Author: matt

Are you suffering from ‘Headset Fatigue’?

Written by matt on 10 February 2021. Posted in Blog.

The last 12 months have seen a complete change in the way that we work, where we work, and for many the tools that we use to do our work.

One key element has been enabling our teams to communicate and work flexibly away from the office.

In order to do this we have turned to a variety of remote tools and names such as: Zoom and Teams. Indeed, these names have become ubiquitous up and down the land as we all giggle at the strapline “you need to come off mute”.

It is no longer unusual to hear people describe their day as one of ‘wall to wall video conferences’. Others find themselves providing customer support from the comfort of their kitchen table, their dining room, the cramped back bedroom, even the odd ‘pop-up’ office at the bottom of the garden. And with current lockdown restrictions it is a reality that many are having to juggle home schooling with the demands of the day job. Usually both at the same time!

Whereas many employers have thought through the provision of homeworking services for their employees, unfortunately many have not thought about the environment in which they will be working. It is not uncommon for employees to find themselves communicating through the speakers on their laptop, their earbuds, mobile earpieces and all sorts of ‘make do’ solutions in an attempt to do their days work.

“Can you hear me?” is just so 2020!

Needless to say, for many this is having a knock on effect and causing personal and client pain points. One example of this is the villain ‘headset fatigue’. Some of the main causes of this include:-

Sore ears from ill-fitting EarPods, earbuds, or mobile handset earpieces
General soreness from the headset being too tight or no headband padding
Audio fatigue from poor quality sound and overpowering background noise
Listening fatigue usually present with lots of background noise or poor sound level control
Headphone fatigue where too much sound is emitted in the higher frequencies

In essence to be able to do your job properly given todays new working environment, you need an appropriate headset that offers the following features:-

Comfortable over the top of your head and on your ears for prolonged periods
Quality earpads that block out exterior sound
Sound level control so you can decrease the noisy caller or increase the soft participant
Noise cancelling so other people don’t have to listen to home schooling or other latent background noise
Built to last so that your employer gets great value for money

To find out what is the best headset for you there are a couple of simple questions that will guide you on your way:-

Do you like one earpiece or two?
Are you comfortable with a band across the top of your head or do you prefer an earpiece on its own?
Do you prefer an ‘on ear’ or ‘over the ear’ headset fit?
Do you like your headset connected by a wire to your laptop or is the “wild and free” Bluetooth option the one for you?

Once you pretty much know what you want, the key is getting the right device, from the right manufacturer.

There are many headset manufacturers to choose from, but UK enterprise typically favour the so called ‘big 3’ for their enterprise grade headsets:- Sennheiser, Jabra and Plantronics (or Poly these days). And to be fair with these 3 you can’t go wrong.

However, we have found at Evoke Telecom that there is actually a 4^th that should be considered for high quality product at an extremely good value price point – JPL Telecom. We predominantly use the JPL USB (wired) or BT500D Bluetooth headsets ourselves here at Evoke.

What is more, why not try the Evoke Telecom promise. Tell us what your current headset price is and we will find you a better product for the same price or the same specification at a better price. Now that really is a win for you and a win for your employee, so why not give it a try?

If it all sounds like a lot to consider and you might prefer a little guidance, then why not drop our helpful team or line at hello@evoketelecom.com or better still us a call on 01509278278 so we can guide and help.

Evoke Telecom delivering all your headset needs

Avaya Updates February 2021

Written by matt on 1 February 2021. Posted in Blog.

This months Avaya update focuses on the End of Sale notice for the 1608 IP Deskphone.

Avaya 1608 End of Sale

This update provides notice for the End of Sale of the 1608-I IP Deskphone. The effective End of Sale date is March 8, 2021. As of this date, or when stock is depleted, these materials will no longer be available for sale. As you can see from the schedule below, you will have plenty of time to plan your 1608 replacement strategy as the hardware and software for the phones is supported until 8th March, 2024. If you have an Evoke maintenance contract that includes handsets, you are completely protected as in the event the 1608 phones are no longer able to be procured, Evoke will replace with an equivalent handset.

Schedule for 1608 End of Sale

Milestones and dates:

End of Sale Date: 8 March 2021
End of Manufacturer Support for Software: 8 March 2024
End of Manufacturer Support for Hardware: 8 March 2024

Which models are recommended replacements of the 1608?

Avaya and Evoke recommends that customers transition to the Series desk phone, which also supports H.323.

The J159 provides advanced functionality such as WIFI, USB support, and wideband audio that go beyond what the 1608-I can offer. Transitioning to the J159 will ensure that customers have the latest firmware releases and support services to protect your UC investment for the long-term.

If the preference is to transition to a SIP desk phone, then you have the option of choosing from any model from the J100 portfolio. Some of our customers have also made the move to a completely softphone only environment using their laptops, PC’s and our super comfortable headsets.

To run the J series desk phones the Avaya system must be running version 10 software and above and the latest PLDS licencing and delivery.

If you would like to discuss your Avaya Desk phone strategy in more detail, please do not hesitate to speak to your Evoke Account Manager or a member of the Evoke Sales team on 0800 8403688 or hello@evoketelecom.com.

Instant communication between Sales Prospects and Your Business with ‘X – Bees’ from Wildix WebRTC

Written by matt on 28 January 2021. Posted in Blog.

Hot off the Press ~ Coming soon – “X – Bees” from Wildix

Wildix unveiled a brand-new solution at their recent online UC Summit which creates the markets first communications platform designed to support companies’ sales processes and increase sales profitability.

With one simple embedded link and absolutely nothing to install, X-bees will help you:

Manage leads and reduce lead close time, Grow sales, Improve customer experience, Increase agent productivity and digitally transform your website

Wildix x-bees enables your website visitors to instantly communicate with you directly from your website with just one click. ‘Live chat’ or ‘web chat’ is the current most preferred method of customer contact by a country mile to request help, support, or additional information. This solution however is no ordinary web chat service…….

Using Web-RTC technology, a contact request will be logged with an agent using x-bees, enabling an immediate chat to commence between agent and visitor.

During the chat the agent can add users into the chat group and the visitor can do the same, bringing in key people from each organisation, if required.

With one click, you can also transfer the chat to a face to face video call, involving all participants.

Wow – so this means your teams can engage with a brand new enquiring prospective client or client team via:-

– Chat

– An audio call

– A video Conference

– With screen share ……. ALL via one simple link … now that’s the power of x – bees from Wildix

And it doesn’t end there, as a real differentiator you can then keep track of all active leads and visitor history, no matter which device the visitor contacts you on, ensuring each potential customer receives a personalised and relevant experience. For deeper CRM integration, x-bees also integrates beautifully with Sales Force (SFDC).

What you will also be pleased to learn is that using the same technology, you can publish your ‘one click’ link anywhere, whether this be your email signature, social media pages, QR codes or online portals.

But why would you call a wonderful solution like this ‘x – bees’? Well, when it comes to team work, industriousness and collaboration you have to go a long way to outdo a hive of bees. So, if you wanted to launch a service that delivers productivity via collaboration the bees are ideal to make a comparison with or better still to name your new solution after! Hence ‘x-bees’ – we love it!

