NEWS
MTI wins infrastructure transformation
contract with Southern Water
M
TI Technology, a global provider of IT
services and solutions, has announced
it has won a £15 million contract with
Southern Water. The contract will see MTI
provide professional and managed services
around data centre modernisation, data
protection and enhancing cybersecurity,
as part of Southern Water’s wide-ranging
transformation programme.
Southern Water is one of the largest water
authorities in England and is responsible for
water services across Hampshire, the Isle of
Wight, West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent.
Southern Water’s transformation
programme is centred on developing
resilience across the company’s business,
corporate and financial operations.
A key element of this programme will see
MTI transition Southern Water from a fully
third-party managed data centre to a self-
managed software-defined data centre.
MTI is using its proven data centre
modernisation capabilities to design and
build two state-of-the-art data centres in
collocated facilities, including the provision
of an interconnected dual-fibre network,
Internet services and on-site services. A
new hyperconverged compute, storage and
network architecture will provide Southern
Water with a flexible IT platform for efficient
and effective service delivery, including the
capability to manage private/public cloud
infrastructure in the future.
The new data centre will support Southern
Water’s existing Windows Server and Linux
environments, as well as core business
applications including SAP, Microsoft
Exchange and Oracle Databases. This
will be underpinned with intelligent data
backup and restore, data replication and
data archiving.
Following national guidance from the
industry regulator, OFWA,T and the National
Cyber Security Centre regarding the
protection of critical infrastructure, Southern
Water is also looking to embed greater
resilience and hardened cybersecurity across
its IT estate. As such, MTI will be using
its significant security expertise to design
and implement additional layered security
architecture on behalf of Southern Water.
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Wirecard launches fully digital
instalment payment plan in Germany
W
irecard, a global innovation leader
for digital financial technology, is
launching a new instalment payment plan
for online shops in Germany.
The new offering, which is available via the
Wirecard digital financial commerce platform,
benefits both merchants and consumers
thanks to its B2B2C approach. Merchants are
able to increase e-commerce sales by offering
customers the option to pay in instalments
while still receiving full settlement when the
shopper completes the order.
Consumers can more easily afford premium
items thanks to flexible payment options
and benefit from a seamless shopping
experience. Wirecard acts as the acquirer
and also processes all transactions. The
solution will be expanded to other SEPA
countries following the initial launch in
Germany. The company expects transaction
volumes of over €3 billion in the first years.
www.intelligentcio.com
The solution will benefit German customers
as 58% prefer to pay in instalments
According to the recent survey Einkaufswelten
from Teambank, more than every second
German customer (58%) considers paying in
instalments for online shopping.
Since paying in small instalments makes
it easier for consumers to buy premium
products in particular, 65% of the online
retailers who are offering payment in
instalments have recorded an increase in the
average shopping cart value, according to
IBI research.
“At Wirecard, our focus is on constantly
expanding our service offering to enhance
the customer journey. According to recent
statistics, merchants offering instalment
payments in their online shops not only
notice significant sales growth but also
increased customer satisfaction. By giving
consumers more flexibility, merchants
improve the overall shopping experience
which in turn leads to more loyalty,”
said Kilian Thalhammer, VP Product
Management Payment & Risk at Wirecard.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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