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Charles Bligh TalkTalk Business me / Company / Years in IT / Areas of expertise? I have been the Managing Director at TalkTalk Business since 2011 and have been in the IT industry for 22 years, starting at IBM as an Engineer. From there I held a number of senior project management, sales and senior leadership roles in professional services and product related businesses. I have worked across Asia for 4 years (based in Tokyo) and have spent the last 5 years in the UK. What has been your favourite project so far? This one! Joining TalkTalk Business and working over the past two years to further improve the customer experience has been both fulfilling and rewarding, but the best is yet to come. I like to say TalkTalk Business is the best kept secret in the industry. We are just at the beginning. What tech were you involved with ten years ago? Ten years ago, back in early 2000, I was working with companies to help them view the web as a revenue generating opportunity, not just to reduce costs. It all sounds incredibly naive now when you think about how far we’ve come. What tech do you expect to be using in ten years' time? In ten years’ time I would expect to be using, flexible (bendable) touch screen devices integrated into all aspects of my life, at home, on the move and at work. Who's your tech hero? My tech hero is Gordon Moore, the man who came up with Moore Law, which says that everything doubles in performance every two years. The law challenges us to drive innovation while relying on the idea that everything will be smaller, faster and more connected. Who's your tech villain? This is a tough one, I am not sure I would single out one person. I’ve always been a very ambitious person, so when it comes to technology, I think it would have to be any kind of person who says it can’t be done. What's your favourite technology ever made? Which do you use most? The web is my favourite technology and my favourite gadget is my tablet (iPad!), which I use for all kinds of things, to stream movies, surf the web and listen to music. What is your budget outlook going forward? Flat? Growing? Substantial growth! We’ve had a strong first quarter of our financial year and we’re seeing increased demand for our data and carrier services. Apart from your own, which company do you admire most and why? Companies that provide excellent customer service on a sustained basis. At TalkTalk Business we put good customer service at the heart of everything we do, so I value that trait when I see it in other organisations. Barclays, who won an award for Best Customer Experience Centre of the Year last year, is a great example. What’s the greatest challenge for an IT company/department today? One of the greatest challenges the technology industry is facing today is managing the fast growth of mobility and how to harness it in the workplace. The need for mobility to drive business objectives, now combined with the added device-driven dimension of BYOD, presents quite a network and security challenge for businesses of all sizes. To Cloud or not to Cloud? For me, the answer is undoubtedly to Cloud. But which cloud? Your own private or public or hybrid? Businesses are moving into a world where the cloud is used for almost all enterprise applications. The cloud allows companies to use a shared environment, makes it easier to tap into common interest data and provides access to the computing power of hundreds of servers, without the expense. That isn’t to say working in the cloud doesn’t present its own challenges, but with the right technology choices, secure flexible network and ICT partners, they’re not insurmountable. What did you want to be when you were a child? It wasn’t what I wanted to be, but more of where I wanted to be. I wanted to live and work around the world.Name / Company / Years in IT / Areas of expertise? I have been the Managing Director at TalkTalk Business since 2011 and have been in the IT industry for 22 years, starting at IBM as an Engineer. From there I held a number of senior project management, sales and senior leadership roles in professional services and product related businesses. I have worked across Asia for 4 years (based in Tokyo) and have spent the last 5 years in the UK. What has been your favourite project so far? This one! Joining TalkTalk Business and working over the past two years to further improve the customer experience has been both fulfilling and rewarding, but the best is yet to come. I like to say TalkTalk Business is the best kept secret in the industry. We are just at the beginning. What tech were you involved with ten years ago? Ten years ago, back in early 2000, I was working with companies to help them view the web as a revenue generating opportunity, not just to reduce costs. It all sounds incredibly naive now when you think about how far we’ve come. What tech do you expect to be using in ten years' time? In ten years’ time I would expect to be using, flexible (bendable) touch screen devices integrated into all aspects of my life, at home, on the move and at work. Who's your tech hero? My tech hero is Gordon Moore, the man who came up with Moore Law, which says that everything doubles in performance every two years. The law challenges us to drive innovation while relying on the idea that everything will be smaller, faster and more connected. Who's your tech villain? This is a tough one, I am not sure I would single out one person. I’ve always been a very ambitious person, so when it comes to technology, I think it would have to be any kind of person who says it can’t be done. What's your favourite technology ever made? Which do you use most? The web is my favourite technology and my favourite gadget is my tablet (iPad!), which I use for all kinds of things, to stream movies, surf the web and listen to music. What is your budget outlook going forward? Flat? Growing? Substantial growth! We’ve had a strong first quarter of our financial year and we’re seeing increased demand for our data and carrier services. Apart from your own, which company do you admire most and why? Companies that provide excellent customer service on a sustained basis. At TalkTalk Business we put good customer service at the heart of everything we do, so I value that trait when I see it in other organisations. Barclays, who won an award for Best Customer Experience Centre of the Year last year, is a great example. What’s the greatest challenge for an IT company/department today? One of the greatest challenges the technology industry is facing today is managing the fast growth of mobility and how to harness it in the workplace. The need for mobility to drive business objectives, now combined with the added device-driven dimension of BYOD, presents quite a network and security challenge for businesses of all sizes. To Cloud or not to Cloud? For me, the answer is undoubtedly to Cloud. But which cloud? Your own private or public or hybrid? Businesses are moving into a world where the cloud is used for almost all enterprise applications. The cloud allows companies to use a shared environment, makes it easier to tap into common interest data and provides access to the computing power of hundreds of servers, without the expense. That isn’t to say working in the cloud doesn’t present its own challenges, but with the right technology choices, secure flexible network and ICT partners, they’re not insurmountable. What did you want to be when you were a child? It wasn’t what I wanted to be, but more of where I wanted to be. I wanted to live and work around the world.

