This year’s AIESEC OCP Career Days took place on the University of Lausanne’s campus on the 10^th of March. The event is organized by members of the Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (AIESEC), the world’s largest student run organization, and provides graduates of HEC, UNIL and EPFL the opportunity to meet with top Swiss and International employers across a range of industries. blue-infinity was present to welcome the bright and talented business graduates that HEC, EPFL and UNIL produce, who are interested in careers in consultancy.

Throughout the day we encountered enthusiastic graduates seeking roles in Business Development, Project Management and Business Analysis in fields ranging from IT/IS, to HR, Finance, Strategy and Marketing and Communications.

Recently ranked as the 4^th largest recruiter in Suisse romande, our stand at the event attracted a lot of interest from potential candidates, who have heard about the diverse and interesting projects on which we have worked, and continue to work on.

The event was a huge success, although we now face the mammoth task of following up with the large number of young, promising graduates eager to join blue-infinity!

Over the past six months, blue-infinity has felt the strong buzz of activity within our clients. And in order to support our customers’ projects in Asia, we have opened a branch office in Hong Kong this week. Already present in the Czech Republic and in neighbouring France, blue-infinity continues its growth, supported by 300 employees; of whom 200 work in Geneva. “In 2010, we achieved a turnover of 42 million Francs” reports Pierre Aebischer, one of blue-infinity’s three partners.  “We still see our growth in Switzerland”, he continues, “but, today, we need to look at opportunities for growth abroad. Asia is an interesting market for our clients within the banking and luxury sectors.”

blue-infinity hopes to benefit from a return to the decentralization of IT within enterprises. “The support required from providers such as ourselves therefore becomes even more crucial”, concludes Pierre Aebischer.

For more information, please contact Sonia Nair

Take a look at the articles on our expansion in the La Banque Suisse, ICT Journal, Le Temps, market.ch, PME Magazine and the Tribune de Genève - in French.

The LIFT11 Conference in Geneva is an annual event, bringing together a community of pioneers to explore the social implications of new technologies. The three-day conference offers insights and discussion into the current and emerging usage of digital technologies, with a big emphasis on online communities and social media.

blue-infinity’s VIP lunch at  LIFT11 was led by our special guest Tiffany St James, the former Head of Public Participation for the UK Government. Tiffany specialises in digital strategy and training, and helps organisations to better understand and engage with social media.

Tiffany St James with blue-infinity's Sonia Nair and Pierre Aebischer

Tiffany’s open discussion session with our audience of Swiss-based business leaders focused on how the way we communicate through media has changed, with a shift of power towards the consumer – thanks to social media. The importance of having a solid social media strategy was highlighted, with key elements being those of both engagement and monitoring. 

During the session, we showcased our new Social Media Lab and our cutting edge monitoring and engagement services. Our team of expert social media analysts monitor social networks on behalf of our clients, feeding back important intelligence through periodic reports. Depending on their brief, they may focus on quickly identifying and relaying the development of potential crisis, researching what consumers think of a brand (through sentiment analysis) or producing in depth reports to give a detailed view of how a brand is perceived throughout the social media landscape. Through our Lab, our social media analysts are also equipped to engage with consumers, building trust and strengthening relationships with a brand.

Contact us for more information on our pragmatic and cost-effective start-up package.

Read the ICTJournal’s coverage of blue-infinity’s service (article in French).

The ICT Journal and ALP ICT, the cluster of information technology and communication in Western Switzerland, have released a study on employment within the computer industry sector in Western Switzerland.

In this study, blue-infinity has been ranked as the 6^th largest IT employer in Suisse Romande, and also the 4^th largest recruiter. With 280 employees, and 30 new recruits in 2010, blue-infinity is a prime example of how Swiss IT companies are significant players in terms of job creation.

In addition to hiring the best people for our projects, blue-infinity also invests highly in training and personal development, with over 75 professional certifications being awarded to our consultants on average every year.

