Apple Inc is reported to be offering free repairs / replacements for problems relating to screen touch issues on the iPhone X and data loss and storage drive failures in 13-inch MacBook Pro computers.

iPhone X Problems

The offer of free fixes in the iPhone X handset, which was only released last November and was superseded by the iPhone XS (and XR) in September, relate to user complaints that that their phones were making unprompted, random clicking noises, or simply stopped responding. Apple has put the problems of intermittently not responding / reacting when it wasn’t touched down to problems with a display module component on the £999 iPhone X handset.  As such, Apple has said that customers are entitled to a free screen replacement, and that any customers who have already paid for the replacement can have refund.

MacBook Pro Problems

In the case of 13-inch MacBook Pro computers sold between June 2017 and June 2018, Apple has acknowledged that there was a problem with a limited number of 128GB and 256GB solid-state drives which may have led to data loss and failure of those storage drives.  Apple has said on its website that Apple or an Apple Authorised Service Provider (AASP) will service any affected drives, free of charge, that Apple recommends having any affected drives serviced as soon as possible, and that Apple will send an email to customers who registered their device with the company.   More information about this issue can be found here: https://www.apple.com/support/13-inch-macbook-pro-solid-state-drive-service-program/

Keyboard Replacements Back In June

It was only back in June this year that Apple offered free repairs or replacements for the butterfly keyboard on its MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops after some users complained about letters or characters repeating unexpectedly, letters or characters not appearing, and keys feeling ‘sticky’ or not responding in a consistent manner.

Battery Woes

You may also remember the publicity Back in 2017 when Apple apologised for intentionally slowing down older iPhones (Phone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone SE and iPhone 7 models), perhaps with a view to encouraging upgrades.  Also, Apple made the news earlier this year when leaking vapours from damaged iPad batteries relating to small-scale problems with the iPhone battery replacement programme caused some stores to be temporarily evacuated.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Apple’s iPhone X only lasted a year, even though it was replaced by a handset that wasn’t too different from it (on the surface). At least only a sample of one-year’s-worth of buyers are likely to need the replacement / repair service.  It’s good that Apple is offering the repair / replacement for what is a relatively expensive product for many people, and this may go some way to maintaining generally positive perceptions of (and trust in) Apple and help to re-build trust after the battery-slowing admission.  Similarly, offering to repair the problems with some 13-inch MacBook Pros sends a positive message that will benefit Apple as well as those affected.  The tech giant is also likely to be conscious that it is about to re-introduce old favourites like the iPad Pro and Mac Book with new features and higher prices to match, so eliminating problems and clearing the way with some goodwill and good publicity can’t be a bad thing.

The results of a new survey by consumer watchdog ‘Which?’ has revealed the UK’s best and worst online retailers, according to the experiences of 10,000 Which? members over 6 months.

Homebase, Red Face…In a Bad Place

Unfortunately for Homebase, which is currently undergoing a restructuring that will involve 42 store closures, their online store was ranked lowest with a score of 55%.  The low score was mainly due to users saying that navigation was difficult and that the online shop didn’t always provide up-to-date information.

Near The Bottom

Other companies just ahead of Homebase, but still near the bottom of the online retail pile according to the survey were Sports Direct and Dorothy Perkins with 61%, DIY retail giant B&Q with 62%, WHSmith.co.uk with 63%, and JDSports.co.uk also with 63%.

Liz Earle Top

At the other end of the scale, Liz Earle’s online store was voted top with an impressive 94% satisfaction rating, closely followed by RicherSounds.com, Rohan.co.uk, SeasaltCornwall.co.uk, and WexPhotoVideo.com, all with 93%.

Best Big Retailers

The best of the big retailers to make it into the top 10 online favourites were JohnLewis.com in sixth place with a 90% satisfaction score and Dyson.co.uk just behind in seventh place with 89%.

The full tables of best and worst retailers can only be viewed online at the Which? website by Which? members, although many media outlets have published the key elements of the results.

Factors

The factors that the numerous online shops were rated on were based on the experience of Which? members as regards things like ease of navigation and other experiences of the online shop itself such as price, product range, deliveries, quality and the returns process.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

ONS figures show that online sales accounted for 17.4% of all retailing in the first quarter of this year, and as such it is a vital component in modern retail success stories. Online shopping offers consumers convenience, speed, a wider choice of products than the physical store, and often better prices, particularly when you factor in the money saved by not paying for travel to the store. There is also a general perception that goods are cheaper online, even if that’s not always the case.  With Black Friday and Christmas shopping online ahead, these results are significant for both the retailers and the consumers. For retailers that had low scores, the results (not the publicity surrounding the results) may even be a good thing in helping them to make changes to their online stores that could increase sales.

