
• DSS Corp.: Equature NG9-1-1 MCC7500 Radio Recording Module 
• Eventide Inc.: NexLog Recorders for P25 
• General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies: R8000B Communications System Analyzer 
• Global Technology Systems: H-4077-LiP NEOCELL 
• Harris: BeOn 
• Intergraph Corp.: I/CAD 9.2 
• Mentum: Cityscapes HD 
• Motorola: LEX 700 Mission Critical Handheld 
• MP Antenna LTD: Omni Dual Band-N (2-3GHz, 4.9-5.9GHz) 
• NetMotion Wireless: Locality 
• New World Systems: Aegis Decision Support & Dashboards 
• NICE Systems: NICE Inform version 5 
• Plantronics: SAVI 700 Series Headset Systems 
• Russ Bassett: Desience Flex 
• SAVE Corp.: Mini-Comm Phone Radio Simulation Software 
• Stancil Solutions: Logger Web Player 
• TC Communications: Emergency Telephone Line Bridge 
• TriTech Software Systems: Inform IQ 
• Watson: Mercury 
• Voice Print International (VPI): EMPOWER 9-1-1 v.5.3 
• Xybix Systems Inc.: Antimicrobial Worksurface & Airborne Germ Eliminator 

Hot Products was established as an annual editorial program by APCO International and Public Safety Communications in 2007. During the annual APCO International conference, an anonymous editorial review team roams the exhibit hall, specifically examining new products submitted for review. After the conference, reviews are compiled and discussed, and the editor and the APCO Editorial Advisory Committee select the best new products to be featured in the Hot Products article in the November issue of PSC. For purposes of this feature, "new" is defined as having been released or substantially revised since the previous conference (the prior August).

The review team is made up of public safety communications professionals. They look for substantial improvements over previous releases, features that will make their jobs easier or improve safety and health for both telecommunicators and personnel in the field, and products that meet a newly identified need.

About APCO InternationalTM (www.apcointl.org)

APCO International is the world's largest organization of public safety communications professionals. It serves the needs of public safety communications practitioners worldwide - and the welfare of the general public as a whole - by providing complete expertise, professional development, technical assistance, advocacy and outreach.