Real time communication with your hottest leads via the method of their choice

As we all now know, live ‘one click’ chat is now a customer expectation as oppose to a nice-to-have when engaging with any new business via an online sales enquiry. If you would like to win and retain more customers and make your agents up to six times more productive, please contact a member of the Evoke sales team today on our Evoke x-bees link Click here to contact me now or email us at hello@evoketelecom or you can of course pick up the phone and call our sales hotline on 0800 8403688 for more information.

Wildix mobile app on a mobile phone Wildix mobile app on a mobile phone

Sustaining a dispersed workforce through 2021: How do I present business as usual to my customers?

Written by matt on 15 January 2021. Posted in Blog.

Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic has been – and still is – a huge burden to many businesses and industries, from a technology perspective, the immediate and unprecedented nature of the initial national lockdown and the continued “work from home if you can” government guidance during current national lockdown has driven previously ‘office centric’ organisations to quickly adopt new ways of working, communicating and collaborating.

At Evoke we believe the roll out of remote working tools has completed its first phase where organisations without an established remote working strategy did the best they could and largely made do with and expanded existing technologies. We are now entering phase two where ‘a consistent, secure and sustainable remote working strategy’ has become top of agenda. Organisations have taken the learns and are acutely aware of the shortfalls in their current and often fragmented and complicated communications provision and want to ensure their employees stay productive, regardless of where they are located or what the device they are using.

The Gamma Horizon Hosted PBX phone system

What can the cloud do for you and your desired business outcomes?

Cloud-based communications platforms, with their flexible and agile capabilities have proven to be a key enabler of this new work-from-anywhere requirement. Organisations were heading steadily in this direction anyway, but as the world changed in 2020, so did the immediate need to provide a ‘business as usual’ service whilst providing simplicity, flexibility and safety for employees. Cloud-based communications have become the necessity as oppose to the trend.

The Evoke team have helped many organisations to quickly and efficiently deploy temporary and more permanent flexible working solutions. We do however understand that many organisations are still struggling with their longer-term strategies and often a more bespoke approach is required.

The best starting point is asking “What will give you the benefits you seek for your particular business”.

Do my employees have the right tools to do their job?
How can I sustainably measure and manage a remote workforce?
Are my remote employees productive and how can I ensure their wellbeing?
Can I make agile changes to my call routing remotely?
Are customer service levels where they need to be?
How do I support employees that have returned to the office but then have to isolate?
Post COVID – Will employees continue to work from home or a blend of home/office?
Do I need to implement additional security measures?

During the pandemic we have also helped some organisations blend their current ‘on premise’ voice services with new cloud technologies, without losing any current investment.

A good example was a school that was operating on traditional analogue telephones lines and an on-site telephone system.

The Avaya IP Office cloud phone system

The Challenge

With the onset of COVID there was a need for calls to divert off site, but the current set up did not provide the flexibility the school needed to remotely manage all required communication scenarios.

The Solution

Evoke were able to divert all incoming calls to a new temporary cloud telephone system. We then enabled access to the cloud system via smartphone and laptop for all users which provided them with all the tools and flexibility they needed to work in a business as usual fashion from home. This solution was provided on a temporary short-term commitment, ensuring that budgets weren’t adversely affected and investment in current telephony was protected.

The Wildix system enabled our School admin team to make and receive calls via the school’s phone lines whilst working away from the school site.

We were even able to pick up voice messages which came through to us via email – an invaluable service.

The solution allowed ongoing and much needed interaction with parents during what was a very uncertain time for all.

– School Business Manager, St Peter & St Pauls Academy

Wildix Collaboration

With Evoke as your telecommunications partner of choice, you can move to the cloud at your own pace with minimal upfront investment and access to only the features and functionality that your business requires. Wherever you are with your remote working strategy, we are here to help! Don’t forget, we can also supply a wide range of competitively priced headsets for all your remote workers.

Please speak to your Account Manager or a member of the Evoke team to discuss your sustainable remote working strategy in more depth on 0800 8403688 or hello@evoketelecom.com.

Microsoft Teams app on laptop and mobile phone Microsoft Teams app on laptop and mobile phone

How Reaseheath College have integrated Microsoft Teams into their Avaya Telephone system

Written by matt on 14 January 2021. Posted in Blog.

With 258 million paid seats for Office 365, which includes access to Microsoft Teams and 75 million daily active users of Microsoft Teams during the Coronavirus pandemic, many businesses are now looking at their longer-term options to incorporate a more permanent voice, video and team collaboration strategy into their business, ideally using the technologies they have already invested in.

This is an area of many moving parts and no ‘one size fits all’ solution. There are also several factors to consider, to ensure your overall strategy ticks all the boxes across the wider business needs in terms of functionality, service delivery and compliance.

Reasehealth College were using two disparate technology platforms for managing voice, video and team collaboration.

The Avaya IP Office Server Edition system had been heavily invested in by the college to support all voice interactions. Reaseheath were using Microsoft Teams for collaboration and video meetings.

What were the key drivers for bringing these two disparate technologies together?

During a recent technology review meeting with Reaseheath, Reaseheath shared some key challenges around student/teacher communication and ensuring easy access to their ‘Wellbeing team’. Evoke discussed the potential option of integrating Reasehealth’s current Avaya IP Office system to their Microsoft Teams environment. There are tangible merits of this dual strategy which unifies the market leading voice capabilities of the current Avaya system with the flexible and widely deployed MS Teams technology, within the college.

The Avaya system was initially introduced to Reaseheath as a communication platform. The ability to integrate this into Microsoft Teams further extends that capability. It enables Teams users to be provided with voice and voice users with Teams, all as a single solution. Avaya on its own does not offer the same unified flexibilities that can be found in Teams. Teams on its own does not offer the unique school safety features offered by the Avaya system, it offers a diminished phone system, and eye watering call charges for out of bundle calls – e.g. mobile at 12.3 pence per minute. Therefore, a Teams integration into your Avaya Platform offers you the best of both worlds, further enhancing the overall end to end experience of voice, collaboration and video for staff, as they work from any location.

What Key Benefits can a dual Avaya and MS Teams strategy bring?

Keep your existing phone services with all the features you rely on
Only enable the solution for users and groups that need it
Streamline the number of tools your users need to use, reducing cost, administration and training.
A flexible SBC that supports both Teams integration and safe deployment of Avaya remote worker licences where needed.
Voice calling capability for Teams users and Unified Communications for Avaya Users
Easy and costs effective mobility and flexibility deployment to remote devices via the Teams app.

“A fantastic integration to Teams under normal circumstances, however with the current scenarios facing remote working for the majority, especially within the education space, this has transformed how we can deliver and support our students”

– Gareth Ferris, IT Systems & Infrastructure Manager

If you would like to learn more about how Evoke can work with you to integrate Microsoft Teams with your current voice platform, please do get in touch with your Account Manager or one of the friendly team on 0800 8403688 or hello@evoketelecom.com.