The results and customer satisfaction tables from this survey serve to illustrate that being able to offer personal service, quality items, being able to give customers exactly what they want, and offering a good delivery service are very important, and these are areas where smaller, specialised retailers can often win.

The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) has begun a consultation about the introduction of new BDSQs [Basic Digital Skills Qualifications] that are designed to improve the digital skills of adults across England.

What’s the Problem?

Research by UK domain name company Nominet, for example, has shown that less than half of adults have the digital skills needed to easily complete a number of common tech tasks, with only 42% of adults being able to easily complete digital tasks such as downloading apps, uploading videos or using online maps. The same research from October 2017 showed that:

• Older people struggled more with their digital skills
• Only 46% of those born between 1965 and 1980 (Generation X) have appropriate digital skills.
• 64% of millennials could be described as “digitally savvy”.
• Surprisingly, only 34% of ‘digital natives’ Generation Z (those born from 1997 and onward) could be considered “digitally savvy”.

The results of this and similar research indicate that those without a good basic digital skill level could lose money in savings from online shopping, could miss out on work and other important opportunities, and could be prevented from fully participating in society. Also, with a digital skills gap costing the UK economy approximately £63bn a year, and after Brexit, tech skills are going to become an even more important advantage.

The New Qualifications

The latest consultation about the proposed new BDSQs [Basic Digital Skills Qualifications] is part of the government’s investment in increasing the level of digital skills in adults throughout the country, and it has been reported that Department for Education (DfE) is aiming to introduce a national entitlement to basic digital skills by 2020.

The qualifications, which will be ‘Beginner’ level for those with no previous digital / Internet experience, and ‘Essential’ for adults with some experience, will cover what the DfE believes to be the five key skill areas which are handling information, creating and editing digital content, communication, transacting, and being safe and responsible online.

Delivery of the Qualifications

The delivery of the training for BDSQs will be undertaken by organisations or providers selected by the DfE, and students will be expected to have received a minimum of 45 guided learning hours.

Providers will have some flexibility in designing and delivering the qualifications, but will be required to follow existing naming conventions to make employers and learners more comfortable with the qualifications’ delivery.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The UK, and specifically England in this case, has been suffering from an IT / digital skills gap for several years now. This has affected the competitiveness of UK businesses and poses a major challenge to the UK government’s vision of making the UK global technology centre. A further digital skills drain and drought caused by Brexit fears, and an apparent lack of people graduating from colleges and universities with the right digital skills has added to the need for the government to do something now to increase the home-grown digital skill level among adults in England.

These new qualifications should ultimately help businesses and the wider economy by helping more adults to take a greater part in a society that relies more on digital communications and transactions, improve their employment prospects, and give employers more opportunities and choice in getting the skills into their businesses that they need.

NatWest bank is reported to be testing a new app-based banking platform called ‘Mettle’ that combines banking with other business services, and is specifically aimed at the needs of SMEs.

Mettle – Independent From NatWest Bank

Mettle is the first standalone banking app to be launched by one of the UK’s big retail banking brands, and is described by Mettle as a “forward-looking business current account”.

The new SME-focused banking platform is to be run independently from NatWest, is not a bank but operates as an agent under an e-money licence held by PrePay Solutions, and is being developed in partnership with 11:FS and Capco.

The pilot of the new mobile-app based Mettle service has been rolled out to between 100 and 150 existing and new customers, and their feedback will be taken into account before a general roll-out to the public.

Why?

According to Alison Rose, CEO of commercial and private banking at NatWest, the premise for the Mettle banking app is that it will provide customers with data they can use to make business decisions and to let “customers focus on forward-looking finances, combining technology and proactive insights so that SMEs can make better decisions and run their businesses more successfully”.

Other reasons for introducing Mettle are that:

• Greater awareness of and trust in fintech (financial technology) in the market place, and rapidly advancing technology and a trend towards ‘mobile everything’ mean that traditional banks need to adapt to more customer-focused services, and feel that they can now diversify their offerings.
• Large banks such as NatWest need to head-off the threat of fast-growing challenger banks such as Monzo, Starling and Revolut.

About Mettle

Apart from the obvious convenience aspect of being able to use a mobile banking app, some of the key features that could make Mettle popular among SMEs are:

• The account is free and fast to open, and can be operated just using a mobile app and a debit card.
• Receipts can be added to customer transactions and expenses can be tracked straight from the phone.
• Customers can lock and unlock their card from their phone with a single tap.
• It offers other business tools to help SMEs stay on top of a current account.
• It offers SMEs a maximum balance of £50,000 and a maximum pay out of £10,000.
• Mettle has the backing of a big banking brand.

