Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 23 | Page 15

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. ///////////////// 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 15