Twelve months to help save the planet with Evoke

Written by matt on 11 January 2021. Posted in Blog.

Evoke launch campaign to drive switch to Green Sustainable Energy

What are you doing with your business to change?

After watching Our Planet, many of you will have been enlightened by some of the devastating effects of climate change.

Due to government funding and advances in technology, fully green energy can now be provided via some suppliers at the same cost as fuel burning energy.

All we need from you is a copy of your latest bill and we can start the process to review your energy spend alongside your carbon footprint.

In return, as a thank you for making the switch, Evoke will happily reward you with a £20.00 Amazon Voucher.

The campaign will run from January 2021 to the end of December 2021. We have picked Amazon as we believe they are taking the right steps to support a sustainable future.

Interesting stats from the Amazon ‘Climate Pledge’

100% Net zero carbon by 2040
Deploying their technology and people to reach net zero carbon across Amazon by 2040, one decade ahead of the Paris Agreement.

80% Renewable energy by 2024
Amazon are Investing in wind and solar to reach 80% renewable energy across all its business operations by 2024. They exceeded their 2019 target of 40% by 2%.

100% Renewable energy by 2030
Investing in wind and solar to reach 100% renewable energy across all business operations by 2030.

50% Shipments net zero carbon by 2030
Their vision is to make all Amazon shipments net zero carbon, with 50% of all shipments net zero carbon by 2030.

wildix communications endpoints supervision handset wildix communications endpoints supervision handset

Wildix Updates January 2021

Written by matt on 4 January 2021. Posted in Blog.

If you haven’t come across the name before, Wildix is a market leading phone system which is secure-by-design and offers a web-based Collaboration interface, meaning you can work from any device connected to the internet, any laptop or your personally-owned smartphone, without the need to download or install any client.

Wildix won the best SME telephony system at the Comms National Awards in 2020 and is one of our most popular cloud-based telephony solutions due to its performance, flexbility, simple integration to Microsoft Teams and fantastic out of the box feature set, talking of features…

New Wildix feature

We were super excited last week to hear from one of our engineers who was developing some special Wildix features for one of our customers. He discovered that:

We can program a “Panic” button on a handset or enable a short code on a softphone or a smartphone.
When pressed, it silently makes a call to a pre-determined destination and plays a pre-recorded announcement.
It then connects the called party to the phone so they can listen to the room or location from which the initiated call came.

We are loving the possibilities here for the Doctor’s surgeries, schools, lone workers and so much more! If we twin this great feature with the Wildix location finder (yes, you’ve guessed it, another completely standard feature) you could know ‘roughly’ where your colleague was too should you need to send some help. We just checked our location and the app was accurate within 30 feet.

If you would like to hear more about how Wildix can benefit your business and protect your workforce, please give your Account Manager or one of the Evoke team a call today on 0800 8403688 or hello@evoketelecom.com.

Avaya Updates January 2021

Written by matt on 4 January 2021. Posted in Blog.

This month’s Avaya update focusses on three multi-award-winning communication and collaboration solutions that can operate completely stand-alone or fully integrated together.

Avaya Vantage: Accelerate Digital Transformation

Avaya have given a big revamp to the hardware and software for their K155, K165 and K175 Vantage phones. The Avaya Vantage range enables one-touch access to voice, chat and collaboration apps.

The Evoke team have summarised some of the key NEW benefits below:

HDMI – extend your experience to a secondary monitor whilst in a meeting, for example;
USB support – optional connection for an external USB Camera such as HC020;
Integration with AVAYA SPACES – perfect for working from home, one integrated solution;
Calendar integration for “one click-to-join” to meetings;
Support for 3rd party collaboration services (using Android applications);
Start all video meetings on Vantage and extend to external display (HDMI) or to PC in presentation mode, when needed;
Less steps to start the unit;

Key Benefits of Avaya Vantage

Great user experience: Purpose-built for a better calling and video meetings experience. Use it to conduct all your video and collaboration in just one click.
Made for a digital workplace: Brings everything the cloud has to offer in full view. This always-on device offloads your communications and meetings from your laptop. Wireless flexibility and plug-and-play installation
Integrates with Avaya Spaces: Seamlessly use Avaya Spaces on Avaya Vantage. Use one-click access to meetings and features. Present to an external screen using the Avaya Vantage HDMI port.

Research finds that one-touch voice, chat, and collaboration apps lead to faster, easier collaboration for any business. Maybe it’s time to change what’s on your desktops.

Avaya CU360

As the global workforce adapts to new ways of collaborating, meeting and engaging, the multi-awarding winning Avaya CU360 Collaboration Unit represents a breakthrough stand-alone solution that turns any space – including a home office or workplace huddle rooms– into a cloud-enabled collaboration room. It is an all-in-one meeting solution which includes a built-in conferencing camera, codec and microphones, and powerful capabilities including speaker tracking, wireless and cloud content sharing, and remote or local recording. It enables an exceptional collaboration experience for people in a wide range of locations and environments, without requiring the use of a laptop.

Avaya also announced that it has integrated the Avaya Collaboration Unit with its Avaya Spaces™ collaboration app using a new Avaya Spaces Room feature. Avaya Spaces is a cost-effective cloud meeting and team collaboration app that changes the way work gets done, integrating voice, video, tasks, sharing and more into one app that can be accessed from any endpoint device.

Avaya Spaces Room combines the virtual communications and collaboration capabilities of Avaya Spaces together with the physical Avaya Collaboration Unit to expand on these benefits and elevate the digital worker experience in both the office and home office. It makes the teaming experience even more immersive by extending the video meeting to a larger screen.

Avaya Spaces Room also includes a new “Hot Rooming” feature that enables your work spaces to follow you into the physical conferencing space of your choice. In the office, workers can jump into any huddle space to personalise it and instantly join their meeting. The home office worker can come in their home office and immediately transfer their meeting from their mobile phone to a larger screen. Eliminating the effort usually required to enter meetings saves valuable collaboration time and reduces frustration.

The Avaya Collaboration Unit also delivers the increased versatility required to work at home. With 25 percent of home workers using more than one video service for their meetings, Avaya “Huddle Hopping” technology enables people to access the meeting application they need – immediately – on a large screen without using their laptop. It also enables users to access their favourite social media apps – all of which are using more video content – on a larger screen. Both of these capabilities drive faster and higher quality decisions.

Instantly Connect Your Video Room to Your Avaya Spaces Meeting

Use Avaya Spaces with the Avaya Collaboration Unit to turn any TV or video display in your home or office into a video room. Easy to set up, easy to use, easy on the budget. And one touch on your mobile, laptop, or calendar instantly adds your video room to your Avaya Spaces meeting.

Avaya Spaces Introduces 61-Person Concert View

Avaya Spaces provides a cloud meeting and team collaboration solution that enables people and organisations to connect and collaborate remotely.

Avaya has added new capabilities to Avaya Spaces. This includes a new 61-participant “concert” view where the primary speaker is large in the centre of the platform.

