British owned IT Distributor Westcoast Limited have partnered with Microsoft to bring customers a unique World Cup incentive campaign that will be supporting local African charity Kick4Life.

Westcoast and Microsoft have used their marketing funds to make a donation to African Children’s charity, Kick4Life in exchange for a World Cup 2010 package and a unique experience where winning customers will be able to engage with the deprived children of Lesotho and see the charity in action.

Westcoast Marketing Director, Alex Tatham said ‘Kick4Life are providing us with a package greater than those on offer from the events specialists and all the profits are going back to the charity to support their excellent work. The Passion campaign is a great vehicle to communicate our core company values”.

This World Cup 2010 customer incentive is one element of the Westcoast and Microsoft Passion Campaign (www.westcoast.co.uk/passion) that encourages customer behaviour as well as incremental sales for Westcoast and Microsoft.

Westcoast will be taking 10 winning customers to South Africa for a 6 day trip that includes:

• A Sightseeing tour of Johannesburg
• A World Cup group game at Soccer City in Johannesburg.
• A 5* luxury safari tour at Springbok Lodge
• Finished with a Westcoast sponsored event through Kick 4 Life, educating the children of one of the World’s heaviest affected HIV countries on how to avoid HIV infection. The event finishes with critical life skills education in a football environment.

Microsoft Account Manager, Guy Harvey said “It is great to see Microsoft and Westcoast marketing funding spent in such a way. We are still offering our reseller partners an unforgettable experience. Football, Safari, History and the chance to see and make a difference to children that have suffered terrible loss through HIV. The opportunity to provide a World Cup trip with a significant donation to such a worthy charity was unmissable and already our customer reaction to this offer has been unprecedented”.

Westcoast’s marketing team are heavily promoting the Westcoast and Microsoft Passion Campaign to gain maximum coverage for Kick4Life. Other vehicles of the campaign include the creation of an AllAboutPassion twitter page, print and digital advertising and an all encompassing micro site.
The incentive will run till the end of April and a live draw will be streamed on the internet on the 3rd of May 2010.

Westcoast customers can join the campaign and show their support at www.Westcoast.co.uk/passion

Against strong competition, market-making, value-added distributor Wick Hill has won Channel Partner of the Year for the fourth year running at the Network Computing awards. The company was also a finalist in the Company of the Year category.

Wick Hill vendors, too, were winners with WatchGuard taking Hardware Product of the Year for its SSL 100 appliance and CRYPTOCard becoming Managed Service Provider of the Year.

Other Wick Hill suppliers, including Check Point, Barracuda Networks, LogLogic, M86 Security and Upsite Technologies, were finalists in a number of categories.

Ian Kilpatrick, chairman Wick Hill Group, commented: “There was intense competition for both the Channel Partner of the Year award and the Company of the Year award, so we are proud and delighted that our channel partners have voted for us and we would like to thank them for their support.

“The Channel Partner of the Year award recognises the great efforts we have made as a team to help our partners grow during what has been a very difficult recession, offering them a variety of services such as marketing programmes, flexible credit, technical and sales consultancy support, an innovative lead management system and free training.

“It is also, of course, a reflection of the considerable success that many of our channel partners have achieved themselves in growing their businesses, despite the serious downturn. Our own considerable sales growth reflects our partners’ achievements.

“Seen alongside the CRN and Microscope Security Distributor of the Year awards won recently, and the awards we have won from our vendors this year, the Network Computing award shows we are succeeding in our goal of delivering excellence to both our vendor and reseller partners. We remain totally committed to providing the solutions, services and support that our resellers want.

“The multiple finalist nominations for our focussed portfolio of suppliers, alongside the victories of WatchGuard and CRYPTOCard, also reflect the outstanding quality of our vendors, who are continuing to grow at well above industry-average rates.”

 Telephonetics PLC, the speech automation and data integration specialist, announces today the signing of an extension to its multi-million pound contract with Odeon-UCI Cinemas for provision of its MovieLINE® automatic speech recognition (ASR) film information and ticket booking service to all of Odeon’s 105 UK cinema sites as well as its UCI sites in Eire.

In addition to the contract extension, Telephonetics will add support for the Admit-1 ticketing system, commonly used in Eire, and this will enable Odeon in association with Entertainment Enterprises to bring all of its managed sites in Eire on to the service. The Admit-1 development has been fully integrated into the MovieLINE® Agent Interface allowing agents at Odeon’s international contact centre to seamlessly handle calls from all the UK and Eire cinemas regardless of the different back-end ticketing infrastructures. The advanced “screen-pops” keep agent call durations to a minimum and save callers having to repeat themselves.

Roger Harris, Chief Operating Officer of Odeon-UCI, commented: “The extension and expansion of this important contract will provide a greater number of guests the opportunity to book seats in advance given the strength of the film release schedule and the growing popularity of 3D and IMAX films.”

Anthony McKay, CEO of Telephonetics PLC, commented: “We are delighted to continue our long-term relationship with Odeon-UCI Cinemas and this agreement extends our partnership to over twenty years. I believe it is testament both to MovieLINE’s advanced functionality and the high level of customer service we provide. Our continued development of services for cinema operators, including our contact centre services, places us in an excellent position to further develop our market leading position in the UK and abroad.”