Additional facts from the article:

In 2010, the 297 companies that participated in this survey employed a total of 11,230 people. At the time, they had recruited 765 staff for 293 renewed positions, leaving a balance of 472 new positions – representing growth of 4.39%. It also appears that it is the Swiss firms (60% of total) who are the most active in terms of job creation.

These figures are encouraging, but they mask certain realities. First, the technology sector in Switzerland is aging: 60% of employees in the industry are over 40 years old, according to the latest study by Swiss ICT and the GRI. In addition, demand outweighs supply at all qualification levels. The growth of IT recruitment could be even greater if this sector that represents 5% (25 billion) of the Swiss GDP could find enough suitable personnel.

For more details, please click below to read the full article by Fabrice Delaye.

Please click here to read the full article (in French)

TOP 100 is a study conducted by the ICT Journal in conjunction with Alp ICT. This is the first year the study has been conducted, with the participation of nearly 300 IT companies from all sectors the Suisse romande Region.

Some facts (source ICT Journal):

• The participating companies employ a total of 11’000 staff
• They created 472 jobs between 2009 and 2010, averaging a growth of 4.39%
• 82% of the companies employ 50 or less staff

blue-infinity was ranked  3rd largest Swiss employer in Suisse romande, as well as the the 4th largest job-creator and the 6th largest employer in the IT sector in the Suisse romande region.

Our success is truly dependent on the talent of our employees. We believe in continuous training and reward our employees who gain certifications. We try to improve  and invent new mechanisms to foster a culture of innovation, entrepreneurship and team-spirit.

Pierre Aebischer, Managing Partner, also stated that blue-infinity’s ability to combine the talents of IT , User Experience Design and Marketing experts will continue to be a key differentiator to areas both business and consumer applications.

Jean-Claude Mermoud, Conseiller d'Etat, chef du Département de l'économie du canton de Vaud

Rodolphe Koller, Chief Editor, ICTjournal

2010 was the 6^th year of the prestigious Davey Awards, which recognise outstanding achievements in creativity worldwide.

The awards, sanctioned by the International Academy of Visual Arts attracted around 4000 entries this year, and the competition to win the much sought after gold award was fierce.

Thanks to the creative excellence, hard work and passion of our teams, b-i  was awarded three gold awards this year. Take a look at the winning projects below:

Mavic

Our website for Mavic won two gold awards in the Consumer Products and Sports categories. Using OpenSource and Flash technologies, our team created a flawlessly efficient and user-friendly website featuring product presentations and sections relating to athletes, equipment, servicing and other company information. The team also created a social media strategy and functionalities which will enable Mavic to connect and interact with its customers. Click on the screenshot below to visit the website.

Mavic Website by blue-infinity

Vacheron Constantin

Also the recipient of last year’s WebAward, our website for Vacheron Constantin received a gold award in the Consumer Products/Services category at this year’s Davey Awards. Constantly evolving, the site utilizes Flash, AS3, Flex, PHP, mySQL and XML technologies to offer such features as an interactive watch selector, which communicates the beauty of Vacheron’s watches, whilst retaining the all important aspect of functionality. Our creative team also produced  greetings cards and a separate rich media website for Quai de L’ile – which allows users to personalise their watch online.

The website for Vacheron Constantin can be accessed by clicking below.

Vacheron Constantin Website by blue-infinity

Previously on HQ News, we announced our partnership with nlyte Software, the sole provider of performance-based solutions for DCIM. We launched this partnership by holding the first ever DCIM event in Switzerland, which took place in Geneva on the 27th October.

The event attracted a great turn out, with speakers from blue-infinity, nlyte, and the Dutch Police Force demonstrating how DCIM solutions can help address the challenges associated with data centres.

Following introductions to both companies and an overview of this new partnership, nlyte introduced their DCIM solution and the new features in the latest version of the software – one of these is the introduction of Microsoft Reporting Services to comply with more standard environments. Whilst the software offers a very quick deploy solution which is easy to install, the existing IT environment needs to be discovered and understood – either through analysis (the more preferable option) or importing existing data.

