The Europlus Direct team would like to take the opportunity to thanks theBusinessDesk.com a great event last week. We were finalists in the Yorkshire Exporter category for the Yorkshire Business Masters 2012. Congratulations to all the other finalists and winners!

Europlus Direct was recently featured in the Telegraph and Argus, in an article which highlights Jim Hart’s successful process of global expansion - ‘Bradford entrepreneur Jim shows his global ambitions’.

The article describes how Hart’s business has expanded throughout Europe – from its initial development in France in 2004, to its current position with global offices in several countries such as Australia, South Africa and Mauritius. It goes on to emphasize how Hart’s success so far seems apparent to continue in his future ventures.

Read the full story here – thetelegraphandargus.co.uk

An article about The Europlus Direct global office expansion has today been published on TheBusinessDesk.com.

CEO Jim Hart at Europlus Direct (EPD) discusses global business expansion and the importance of ‘thinking global from the beginning’. Europlus Direct, launched in 2004, started off by selling mainly IBM services in Europe.  EPD now runs its operations in several countries around the globe and is part of a joint venture with Europlus Direct International (EPDI) in Africa.

Read the full story on www.thebusinessdesk.com

Europlus Direct International (EPDI), headed up by Managing Director Yves Ramloll, was formed in 2010 providing local service and access to IBM hardware replacement parts. EPDI runs Spare Part Divisions in Mauritius (Head Office), Namibia, Mozambique and Senegal on behalf of IBM. In addition, EPDI is now set up as a Services Distributor with IBM across 22 Sub Saharan African countries.

The EPDI Head Quarters has moved location to Quatre Bornes, Mauritius. Jim Hart (Director) and Global Financial Controller Rob Jobbins flew done from the UK to visit the new office.

EPDI Office

EPDI office entrance

Jim Hart with EPDI staff

EPDI Office

EPDI Office

Europlus Direct sales manager Don Adhepeau and IBM in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Europlus Direct and IBM in DRC

A global survey conducted by IBM of more than 500 IT managers revealed that 77% of businesses think that adopting cloud computing requires privacy trade-offs, 50% worry that clouds lead to data breaches, and 23% fear that cloud computing will weaken corporate security.

As well as the above mentioned strategy roadmaps and security assessments IBM also introduces new hosted services for security event and log management and vulnerability management. 

According to IBM, underlying security mechanisms can verify the integrity and correct configuration of infrastructure components, such as hypervisors, to help prevent low-level attacks such as spoofing or deceiving computer systems or other computer users by hiding or imitating one’s internet identity.
Some of those capabilities have been added to the IBM Smart Business Test and Development cloud, as well as to IBM Systems Director VMControl.

Read more on this story on www.computerweekly.com.
 

The Yorkshire based telemarketing and IT company, Europlus Direct (part of the TEMA Group), will expand its collaboration with IBM in Africa to include Mozambique, Senegal, Angola, Madagascar and Mauritania. Europlus Direct will provide IBM spare parts for local IBM business partners and promote IBM Maintenance Services through the business partners.

The extension of the already successful partnership with IBM will result in Europlus Direct opening new offices in Mozambique, Senegal and Angola by the beginning of 2011. The business in Madagascar and Mauritania will be run through the existing operation in Mauritius and Mauritania will be run through the office in Senegal.

CEO of Europlus Direct, Jim Hart, is very pleased about the expansion of the business:
“We are already successfully supplying local Mauritian business partners with IBM spare parts and promoting IBM Maintenance Services. We are very pleased, that we will now be able to offer the same services to business partners in another five African countries.”

Europlus Direct also runs an operation in South Africa, promoting IBM Maintenance Services to South African IBM business partners.

About Europlus Direct and The TEMA Group
Europlus Direct is based in Leeds in the UK and has offices in Australia, Spain, South Africa and Mauritius. We have over five years experience as a leading outsourced sales and marketing operation for IBM Global Services, supplying IBM Maintenance to IBM business partners, distributors and end-users across the globe. Europlus Direct is part of the TEMA Group. TEMA offers four essential globalisation services to UK businesses that are looking to expand their business geographically into European and Global markets. The four services include; Multilingual Telemarketing, Translation, Multilingual Recruitment and Multilingual Website Building.
 

Independent Research Firm Predicts IBM Will Maintain Position through 2020

ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Forrester Research, Inc. has ranked the company as the top information technology services provider in 2010, noting that Big Blue is projected to maintain the top position through the year 2020.
“The Coming Upheaval in Tech Services”, published by Forrester Research in July 2010 focused on upcoming changes in the technology services market and ranked the top 10 service providers for 2010 by revenue. The report also predicted which firms will rank in the top 10 in 2020, forecasting that new competitors will emerge as others fade or consolidate.
The dynamics, economics and competitive landscape of information technology services will “dramatically change” over the next three to four years, according to Forrester Research. The restructuring economy, innovation moving toward the edge of the enterprise, redefining of buying and governance dynamics in accounts, and the normalization of technology provided “as-a-service” were all named as factors that will contribute to this massive transformation.
“IBM is uniquely able to address the evolving demands of today’s business,” said Liz Smith, General Manager, IBM Global Offering Management and Development. “We collaborate across IBM — using innovations from our software, hardware, consulting and research teams — to deliver highly integrated, purpose-built solutions, designed to help organizations address their most significant challenges and operate smarter.”