South Ayrshire Council has chosen ReadSoft, a leading global provider of software solutions for Document Automation, to centralise and streamline its accounts payable department.

As part of its commitment to becoming the most improved local authority in Scotland by 2011, South Ayrshire Council will centralise its accounts payable function, speed up invoice processing and further improve business efficiency by using ReadSoft DOCUMENTS to help achieve this goal.

The Council currently processes a total of 150,000 invoices annually from over 7,000 suppliers and relies on around 130 accounts payable sections to manually input every invoice.

Using the ReadSoft solution, South Ayrshire Council will electronically capture every invoice on the day it arrives, transferring it onto their Oracle E-Business Suite immediately.

ReadSoft DOCUMENTS for Invoices will then automatically validate those invoices, reducing the time taken for approval and speeding up payment, meeting a key objective of the Council’s modernisation and improvement agenda.

Councillor Robin Reid, Portfolio Holder for Resource and Performance said: “The Council is on an improvement journey and we are actively working towards achieving efficiencies in our procedures and operation while still delivering high quality and enhanced services”.

Jeff Atkinson, the Council’s Chief Systems & Development Officer commented: “The fact that ReadSoft DOCUMENTS is specifically designed to handle electronic invoices, can capture supplier invoices from the outset and seamlessly integrates with our Oracle estate really appealed to us”.

Simon Shorthose, Managing Director, ReadSoft said: “Sharing essential services such as accounts is one of the major ways that the UK’s 437 councils can streamline operations”.

“The short term benefits are immediately evident with increased efficiency and productivity but in the longer term an automated system will speed up and improve the accuracy of annual accounting audits, making a usually arduous procedure pain free.”

“An automated invoicing system will also help the Council adhere to the Scottish Government’s payment targets for SMEs. By instantly uploading all invoices onto the Oracle E-Business Suite, South Ayrshire can avoid late payments to its SME suppliers, helping them to better weather the current economic climate.”

The Monster Employment Index UK rose by 12 percent in February, and improved six percent from a year ago, reflecting continued acceleration in its long-term growth trend to suggest a continued firming in underlying labour demand conditions. The overall level of online job availability in February was higher than any point since December 2008.

In addition to the month-on-month growth registered by the IT sector, the production and transportation sectors displayed positive annual improvements, signalling an upswing in demand trends for manufacturing and commerce related workers and thereby lending some evidence that business activity is reviving. Sales and arts also showed positive online recruitment growth trends.

The Monster Employment Index Europe is a monthly analysis of millions of online job opportunities culled from a large, representative selection of corporate career sites and job boards across the European Union, including Monster.co.uk.

Monster Employment Index UK findings for the past 13 months are as follows:

“The February Index findings show that UK online job recruitment activity continues to trend higher, with the annual growth rate hitting six percent,” commented Julian Acquari, Managing Director at Monster UK and Ireland. “However, despite the Index’s emergence from the low points of 2009, the job market remains challenging in this fragile economy.”

Majority of sectors register rise in online recruitment, IT shows best growth
The vast majority of industry sectors registered a rise in online recruitment activity between January and February, with 11 sectors achieving positive annual growth.

The IT sector registered the fastest monthly growth, adding 15 points (19 percent). Year-on-year the sector has gained eight percent, indicating a much improved job market for professionals in the computer field relative to the market at the beginning of 2009.

Arts, entertainment, sports, leisure registered a 14 point (11 percent) increase in the February Index, rising for a fourth consecutive month. Sales also registered an upturn.

In contrast to IT, other highly technical sectors, including research and development; and engineering, have annual declines of 26 percent and 24 percent respectively, making them the poorest trending of all the sectors in the Index.

Healthcare, social work edged down in the February Index, but the decline is somewhat aligned with seasonal patterns for this time of year. Public sector, defence, community logged an unseasonably steep monthly decline, with current online demand slightly below its year-ago level.

Clerical support workers group continues to register upturn
Online job demand strengthened in eight of the nine occupational groups monitored by the Index in February. Professionals saw the largest monthly rise in opportunities, jumping 15 points (15 percent). The annual pace of decline flattened from 14 percent in January to 4 percent in February, but remains weaker than the overall national trend.

Clerical support workers extended an upward trend in the Index, as online demand for back-office workers expanded for a seventh consecutive month. The improvement in job availability was unmatched by any other occupational group.

Growth observed in all regions
All UK regions registered a rise in online job availability between January and February. Northern England displayed the highest rate of increase in February, rising 19 points (15 percent) in February. Year-on-year the region is up nine percent in the Index.

Northern Ireland also continued on a track of expansion, adding 13 points in February, and rising 19 percent above its year-ago level. London and Wales were the top growth regions in the Index year-on-year; the only regions to fall below their February 2009 levels were East Anglia and the South East, indicating that those local climates for job creation are still challenging.

Best performing sectors

Industry sectors showing the greatest rate of increase in online job availability included:

Month-on-month

Year-on-year

Monster Employment Index UK findings across industry sectors for the past 13 months are as follows:

Monster Employment Index UK findings across occupational categories for the past 13 months are as follows:

Monster Employment Index UK findings across the regions for the past 13 months are as follows:

Monster Employment Index UK for March will be released on April 13, 2010.