Other additions are enhanced video layouts to accommodate different meeting types such as panel discussions, training, project planning and interviews. There is also a new collaboration control to accommodate various use cases. This includes giving students the ability to post completed assignments to their teacher or chat outside of class time.

Avaya Spaces also now includes intelligent moderation including smart mute, host control of participant cameras and microphones and “raise hand” features. These are designed to provide effective management of sessions to minimise disruptions while maintaining whatever level of interactivity the meeting host would like.

Avaya’s recent integration of cloud AI solutions from NVIDIA to Avaya Spaces has helped increase the impact and value of visual, audible and collaborative experiences through the platform. The new integration helps customers benefit from background noise removal, virtual green screen backgrounds, rich presenter features enabling presenters to be overlaid on top of presentation content, as well as live transcriptions that can recognise and differentiate voices.

Please speak to your Evoke Account Manager of any of the Evoke team to request an Avaya Spaces demo or your free 60-day Avaya Spaces trial. Contact us on 0800 8403688 or hello@evoketelecom.com.

Ericsson-LG iPECS eMG80 End of Sale Notice

Written by matt on 15 August 2020. Posted in Blog.

Since its launch in December 2013, eMG80 has filled a key role in the iPECS portfolio, addressing smaller businesses requiring largely digital or analogue handsets, normally due to the lack of CAT5 cabling. This has been a very successful product with more than 9000 system sales to date in the UK. However, due to falling demand for digital systems, and with the significant increase in adoption of iPECS cloud services, Ericsson-LG have communicated that the eMG80 will no longer be manufactured and officially became ‘end of sale’ on 22nd December, 2020.

Customers requiring small, cost effective solutions including the option to deploy digital or analogue handsets can continue to do so, using modules connected to an alternative Ericsson LG system (UCP) system, or uniquely connected directly to the Wildix Cloud platform.

The Wildix Cloud platform

Additional licence sales will not be supported after December of 2021 and Software Assurance will be valid up to Dec 2025.

For more information on the options available to upgrade or replace eMG80 configurations, or to check stock availability over the coming weeks and months, please speak to your Evoke Account Manager or any member of the Evoke team on 0800 8403688 or hello@evoketelecom.com.

Ban on ‘locked’ mobile handsets

Written by matt on 10 July 2020. Posted in Blog.

Ofcom (the telecoms regulator) has published a range of new rules that is says will make switching mobile networks simpler.

Under the new rules, mobile phone companies will be banned from selling ‘locked’ handsets. This is still common practice from many major mobile network operators – including EE, Tesco Mobile and Vodafone.

Ofcom said it’s own research found that more than a third (35 per cent) of people who decided against switching said the need to unlock their phone put them off.

The new rules will come into force from December 2021.

At Evoke, we offer complete freedom of choice for our mobile customers including; SIM only plans for data, minutes and texts, no contractual tie in, pooled data and minutes, unlocked and contract free mobile handsets with specialist ruggedized options, Mobile device management and excellent and competitively priced mobile broadband

Contact us today for your free audit of your current mobile estate to identify costs savings and recommendations or to discuss any of your mobile needs with a member of the team.

blue interconnected lines to represent leased lines connectivity blue interconnected lines to represent leased lines connectivity

ISDN & Connectivity: Is your business ready for the BT switch off?

Written by matt on 1 June 2020. Posted in Blog.

Don’t leave your business behind with traditional phone lines.

In 2015, BT announced that they will be switching off the PSTN and ISDN in 2025, marking the biggest change in the telecoms industry for over 30 years.
The Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) allows calls to be made over copper telephone lines and fibre telephone lines using analogue signalling and is known as “traditional telephony”.

As broadband services have increased in reliability and quality over the past 10 years, the PSTN has evolved to support this change to an almost completely digital network using digital technology. This means there will no longer be a requirement for the majority of traditional fixed line telephony users for fixed-analogue services in the coming years and traditional fixed lines and calls will cease to exist.

The priority for Openreach moving forward, is to maintain a high availability fibre first network, as a result their legacy infrastructure and equipment serving the PSTN is now ageing and becoming more difficult to maintain.

At the end of December 2025 traditional telephony, including fixed lines and services in the PSTN (ISDN2 and ISDN30) will be switched off and withdrawn from service. Officially from September 2023 you will no longer be able to purchase new ISDN (Digital) and analogue lines. It will be sooner in certain areas and if the full fibre rollout completes ahead of schedule.

What does this mean for your business?

This means businesses should start preparing for the future. Moving away from the PSTN is also cost-effective, which is why many businesses are making the switch now.

Speak to Evoke as soon as possible if you are still using a traditional phone line – we can help future-proof your business and save you money. Contact the team on 0800 8403688 or hello@evoketelecom.com.

working from home video call working from home video call

Working from home with Avaya and Evoke Telecom ~ #WFHgoals

Written by matt on 13 May 2020. Posted in Blog.

Avaya IX Spaces – This great collaboration tool goes from strength to strength!

2020 has been unofficially dubbed as the “work from home” year due to the COVID -19 pandemic.

Shifting entire organisations from office work to a fully distributed workforce is a big challenge but, in a matter of weeks, Evoke Telecom has provided >820 FREE Avaya IX Spaces meeting rooms to support many UK businesses and educational organisations. There has been an incredible need for businesses to deploy simple, secure technology to support remote working whilst maintaining business continuity and the ability for “as near to normal” working as possible.

Avaya IX Spaces delivers just that with its new cloud meeting and team working app supporting messaging, HD audio, video conferencing and file sharing for up to 500 participants. This easy to use WEB-RTC application can be accessed from anywhere without any software or plug-ins to download. Use it on your desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile phone. It can also be integrated with the Avaya IX CU360 room collaboration unit in minutes for HD video quality and crystal-clear audio. By using separately or combining both award winning solutions, any business or educational establishment can create a powerful and simple solution for the Home Office as well as Small Offices and any Corporate Huddle Space in the future as we gear up for post-pandemic business success.

@StartupsTowers has listed Avaya in its round-up of the best video conferencing equipment for “crystal clear call quality” and Avaya Spaces received the ‘Editors’ choice award from Managed.IT magazine www.managedITmag.co.uk for its simplicity and universality.

Click her to see what Avaya IX Spaces can do for your organisation. https://www.avaya.com/en/videos/avaya-spaces/1_40wepx04/

“With Avaya IX Spaces you can also simplify accessing these systems by linking them into your company’s Single Sign On system allowing the employee to access it with the credentials they already know”

Why not Supercharge your remote working success with top tips from Evoke Telecom

With online meetings and collaboration sessions now the new meeting norm, how can you continue to be efficient and productive in a virtual environment whilst continuing to build and maintain strong team relationships?

Start on the right foot.

Testing your video collaboration environment before the first meeting begins is an essential step one. Connect with a colleague and making sure that everyone can be heard and seen clearly.

Gear up.