Following this overview, Jan Wiersma of the Dutch Police Force presented his experiences in deploying the nlyte solution to manage the force’s 18 data centres, 6,000 servers and 1,500 plus applications. As a member of the global data centre community Pulse, Jan has excellent knowledge about what is needed within a data centre, along with the latest issues and solutions.

The Dutch Police Force has an extensive network of data centres and servers utilising both Windows and OpenVMS systems, and Jan explained how the nlyte solution was solving many management challenges by providing a 3D view of its data centres, modelling capabilities and lifecycle management. Jan relived the pre-install preparation that was needed, which consisted of auditing the existing set-up (floors, connections, existing servers etc.) in order to populate the nlyte database with accurate and reliable data. He also highlighted the importance of process – without which the solution could not have been sustained as the data would have been inaccurate.

In obtaining data centre reports, Jan stated his preference for using Crystal Reports. Jorge Pablo Gonzalez, practice manager at blue-infinity agrees, stating that ‘Crystal reports allow for reporting and statistical analysis of many data sources, which make them ideal for large scale deployments of nlyte’s software, such as in the case of the Dutch Police Force’.

The event was very well received, and offered foresight into how the recent partnership between blue-infinity and nlyte has provided us with the capacity to present to our clients an effective and efficient solution to data centre management.

As a major graduate employer, blue-infinity understands the levels of expertise and quality of work that newly-qualified students can offer our company and our clients

Since 1998, blue-infinity has been present on the EPFL Forum, and like every year, we were there to inform students of our commitment to recruiting graduates from a diverse range of study areas.

The blue-infinity stand at the EPFL Forum offered a unique opportunity for us to meet promising young students passionate about Branding, Technology and Integration – talent that can be nurtured to provide the best solutions to our clients.

Each year, blue-infinity hires between six to eight graduates from the prestigious EPFL School. In addition to having excelled in their studies, we are interested in students who show a genuine passion for their specialism, and who have the drive and personality to work within our teams both internally and amongst our clients.

Primarily recruited for positions in development and infrastructure management, we have found that graduates from EPFL are also excellent candidates for junior roles in IT Service Management, and for support and training roles.

Whilst the economic climate of 2010 has provided new challenges, we have had a great year, and as usual are seeking enthusiastic and talented students for positions in 2011.

We are looking forward to next year’s EPFL Forum, and the School can count on our attendance for many years to come. 

This year’s WebAwards, from the Web Marketing Association celebrate outstanding achievements in Website development and Internet marketing.

For our work with the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, we received an outstanding achievement award for their new website, which was part of an organisation-wide rebranding campaign.

The previous SIB website did not have a CMS. The client requirements were for internal, non-tech staff to be able to update and create web content. Joomla was the ideal choice as it is open source, flexible and makes for easy customisation.

 The site consists of news articles, scientific research papers, information about up-coming meetings and seminars and is a communication platform for everyone working at SIB

Below are some before and after shots of our work:

Before:

After:

Previously, our work with the SIB also received a Rebrand Award of Distinction. 

For a closer look, visit the SIB’s website

blue-infinity is now certified to provide Microsoft Dynamics CRM products and services.

With Dynamics, our Microsoft-based clients can enjoy the benefits of its easy integration with other Microsoft solutions such as Analysis Services, Reporting Services and Sharepoint. In addition, its integration with Outlook facilitates adoption of the tool by users, who can manage customer relationships through their email.

One added advantage is that Dynamics is available as an online solution, providing a cheaper alternative to housing the solution internally.

Stephane Huck, head of blue-infinity’s Microsoft Solution Practice adds,

As the number 1 ranked Microsoft Gold Partner in Switzerland, we are extremely happy to be officially certified by Microsoft to bring this solution to clients. Our Microsoft team works closely with our marketing experts to ensure that customer acquisition, engagement and retention objectives across all channels are correctly understood and implemented in order to maximize return from the tool.