Limitations (many of which may be temporary due to it being at the pilot stage) include that Mettle:

• Offers no overdrafts or interest.
• Limits cash withdrawals to £500 a day and £4,000 a month.
• Is currently by invitation only (after interest has been registered online).

How To Open A Mettle Account

At the moment, opening a Mettle account involves going to www.mettle.co.uk, clicking on “register your interest” and entering your email when prompted. After this, Mettle will email you a list of questions to understand the nature of your business, and will let you know whether you can be part of the first group of users with early access.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

If you’re an SME, this kind of account could provide a much faster and more convenient way of operating and staying on top of your finances, and it has been designed specifically with the needs of SMEs in mind. It also offers other helpful business insights that a simple bank current account doesn’t and, therefore, could help SME business decision-making.

For the big banks, app-based systems enable them to keep up with consumer trends and needs, aid customer retention and with the attraction of new customers, and fight-off competition from the other big banks and fast-growing challenger banks.

At its conference in Barcelona, VMware (tech subsidiary of Dell Technologies and CO2 emission-reducing evangelist) has announced that it has introduced a beta version of blockchain-as-a-service.

Part of VMware Tools

According to VMware, the new blockchain-as-a-service product will be integrated into existing VMware tools and will provide permissioned blockchain for enterprise consortiums, which will be more secure than public blockchains.

What Is Blockchain?

Blockchain, the open-source, free technology behind crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, is an incorruptible peer-to-peer network (a kind of ledger) that allows multiple parties to transfer value in a secure and transparent way. Blockchain’s Co-Founder Nic Carey describes blockchain as being like “a big spreadsheet in the cloud that anyone can use, but no one can erase or modify”.

Why Blockchain-as-a-Service?

The BaaS market is likely to take off in a much bigger way because it offers enterprises the chance to deploy distributed ledgers without the cost or risk of deploying it in-house, and without needing to find in-house developers.

VMware has highlighted a need by financial customers to use a version of blockchain in a commercial environment that is secure and can be audited, and the way in which a blockchain service could be a way for organisations to run distributed ledgers efficiently.

VMware believes that the decentralised trust, enterprise-grade scalability, reliability, security and manageability, with the ability to deploy nodes across multiple cloud environments, (including on-premise) and a single management interface with enterprise monitoring and auditing tools will make its blockchain-as-a-service product attractive to businesses.

Why Environmentally Responsible?

VMware’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has described the computational complexity of blockchain as being an “environmental crisis”, and the company is keen to point out that the virtualisation and server consolidation that VMware offers has reduced hundreds of tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Not The Only One

VMware is certainly not the only company in the race to get a blockchain-as-a-service product out to businesses. Microsoft was one of the first software vendors to offer BaaS on its Azure cloud platform as far back as 2015, and tech commentators have noted that Microsoft and many of the other big tech companies, including Amazon and Oracle, are now looking to make the most of the growing blockchain as a service (BaaS) market.

Real-World Blockchain Examples

The benefits of blockchain technology are already being in enjoyed by many companies, and some of the ways that it is currently being deployed include:

• Walmart’s pilots where the time it takes to trace a food item from shop to farm was reduced, through the use of blockchain, from 7 days to just 2.2 seconds.
• A pilot project between car-maker BMW and start-up Circulor with a view to eliminating battery minerals produced using child labour. In that project, blockchain is being used to help provide a way to prove that artisanal miners are not using child labour in their cobalt mining activities.
• Using the data on a blockchain ledger to record the temperature of sensitive medicines being transported from manufacturer to hospital in hot climates. The ‘incorruptible’ aspect of the blockchain data gives a clear record of care and responsibility along the whole supply chain.
• Using an IBM-based blockchain ledger to record data about wine certification, ownership and storage history. This has helped to combat fraud in the industry and has provided provenance and re-assurance to buyers.
• Shipping Company Maersk using a blockchain-based system for tracking consignments that addresses visibility and efficiency i.e. digitising a formerly paper-based process that involved multiple interactions.
• Start-up company ‘Electron’ building a blockchain-based system for sharing information between those involved in supplying energy which could speed up and simplify the supplier switching process. It may also be used for smart grid processes, such as local load-balancing of supply and demand.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

VMware is one of many big tech names that now want to make the most of a BaaS market, although VMware’s (currently beta) offering is targeted at enterprises in regulated industries. VMware has plenty of powerful support in this venture in the shape of partnering with Dell Technologies, Deloitte and WWT as well as having the advantage of IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions supporting VMware Blockchain.

Blockchain is growing in popularity as companies are able to see real examples of how it can be used save time and costs, provide fast and secure traceability, visibility and efficiency, and provide a real competitive advantage.