Consider using USB/Bluetooth speakerphones like the Avaya B109, USB/Bluetooth headsets like the Avaya L100 series and

even external USB cameras such as the HC020 for the best results. Consider investing in Wi-Fi Repeaters/Mesh-Wi-Fi or Powerline adapters to provide a strong Internet connection if your workspace is not right next to the Wi-Fi router. If it is next to the router, consider plugging in a network cable to it anyway.”

Pick the right spot.

Find a quiet place where you can operate. It’s not always possible for some workers to have a dedicated space. Devices like Powerline adaptors are helpful for getting the freedom to walk around and move from room to room.

Collaboration without sacrificing security.

There are many aspects of security that need to be considered, when setting up a video and collaboration strategy, business leaders need to think about everything from who can access personal information, to where documents are stored.

Meeting organisers need to be able to ensure that only invited people can access their meetings or workstreams as well as have effective controls for removing people or enhancing those controls even further should the need arise.

Best practices for controlling meeting access through pin numbers and passwords need to transition into “default settings”. This is the best way to protect infrequent users from issues from day one.

We’ve all seen news of video meeting disruptions on products that compete with Avaya Spaces. The Avaya Spaces features help make video meetings safer, including encryption, role-based access controls, and virtually impossible-to-guess 24-digit alphanumeric meeting IDs – one of the main areas where other solutions have been compromised.

Be that virtual meeting guru

The Evoke team have devised a set of simple but effective rules for maximising online meeting success:-

No agenda = No meeting – Circulate a meeting agenda in advance and stick to it throughout the call. This will keep your meeting productive whilst ensuring that attendees have time to prepare their questions and contributions.

Who do you really need in the meeting? – Carefully consider who you include in the invite list. Who can best contribute and who can provide the answers you need? You can always record the meeting for absent or late colleagues. This is a standard feature of the Avaya Spaces Power licence.

Be on time for your meeting – Set a consistent example for your colleagues.

Be short and sweet, not “bleet bleet bleet” – Keep your meetings simple, productive and on point (we are speaking from experience on this one!!).

Keep your audience awake – sharing your screen and incorporating visual information into your meeting content will keep things interesting and collaborative.

And please do remember to be courteous – It might be an obvious one but when you are not talking, pop yourself on mute and spare your colleagues from any background noise or distractions. Pay attention during the meeting and remember, video collaboration is just the same as a face to face meeting, set across multiple locations.

Evoke Telecom ‘Call to Action’

If you would like to discuss any aspect of your homeworking or video collaboration strategy in more detail with one of the Evoke team or if you would like an online demonstration of Avaya IX Spaces, please don’t hesitate to call us on 01509 278278 or if you prefer, you can email the team at hello@evoketelecom.local

This summary below illustrates some of the other Avaya and Evoke Telecom homeworking offers designed to support all businesses during this current time. Our solutions can be overlaid onto any existing technology, breaking down any barriers for technology adoption and remote working excellence.

Welcome Messages for your Telephone System – Corona Virus Lock-Down

Written by matt on 6 April 2020. Posted in Blog.

Business Lock-Down Messages for your telephone system

Following the escalation in Corona Virus cases in the UK, most of us have been asked to vacate our seats at the office and set up a work station at home. Some of us have screens and keyboards, some laptops, some iPads and smart-phones, and some just have calls coming in on their home telephones that have been diverted from the company telephone system.

But, when your customers, suppliers, partners, staff and even students call your business telephone number how are they greeted and informed about your current business status?

Messaging on your phone system might actually take away the need to answer the call that is coming in.

With this in mind, here are some thoughts on some messages for your phone system.

Welcome Message – Offices are closed.

“As a result of the Corona Virus outbreak – we are currently closed until further notice. Please check our website for further details and updates as to when we will reopen. Thank you for your understanding during these difficult times.”

Welcome Message – Offices Open and the team are home working.

“Welcome to ……….., we are open for business as usual and our teams are currently home working in line with government recommendations. We will answer your call as soon as possible but if we are not able to answer your call quickly please feel free to email us at ……………and we will come back to you as soon as we can. Thank you for your understanding at this difficult time. ”

Should your caller choose to hold and wait for their call to be answered, here is a helpful suggested sequence.

Caller On Hold

“Sorry that we have not been able to get to your call. Our team are extremely busy and working hard to answer calls as swiftly as possible. Please do continue to hold and we will answer your call as soon as possible.”

“We are sorry that we have not been able to get to your call. Our team are extremely busy and working hard to answer calls as swiftly as possible. If you would prefer you can email the team at ……………and we will come back to you as quickly as we can. Thank you for your understanding at this difficult time. ”

Out of Hours Suggestion

“Thank you for calling ………., our office is now closed for today. During normal business hours – and as a result of the Covid 19 outbreak – we are experiencing high levels of calls, so please email ……………….. and your email will be dealt with as quickly as possible. Thanks for your patience during this challenging time.”

Personal Voicemail Suggestion

“Welcome to the voicemail service for ……….. I am working from home during the current Business Isolation period. You can contact me on my mobile telephone number which is ………. Or you can email me at ….. Thank you for your understanding during this challenging period.”

If you would like any ideas for slightly different circumstances then please do drop us a line and we will be happy to pen some lines for you – our pleasure!

Otherwise, should you need help at all with any of the above then please do not hesitate to contact us – either by phone 01509 278278 or by email at hello@evoketelecom.local

We hope the above has been helpful and plan to send more checklist thoughts and updates to help you whilst we all work our way through this challenging period.

The team at Evoke Telecom are here to help so please do not hesitate to give us a call.

Stay safe, stay home and please do stay well

Business Lock-Down Checklist ~ Managing Incoming Calls.

Written by matt on 31 March 2020. Posted in Blog.

Keeping your Business Connected – Incoming Calls.

In a new series of blogs on keeping your business connected during the lock-down period – today we look at managing your incoming calls.

As a country we are now moving into week two of the nationwide lock-down. To help, we thought we would put together a simple checklist of hints and tips on managing incoming calls from your employees, customers, suppliers or even parents.

So, what are the options for getting your customer calls to your teams at their homes.

1. Diverting your telephone lines. You can easily have a divert put onto your telephone lines. Theses will re-route your incoming calls to a single designated landline or mobile number.
2. Diverting calls from your phone system. You can have a divert programmed onto your telephone system for incoming calls. These can be diverted by telephone number or DDI. They can be routed to a single landline or mobile number per each company telephone number that you have. You can also have a divert programmed by extension or individual desk phone. This will require engineering time and remote access to your phone system.
3. Putting a message on your phone system. You can have a message put onto your telephone system. There are some professional recording companies that can do a super job of this for you should you wish. This will require engineering time and remote access to your phone system.
4. Diverting calls to multiple mobile telephones. If you are a SIP user this will give you some additional options. Some SIP providers are able to put a cloud solution ‘in front’ of your SIP lines (our Gamma Product is called SIP trunk call manager). This will enable you to divert incoming calls to a series or mobile telephones or landlines, all at once or in a chosen hunt sequence. If you would like to manage your call routing yourself you can do this via your own user portal. These do need engineering set up but are wonderfully flexible once in place.
5. Enabling your teams to receive incoming calls whilst at home. A simple solution to this conundrum is via mobile telephones. We for example are able to provide temporary 30 day mobile SIM cards on O2, EE and Vodafone. These SIM’s come with unlimited calls and text messages and are being offered at very supportive prices. It’s our way of helping companies the length and breadth of the UK as we all work through this current situation. If needed we also provide great value Samsung or other brand Android OS handsets.