The first edition of Soft-Shake took place in Geneva on 18.10.2010, and blue-infinity was present with a session in the Agile track: “Integration of User Centered Design in Agile Development of RIA“. (see previous post)

I attended a number of sessions as part of the Agile track, and found them both interesting and insightful.

After attending a presentation on an Agile project at Orange from the point of view of a Business Analyst, Julia Borkenhagen and I gave a presentation on how to integrate User Experience specialists in the Agile process. We also attended a session which looked at Scrum from a developer’s perspective.

I found the Lean engineering methodology presentation particularly interesting, and even if (in my opinion) it might have been outside of the scope of the Agile track, it was a very good overview of this “industrial” methodology.

Despite problems such as cancellations of sessions due to the strikes in France, the organisers did a great job, running some sessions over Skype, which proved to be rather efficient!

The topics where quite “hands-on”, since this seminar mainly targeted operational teams (developers, architects, business analysts, project managers) rather than executives, and considering that all the speakers were volunteers, the sessions were excellent!

See you at Soft-Shake 2011!

As a certified Microsoft Partner, blue-infinity can now offer SharePoint Deployment Planning Services (SDPS) to Microsoft customers wishing to use their Software Assurance Benefits.

SharePoint Deployment Planning Services provide your company with a collaborative consulting engagement based on leading practices from Microsoft. They allow customers to leverage best practices and plan for the effective deployment of SharePoint server 2010/2007. SPDS also lets customers plan their upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010, or plan their deployment of Sharepoint for internet sites.

The planning services offered by b-i will help you to optimize the effectiveness of SharePoint capabilities, lower the cost of deployment, and improve the productivity of your organization.

Depending on your level of Software Assurance coverage, we can offer engagements lasting over 1, 3, 5, 10 or 15 days.

For more information on SPDS, you can download the brochure from Microsoft by clicking here

blue-infinity partner Pierre Aebischer, and Engagement Manager Luc Maciejewski, recently gave an interview to Le Temps newspaper on Business Intelligence.

The article, published on the 27th September as part of a special insert called ‘Progiciels’, examines the role of Business Intelligence in today’s organisations.

The article (in French) can be viewed by clicking here.

nlyte signs blue-infinity as Regional Implementation Partner and launches partnership at Geneva event with Dutch Police spokesperson

LONDON, UK September 28, 2010 – Following the appointment of Grant Bilbow as Vice President of France and Southern Europe in July 2010, nlyte Software, the only provider of performance-based solutions for Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM), has signed blue-infinity (b-i) as the region’s main implementation partner.  blue-infinity will work alongside nlyte and BMC, nlyte’s global reseller partner to implement and integrate nlyte’s software across the region.

To launch the partnership, nlyte and b-i will be holding the first ever DCIM event in Switzerland supported by Jan Wiersma Data Centre Evangelist – Dutch Police Force and International Director: EMEA for Data Center Pulse (DCP).  The event, to be held in Geneva on Wednesday 27^th October, 2010, will outline how DCIM solutions can help data centre and facilities managers to address the challenges of rising energy costs, space limitations, data centre consolidations and migrations and actual or impending government legislation.   

“I am pleased to be able to attend the nlyte and b-i event to explain how the use of nlyte’s DCIM solution is helping the Dutch Police Force to manage its 18 data centres, 6,000 servers and 1,500 plus applications that support the day-to-day work of 55,000 employees” said Wiersma.  “It is vitally important that such a complex, public sector environment is managed in the most optimized environmentally friendly manner and nlyte’s DCIM software helps us to do this”.  

“The data centre market in Europe is very dynamic and we are seeing some clear trends emerging such as data centre consolidation and a move towards more efficient and responsible use of space and energy” commented Simon Webster, Vice President and General Manager of EMEA Operations.  “Adding blue-infinity to our network of partners and being supported by The Dutch Police Force to launch our partnership, will allow us to continue to grow and raise awareness of our European presence and to respond to the current and future needs of the market.”

