Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 26 | Page 10

NEWS Marks & Spencer transforms workforce scheduling for 80,000 colleagues Colt further expands its IQ Network in London M arks & Spencer, a leading retailer delivering top quality food, clothing, home products and financial services, is focused on using industry-leading technology to create efficient, insight-driven stores led by empowered colleagues. With more than 80,000 colleagues, workforce engagement is critical to M&S’ success. The retailer has embarked on a new engagement strategy with JDA and ecosystem partner, REPL, to make the combination of JDA Workforce Management and Microsoft Teams the cornerstone of the strategy. This has enabled M&S to ensure that at each of its 700 stores, it has the right colleague working the right shift at the right time. To simplify its in-store operations, M&S needed to combine its employee communications channels to unite employee engagement functions in one place. M&S selected JDA Workforce Management and JDA gold partner, REPL, to achieve this, empowering the M&S workforce no matter where they are, to see and swap shifts, review their schedule and make changes as needed. “It’s absolutely critical that we have our colleagues focused on serving customers, with the right people doing the right job at the right time, ultimately improving the customer experience,” said Sacha Berendji, Retail, Operations and Property Director, M&S. “Working with JDA and key ecosystem partners, we now have a powerful, efficient, insight-driven advanced scheduling system in place that allows us to be more agile in the way we run our store operations.” 10 INTELLIGENTCIO Colt is continuing to invest in its Colt IQ Network, further densifying its offering C olt Technology Services has announced it has completed a fibre densification project in and around the city of London, adding 110 km of new fibre in the city. traffic will come from cellular networks; this is up 12% from 2017. This rise in mobility means that having a reliable, agile and dense fibre backbone has never been more important. This project was run alongside the expansions in Eastern Europe, Dublin and Berlin, with the expansion of the Colt IQ Network seeing the organisation continuing its commitment to enabling enterprises’ digital evolutions and in turn transforming the way the world works through the power of connectivity. Carl Grivner, CEO, Colt Technology Services, said: “We know that as the world shifts dramatically towards wireless networks, having fibre in the ground becomes increasingly important. Colt has been investing in our owned, high bandwidth network, the Colt IQ Network, for several years now, because we know it’s our most valuable asset. These expansions have seen a new 7,000 km network connecting more than 10 cities in Eastern Europe with more than 300 kilometres of fibre being installed in the London, Dublin and Berlin metros. The expansion of the Colt IQ Network is being driven by customer demand as well as wider industry trends such as 5G. According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, by 2022, 22% of global Internet “The projects we announced last year in Eastern Europe, Dublin and Berlin, customers are now benefitting from these, and the London expansion sees Colt extending its already impressive fibre footprint in the UK capital. “We’re happy to say that we’ve prepared the connectivity backbone that is truly ready for the next decade.” www.intelligentcio.com