This is the first in what will be series of helpful blogs – so do keep your eyes peeled for our next post.

If you need any help at all with any of the above – or indeed anything else then please do not hesitate to contact us. We can be contacted either by phone on 01509 278278 or by email at hello@evoketelecom.local or you can find us on twitter @evoke_telecom.

~ Stay Safe, Stay Home and please do Stay Well ~ the team at Evoke Telecom

As Coronavirus escalates we ask, do you have the technology to enable all your employees to work from home if they need to?

Written by matt on 28 February 2020. Posted in Blog, Schools.

Microsoft and Chevron are among 13 of the largest global companies who have asked their employees not to come into the offices and to work remotely, as a precaution against the Coronavirus or COVID-19 to use its scientific name.

This coupled with the inclement weather and unprecedented flooding makes Business Continuity planning and the capability for workers to be able to work remotely a ‘must have’ alternative for any business.

As the COVID-19 virus spreads across other parts of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, major companies like Microsoft, Hitachi and Chevron are asking their workers to work remotely as a measure against the rapidly spreading disease.

What is more we are starting to see school closures, meaning parents will have to stay at home, which in many cases will mean ‘work from home’.

We now see reports on BBC news that schools, colleges and universities could be closed for up to 2 months should “the UK be hit by a global pandemic of Coronavirus”.

If the number of UK cases increase and further precautions are required, such as homeworking and mass self isolation, can your business support this?

The key to effectively preparing for any business continuity scenario is to consider the needs of your workforce and what you will need to do to enable them to carry on working without compromising corporate standards, security protocol and customer experience. A significant part of this planning should focus on your telephony and IT environments as they provide the solutions which enable seamless flexible working. Today, existing technologies offer us increasing possibilities.

Many people think that by reverting to mobiles and logging onto the corporate network via broadband/wi-fi at home will solve the challenge but let’s think about how that could potentially compromise your business.

Mobile telephones – some businesses issue business mobiles to workers and some don’t. For a business mobile phone, if workers need to make outbound calls, they will be displaying their mobile number, not business number. Calls will also not be recorded if this is a usual or mandated requirement for your industry. If workers only have a personal phone, they might not want to use this and again, they will be displaying their personal mobile number to any customers. It will also potentially make it complex for workers to be compensated for call costs as well as the overall impact to customer experience and brand quality.
Telephony – If an office worker relies on a telephone on their desk or on their PC to make/receive calls, how will business quality voice calls be delivered to the worker if they need to work from home?
Home Broadband – whilst effective use of security within your IT network (Session Border Controllers/Firewall rules) can create secure VPN less connectivity into your corporate network. How many of your workers have sufficient broadband at home and has access been tested remotely to ensure there are no SIP ALG or router settings that might prevent access? This can be a common problem and one that can be time consuming and cause unnecessary delay should a homeworking or business continuity situation be unexpectedly declared.
IT Equipment – If office workers normally use a PC within the office with access to various corporate systems/CRM. Can the same secure access be replicated if working on a business or personal laptop? What would the impact be to your business if workers cannot access the systems they need to remotely?

Checklist – what do you need to do to prepare for the worst case scenario?

Use Case 1 – A standard office worker that usually works in the office 100% of the time.

Can they take their laptop/headset home?
Do they have sufficient broadband at home and has remote access been tested?
How will they make/receive telephone calls?
Do their telephone calls need to be recorded?
Do they have a suitable space to work?
What do they need in addition to be able to do their job?

Use Case 2 – An agent/call centre worker that usually works in the office 100% of the time.

As per use case one with additional considerations….
Can all systems and verifications be accessed from home and are there any gaps?
How will log in/log out/breaks/busy periods be monitored and reported on remotely? Do you have the systems and software to do this?
How will the agent ask for help if they need it?

Use Case 3 – A worker that is based partly in the office or home and partly on the road.

How do they currently communicate with colleagues and the corporate office/s?
How will their job/customer relationships be affected if they can’t visit customers for any length of time?
Do they have the ability to provide virtual meetings/quality remote support/video calls with their customers using their mobile device or laptop?
Can you record any virtual/remote meetings to share with a wider audience or ensure any confusion is eliminated further down the line?
Can customers see the presence of your remote based workers and contact them via their method of choice?

Please contact Evoke Telecom Services Ltd for free impartial advice about any of the above topics or areas. Evoke have been working with businesses throughout the UK for the last 6 years to provide simple and effective Business Continuity planning support as well as world class telephony solutions that enable flexible and effective working, no matter what your job role or where you are working from. Our Evoke Business Continuity solutions are compatible with any existing telephony system or contact centre.

Contact the team today on 01509 278278 or hello@evoketelecom.local or simply click here to chat to one of our knowledgeable team now.

For Education customers, we have a separate suite of award winning ‘safe school’ solutions to address Business Continuity and Lockdown scenarios. Please do contact us for more information on 01509 278278 or schools@evoketelecom.local

November update

Written by matt on 4 December 2019. Posted in Blog.

Welcome to our November update. We hope you are all fine, well and wrapped up warm and snug.

Where has November gone? Is it me or did that month just fly by? One minute it was Halloween and now it’s all tinsel and Christmas trees!

So, what happened (apart from Bonfire Night of course) in November? Well we were spared the embarrassment of party-political votes in London as Westminster was moth-balled and politicians returned to their constituencies to prepare for the December General Election. Boy have they all been busy. It’s been baby kissing, hospital visits and high viz vests galore as the good and the currently less than great of our political elite glad-hand their way around the UK.

It’s not appropriate for us to have an opinion or take a view on politics. However, when your industry will become directly and dramatically impacted then it is appropriate as you can provide commentary and fact around what is being proposed. So, with the Labour Party pledging free of charge full fibre broadband access for every house and very business in the UK by 2030, we thought we might tell you exactly what they could mean. And you get a nice little technical introduction into what Full Fibre Broadband (FTTP) is! Excellent stuff eh?

It has also been a very quiet month sport wise too hasn’t it? We’ve had a little bit of international football as England’s men’s team have qualified relatively comfortably for the European Championship Finals next summer. In local football, Leicester City continue to confound the experts as they challenge Liverpool and Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table. Brendan Rodgers really has done something special at Leicester, but will Arsenal come calling ~ well I know a City that hopes not. In the other East Midlands cities Nottingham Forest are hanging on to hopes of promotion and Derby County eagerly await the arrival of Wayne Rooney to re-ignite their promotion hopes. Will the England legend make a difference, only time will tell?