Cloud

IT Life: Talking With TalkTalk’s Business Head

Charles Bligh loves the cloud, the web and his iPad

Firewall

IT Life: Keeping Up With The Cybercriminals

Protecting data is a company's toughest task, says Lior Arbel of Performanta

Big Data

IT Life: The Human Face of Big Data

Senior vice president of EMEA Field Operations at Informatica and MENSA member Charles Race talks about big data, Clive Sinclair and cricket

Open Source

IT Life: The Future Of Computing Is Distributed

Justin Sheehy, CTO at Basho, talks about NoSQL, Grace Hopper and why distributed computing tools shall inherit the earth

Security

IT Life: Secure your Data, Not Your Network!

When Neil Thacker changed to a data-centric security approach, people started to listen and he cut through complexity

Cloud

IT Life: The Road To Dell

Entrepreneurs and video conferencing get Tim Griffin excited

Workspace

IT Life: Supporting The Wonder Of The Internet

It takes a lot of nurture to keep Europe's Internet going, says RIPE NCC's Axel Pawlik

Cloud

IT Life: When Cutting Edge Becomes The Norm

We take things for granted that would have amazed us ten years ago, says spare-time pilot Raj Dutt

Federico de-la-Mora, Enterprise Sales Director at Tripwire

Security

IT Life: The Thrill Of Government Contracts

Government IT contracts are a peak experience for Federico de-la-Mora of TripWire

Cloud

IT Life: Taking Customers To The Clouds

Ian Finlay may have made the first international WAN. At Abiquo he just wants to meet customer needs without undue complexity

Matt Anderson Hibu Picture by Ashley Bingham.

Workspace

IT Life: Tech To Help SMEs Enter The Big Leagues

Hibu's Matt Anderson wants to even things so small businesses can take on the giants

Data Storage

IT Life: Security Down The Years

Craig Kensek has been doing security since the "I Love You" virus was doing the rounds

Advertising

IT Life: Ads On Automatic

Ruud Wanck wants to make media planning fully automated

Cloud

IT Life: Making Cloud The Norm

Kevin Beadon of Glasshouse Technologies wants to see IT departments act like service providers

Security

IT Life: Fighting Phishing For A Living

Ethical hacker Aaron Higbee now runs the technology at phishing awareness firm PhishMe

Cloud

IT Life: Open Source Is Open For Business

Steve Nice, CTO at Reconnix, tells TechWeekEurope that the future is in the cloud, as long as we can secure it

Big Data

IT Life: Big Data For The Travel Industry

Pascal Clement has a mission. He's building Big Data solutions for travel, at Amadeus

Cloud

IT Life: From Lego To The Cloud

Andrew Edison of AT&T honours the educational power of F1 - and coloured bricks

Green-IT

Why Matt Smith Isn’t On Facebook

The Doctor talks about milkshakes - and warns against Facebook's "surrogate" world

Mobility

IT Life: Intel’s Stuart Dommett

Working for Intel has provided some thrills for Stuart Dommett

Projects

IT Life: Stuart Dommett of Intel

Intel's Stuart Dommett has been doing IT since Charles and Diana were married. Ten years ago he was excited to find that laptops suddenly had Wi-fi built in.

Cloud

IT Life: Keeping It Relevant

The biggest IT challenge is keeping up with the pace of change, says Paul Marsh of Avanade

Cloud

IT Life: Marketing Tech For High-Tech Marketing

Jan Quant of ScreenDragon makes tech for marketing. To our surprise, he doesn't like Apple much

Cloud

IT Life: Providing Payments On Point

Jon Marchant, CIO of PayPoint, tells TechWeekEurope even financial institutions are no longer afraid of the cloud

Cloud

IT Life: Cloud e-Commerce On The Brain

Carl Theobald predicts one day we'll be doing our cloud computing through brain implants

Cloud

IT Life: Egnyte CEO – Beware The Cloud Hangover

Egnyte CEO Vineet Jain says we are cloud drunk now and the hangover is coming

Monsignor Francesco Braschi Biblioteca Ambrosiana

Workspace

IT Life: The Priest Who Digitised Leonardo

Monsignor Francesco Braschi put Leonardo online, at one of the world's oldest libraries

Cloud

IT Life: Citrix Tech Leader Loves The Cloud

Citrix VP of IT Martin Kelly really likes the cloud... and Apple

Regulation

IT Life: Stonesoft’s Politically-Minded Strategist

Governments need to solve the strategic issues before addressing technology, says Stonesoft's Jarno Limnell

Cloud

IT Life: The Network CTO Who Thinks Cloud Will Fade

Faster processors and network overhead will kill the cloud, says Martin Jakobsen of Updata