According to Jorge Pablo Gonzalez, Practice Manager at blue-infinity “our partnership with nlyte is an ideal complement to blue-infinity as we will be able to help companies implement and integrate nlyte’s software within their data centres, and to offer support and advice throughout the complete project lifecycle; from project management and application roll-out to change management, internal audit support, training, reporting, process management and capacity planning”.

“We are looking forward to introducing the nlyte solution to our European customer base and to hearing the Dutch police story at our event in October” added Gonzalez.

Recently, Pierre Aebischer, Managing Partner at blue-infinity, spoke to jobtic.ch about the company and in particular its Human Resources. Click here to read the full article in French.

Nlyte, the specialist in data centre management, has just released the latest version of its award-winning performance management suite.

Nlyte version 5.3 has been created to address the need for comprehensive power management, to help control ever increasing energy costs, to enable greener data centres and to prepare for legislation mandates.

Version 5.3 offers the following benefits:

• End-to-end power mapping that enables data centre managers to make better power decisions, forecast costs more accurately and identify risks and opportunities.
• Automated power load algorithms that calculate impacts on power, with results delivered through detailed and customisable reports.
• Power modelling of data centre devices can now be included in the overall data centre power consumption plan.
• Critical power load risk management models the potential infrastructure and business impact of a power failure.
• PUE modelling and reduction – helping a data centre to achieve a PUE of 2.0 or lower.

For more information, please visit the Nlyte 5.3 DCIM website

blue-infinity has just become a Gold Partner in Oracle’s new OPN Specialised program, highlighting the company’s knowledge and experience in Oracle solutions.

Whilst we have been in partnership with Oracle for over 11 years, the new partnership program will help us to differentiate our offerings through specialisation and allow us to further develop our expertise in Oracle’s products and solutions.

blue-infinity is an integration partner for nlyte Software in Switzerland and EMEA.

nlyte Software, a a provider of performance-focused solutions for Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM), , has been recognized for its commitment to sustainable IT initiatives.  The US-headquartered company which has its European headquarters in London, has received the ‘One to Watch Product’ award at the prestigious Green IT Awards 2010.

Rising energy costs, space limitations, consolidations, migrations, and impending government legislation are the leading pressures for companies to seek comprehensive solutions for optimizing data centre power, cooling and space. Consequently, data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) solutions are becoming recognized as one of the best ways to help Data Center and Facilities Managers drive down both energy consumption and carbon emissions.

nlyte’s Data Center Performance Management (DCPM) suite achieves this by helping companies make more intelligent capacity planning decisions leading to the optimal placement of data centre assets and up to a 20% annual reduction in energy costs.

blue-infinity helps companies implement and integrate nlyte’s software, offering support and advice throughout the complete project lifecycle; from project management and application roll-out to change management, internal audit support, training, reporting, process management and capacity planning.

I asked Jorge Pablo Gonzalez about the strengths of nlyte’s solutions: “Today most companies use Excel and Visio to list their assets and map out their data centres.  The challenge lies in having reliable, accurate and up-to-date information to manage a data centre’s real-time infrastructure evolution.

nlyte’s solutions enable intelligent capacity planning, resulting in the most efficient use of power, cooling and space through the optimal placement of data center assets.  The web interface shows a detailed inventory of hardware assets and combines them 1:1 with logistical, environmental and electronic information to produce a 3D view of the data centre. The user friendly interface and simple navigation allows IT support to quickly retrieve critical information to identify causes of incidents. The efficiency of installation, upgrades and maintenance is ensured through its remote solutions. Ease of integration into existing ticketing systems is also a big plus.”

For more information, contact Juan-Manuel Garrote (juan-manuel.garrote at b-i.com)
or call him on +41 58 307 7022

For more information about nlyte visit www.nlyte.com