In rugby and cricket, Leicester Tigers continue to struggle and look worryingly over their shoulder as Saracens drive to recover their -35 points penalty, and England toil in New Zealand as the black caps put England’s bowlers to the sword. A big innings needed by Captain Root this weekend, I think.

Hey and what is new business wise? Well November saw Comms Vision 2019, a 3-day invitation only event at Gleneagles. Evoke Telecom were invited, and we’ve shared what our industry thinks the future of Digital Britain looks like, so please do read on. We also launched our new Green Energy initiative as Evoke Telecom look to do our bit for Climate Change by promoting as much of a move to Green Sustainable energy as we can with our customers and prospects. Why not do your bit and consider a move from damaging brown energy to green energy. We can even help with grants towards electric vehicle charging points at your offices and at home. Why not read on and learn more?

Customer Corner

o Comms Vision 2019
o Evoke – preparing your business and telephony for Christmas

Evoke Informer

o   The Microsoft 4 Day Week experiment
o   Free BB for all – Is this a reality?
o   Motorola Razr – The iconic flip-phone is reinvented for today

New Utilities Section

• Evoke Utilities Promotion Dec 2019-Dec 2020
• EV charging

Thank you once again for the feedback from our October newsletter and for taking the time to provide valuable insight into the topics you would like Evoke to cover in future editions.

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evoke electric vehicle charging evoke electric vehicle charging

Branded EV Charging Solutions

Written by matt on 4 December 2019. Posted in Blog.

Branded EV Charging: what we do

Work alongside handpicked experts from our energy partners to install Electric Vehicle (EV) charging solutions.
Customise a wide range of charging points to suit your business requirements, specifications and branding, enabling you to provide the best solution for you, your employees or your customers.
Provide support for the government backed Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) that gives businesses up to £500 per socket to install EV charging points at workplaces.
Offer one of the most comprehensive support, maintenance and warranty programmes in the industry.

Why accelerate your EV strategy?

Over the last four years, the UK has seen a huge surge in demand for electric vehicles. In 2013, there were just 3500 electric vehicles on the road.

The Numbers

Electricity is significantly cheaper per unit of energy so the cost per mile travelled by EV is much less.
With decreasing lithium-ion battery costs and the mass production volumes of EV motors, the cars themselves are becoming more affordable.
The Government incentives and the increased taxes being placed on vehicles powered by fossil fuels mean that the overall lifetime cost of owning an EV is now estimated to be much less than an equivalent petrol or diesel car.
When it comes to maintenance costs, EVs hardly require any fluid or filter changes compared to petrol and diesel engines.

EV Benefits Summary

Business benefits:

Create a competitive advantage
Build your brand reputation
Make a sustainable transport future a reality for your business

Environmental benefits:

Decarbonising transport
Reducing global greenhouse emissions
Improving air quality

Financial benefits:

Fuel savings
Commercialisation
Government grants

The Evoke Telecoms ‘Call to Action’

If you would like more information on how Evoke can help you make the switch to Green sustainable energy or if you would like to install EV charging points at your workplace, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We will need you to sign a LOA (letter of authority) to enable us to go to market on your behalf.

Evoke launch campaign to drive switch to Green Sustainable Energy

Written by matt on 4 December 2019. Posted in Blog.

What are you doing with your business to change?

After watching Our Planet, many of you will have been enlightened by some of the devastating effects of climate change.

Due to government funding and advances in technology, fully green energy can now be provided via some suppliers at the same cost as fuel burning energy.

All we need from you is a copy of your latest bill and we can start the process to review your energy spend alongside your carbon footprint.

In return, as a thank you for making the switch, Evoke will happily reward you with a £20.00 Amazon Voucher.

How many people have a green energy tariff
Above source: Money Supermarket

The campaign will run from December 2019 to the end of December 2020. We have picked Amazon as we believe they are taking the right steps to support a sustainable future.

Some interesting Amazon stats from their ‘Climate Pledge’;

100% Net zero carbon by 2040

Deploying their technology and people to reach net zero carbon across Amazon by 2040, one decade ahead of the Paris Agreement.

80% Renewable energy by 2024

Amazon are Investing in wind and solar to reach 80% renewable energy across all its business operations by 2024. They expect to reach ~40% renewable energy by the end of 2019.

100% Renewable energy by 2030

Investing in wind and solar to reach 100% renewable energy across all business operations by 2030.

50% Shipments net zero carbon by 2030

Their vision is to make all Amazon shipments net zero carbon, with 50% of all shipments net zero carbon by 2030.

The Motorola Razr: the iconic flip-phone is re-invented for today

Written by matt on 4 December 2019. Posted in Blog.

After months, if not years of speculation, Motorola re-launched its infamous Motorazr phone on Wednesday 19^th November 2019. The king of flip phones, debuted in 2004, the Razr is back in business with a modern-retro look and feel.

The clam-shell shape effectively folds down into half the size of a traditional smartphone which makes it pocketable, compact and super modern all at once.

The secondary screen on the outside of the device is a nice touch which enables you to view notifications without having to open the handset.

This really is the phone that’s promised to turn heads, start conversations and look cool but on a like for like comparison with some of its market competition like the Samsung Galaxy fold or Huawei Mate X, it is reported to fall short in some areas like battery life (smaller than the Google Pixel 4) and camera.

Below are the key specs for the new Razr.

Main internal folding screen: 21:9 aspect ratio, 2142 x 876 pixels, 6.2-inch POLED (plastic OLED)
Front screen: 4:3 aspect ratio, 800 x 600 pixels, 2.7-inch GOLED (glass OLED)
16MP main camera, f/1.7 aperture (no ultra-wide lens or zoom lens)
5MP front-facing camera
Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 processor
6GB RAM
128GB storage
2510mAh battery capacity
Android 9
15W TurboPower fast-charge
Fingerprint scanner on the front in the bottom ‘chin’
Speakers also mounted in the front chin
One USB-C slot on the bottom of the phone
No expandable storage slot
No SIM slot (the phone uses eSIM)
No headphone jack
No wireless charging

Evoke Telecom’s ‘Call to Action’

The Evoke team can fully support your mobile strategy. If you would like to discuss or brainstorm your mobile strategy or request mobile pricing, please don’t hesitate to call us on 01509 278278 or if you prefer, you can email the team at hello@evoketelecom.local

Free Broadband for all – could this be delivered?

Written by matt on 4 December 2019. Posted in Blog.

In the run up to the General Election, the Labour Party promised ‘free broadband for all’ as part of its election pledge. It would be achieved by a £20bn investment nationalising Openreach, the maintenance arm of BT and a tax on internet companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon to cover the operational costs.

As providers of telecommunications solutions across a wide range of sectors such as education, hospitality, manufacturing, financial services and retail, we thought we’d look at how realistic the proposal is and how it could affect our customers and even our own business.

Starting at the beginning, what is full fibre broadband? Now, the standard fibre broadband that we have delivered to our homes and many of our businesses is FTTC or Fibre to the Cabinet. This is where the provider delivers a fibre connection to the nearest green street cabinet and the gets it from the cabinet to your location over traditional copper wires. Copper wires resist a signal being passed through them so speeds typically are not too great and seriously degrade over distance.

