Posted on: 19th December 2024, by Tracey Wright
I know I say this every year, but the last 12 months has passed by in a serious hurry! I guess it’s no wonder time has sped up with so much going on.
Even without all the external distractions of elections, budgets, international conflict and weather-related disasters, our own corner of the universe has been fairly action packed too.
Magrathea have recruited four new members to our team this year, partly due to increasing workload and wanting more focus on marketing and business development, but also due to opening up development opportunities for our team. By encouraging our existing loyal team members to step into different or more demanding roles we are hopefully ensuring we keep them engaged and happy here for longer but also continue to benefit from their experience while they train up those coming along behind them.
With resilience always top of our mind it’s just as important we have the right people coming through to support the business in the longer term as it is to keep the network strong and secure. We have taken big steps this year in the right direction to secure more human resilience within the business.
As usual, our regulator has kept us busy, and they too are very focussed around resilience and security as well as scams and fraud.
Ofcom published new guidance this year on ‘know your customer’ checks, putting much greater emphasis on everyone in the value chain properly understanding who they are providing services to. They also carried out a consultation and subsequently ruled that calls from overseas with a UK presentation number must be blocked, with a few exceptions.
With that loophole filled, the focus will shift to calls with a mobile CLI and we will no doubt see more enforcement action as Ofcom attempt to make a real impact in this problematic area.
Ofcom also published updated security and resilience guidance to complement the new Telecoms Security Act. This guidance reflects the ever-increasing reliance on the UK communications network and the need to keep it working and providing key services to consumers and businesses alike. The very fact that datacentres have now achieved critical infrastructure status demonstrates that the government and Ofcom appreciate the importance of our industry.
And of course, my brief summary of the year wouldn’t be complete without a mention of One Touch Switching! After much delay the method of switching residential customers finally launched in September with mixed results. Plans to integrate business switching are fully underway and are likely to be even more controversial with installations generally being much more complicated.
My personal view is that we are still failing to address the true source of the problem, particularly when it comes to porting, but perhaps more on that next year!
We have been proud sponsors of a number of events this year, including the Cavell Summit which was a first for us. With a new marketing person on the team, we hope to do a few more new things in the years ahead and help keep everyone updated with what we can offer. Having once again received feedback in our client survey that many clients are unaware of all the extra tools and services we can offer, improving on this is a priority for 2025.
As you will know, Magrathea have always been dedicated members of Comms Council UK too and this year has been particularly exciting with me being asked to host panels at many key industry events. A personal challenge considering my dislike of public speaking! But as the Women in Telecoms group started taking off it became clear I couldn’t juggle all of my responsibilities, so I was delighted when two of the group, Lauren and Natalie, stepped up take on leading that particular bit of work. Under their guidance the WIT group continues to go from strength to strength and is a source of great pride for me.
I can’t confirm specifics yet until it’s official but there is some other CCUK related news coming soon and ensuring I remain busy for the coming year!
On balance I would say 2024 has been kind to us at Magrathea, we have achieved much of what we set out to do and managed to grow the business and the team. As always, we have had some challenges along the way but plenty of fun and personal successes for the team too. We are preparing for another demanding year but feel extremely positive about all the things we are going to achieve together.
So that just leaves me to say a big thank you to all of our clients, suppliers, partners and of course our brilliant team. Wishing each of you a very happy festive season and a successful and healthy new year.