The big thing now is Full Fibre, or FTTP Fibre to the Premises. The big difference being that the link from the green cabinet to your location is delivered over resistance free fibre optic cable – delivering blisteringly fast speeds. The new Nirvana. The UK currently has an estimated 8% market availability of Full Fibre, which is pretty pants when you compare it to Spain for example who have 75%.

The problem is infrastructure, cost and investment. BT Openreach have not focused on this area in recent times which has left opportunity and, in its way, passed the baton to private enterprise. Companies like Virgin Media with their ‘Project Lightening’, Talk Talk with ‘FibreNation, City Fibre, KCOM, Gigaclear, Glide, Toob, Community Fibre and Truespeed have invested billions in delivering Full Fibre infrastructure and commenced roll outs.

So, Labour now proclaim that they will nationalise BT Openreach, rebranding it ‘British Broadband’ (at a cost to the tax payer of £20bn) and deliver free full fibre to every business and household in 10 years and 18 days, i.e. by 2030. What is the reality of this? So, let’s break this down into 4 parts.

Point One, Labour have priced up the project at £20bn, is this realistic? Well first it has been estimated that the country needs £100bn investment to get us to full fibre. The industry itself, it is believed currently invests an estimated £8.4bn back in for infrastructure roll out, which does not include monies already invested and of course the huge private equity investment already committed by banks and other institutions. What is more it is estimated that the industry currently delivers £4bn per annum to HMRC coffers, which will also be lost should Labour provide these services for free? The final nail in the £20bn per year estimated fiscal cost is the current market value of BT itself, which BT have recently chirped up as projecting a £100bn buy price. More conservative estimates for UK fixed asset balance sheets sit at around £90bn. Hey, and what about shareholders, pension funds etc. It is hard to not believe that adding all the variables up would not sum somewhere closer to greater than £200bn – or 10 times Labours current estimates.

Point Two, what about none BT businesses? Ok, so by providing a state-run monopoly to BT, rebranded ‘British Broadband’, it would mean an end to the broadband businesses that are Virgin Media, Talk Talk etc. It would also see massive losses in the reseller and distributor markets as most telecommunications companies in the UK be, they small or large provide broadband services to customers. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 jobs could be impacted. A move like this would see some if not all the largest companies taking the British Government to court in an attempt to stop the closing of their businesses and loss of tens of billions of investment overnight. Court cases would go on for years and without a doubt awards and damages would also run into tens of billions. Hey, let’s add this to our already >£200bn initial estimate for the cost of this project. Now it’s starting to get very emotive as well as eye wateringly expensive.

Point Three. Would a state monopoly be a good thing? Well, we have already seen that to really get Full Fibre Broadband moving we have had to see the introduction of competition as BT Openreach have not delivered the goods. You would have to question how by closing down all competitors and putting complete delivery with British Broadband would see a speedy and credible delivery? History has shown us that state monopolies rarely deliver. What is more, British Broadband wold need consistence and unerring funding from the Government, which could not come under any austerity were this £200bn + project to be fulfilled.

Finally, and Point Four, the European Union. The elephant in the room for the last 3 and half years has been the ‘B’ word. Labour propose a ‘remain’ or softer leave option on their referendum 2 ballot paper were they to be invited to form a Government on Friday 13th December 2019. It’s fair to assume that a Labour outright win or LibDem coalition would see the odds of a remain decision increase. However, by remaining in the EU Labour would not legally be allowed to create an anti-competitive state monopoly and as such could not offer Free broadband for all.

So, in order to deliver Full Fibre Broadband to the British Public and UK businesses Labour would have to: –

Buy BT Openreach, including infrastructure, shareholders stock and pension funds at an estimated £100bn
Wave goodbye to £4bn provided each year in tax and dividends.
Lose an estimated industry-provided investment of £8bn+ in infrastructure which the Govt would have to then fund themselves
Plus, themselves invest greater than £10bn per year, every year in new infrastructure, whilst paying to run this new giant new business,
Whilst at the same time risking perhaps as many as another 200,000 UK jobs
This would include the closure of industry giants like Virgins project Lightening, Talk Talks FibreNation, Vodafone’s Cable & Wireless business, CityFibre, Toob, Glide, parts of KCOM and thousands of small businesses with the litigation and reparations that would ensue.
And finally – leave the European Union.

Given the above the real question must be, is this a genuine offer at all?

Evoke Call to Action

If you would like to understand more about the different types of Broadband and connectivity Evoke can provide for your business, please do not hesitate to get in touch. It won’t be free but we can promise extremely good value 😊 please don’t hesitate to call us on 01509 278278 or if you prefer, you can email the team at hello@evoketelecom.local

Microsoft’s 4 Day Week Experiment

Written by matt on 4 December 2019. Posted in Blog.

With this being a topical discussion and debate, we thought we would open the bonnet on Microsoft’s 4-day workweek experiment that they carried out in August 2019, in Japan.

For the month of August, Microsoft Japan experimented with a new project called Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019, giving its entire 2,300-person workforce five Fridays off in a row without decreasing pay.

The publicised findings were as follows;

Microsoft found that implementing a four-day workweek led to a 40% boost in productivity, the company announced as part of the results of its “Work-Life Choice Challenge.”
The summer project examined work-life balance and its effect on productivity and creativity.

The experiment for the month of August led to more efficient meetings and happier workers who took less time off

The company said it also reduced the time spent in meetings by implementing a 30-minute limit and encouraging remote communication.

Independent studies have found there’s demand for a shorter workweek. Last year, in a study of nearly 3,000 workers in eight countries by the Workforce Institute at Kronos and Future Workplace, most said their ideal workweek would be four days or less.

It’s not just the employees who benefited from Microsoft’s four-day-workweek experiment — Microsoft found that it helped preserve electricity and office resources as well. The number of pages printed decreased by 58.7%, while electricity consumption was down by 23.1% compared with August 2018, the company said.

Out of control: is too much work the real cause of burnout?

At Evoke, we practically couldn’t reduce our working week down to 4 days as to service our customers with the high levels of customer service and fault resolution they expect, and pay for, we would have to increase our headcount by a minimum of 20% across all functions to ensure coverage. This would be the case for many service providing businesses or public services. We could however make small changes and perhaps offer one four-day week per month where staff can take it in turns to have a Friday off which essentially would equate to an extra 12 days paid holiday per year. It’s food for thought – worth it if we could improve productivity by 40% 😊

No matter what your own organisational opinions and policies are around flexible working or a reduced working week, The Evoke team can see many opportunities for providing employees with a flexible working strategy to suit every business.

Evoke Telecom ‘Call to Action’

The Evoke team are experts in discussing innovative and flexible working strategies and simple, remote and homeworking solutions to improve productivity and boost employee morale. If you would like to discuss this topic in more detail with one of the Evoke team, please don’t hesitate to call us on 01509 278278 or if you prefer, you can email the team at hello@evoketelecom.local