Energy Bill Relief Scheme for Business Customers

The government is to limit the wholesale costs for gas and electricity used for business energy customers.

The Energy Bill Relief Scheme will cap the wholesale costs that energy suppliers can incorporate into business rates but will not determine the final rate paid by business customers.

Providing government support for households is relatively straightforward because there is an existing retail price cap. The details of the business scheme were delayed because of challenges in devising it and the complexity of corporate tariffs. However, this move also allows for competition to remain in the market.

Get the best energy prices that are currently available. Contact us today to compare tariffs.

What does this mean for business energy rates?

  • Energy suppliers will be allowed to incorporate a capped wholesale price of 21.1p/kWh for electricity and 7.5p/kWh for gas.
  • Only applies to all energy contracts signed with suppliers since 1st April
  • It will apply to energy usage from 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023
  • After the six months, ministers will focus support on the “vulnerable” but are yet to define which industries

For comparison, wholesale costs for this winter are currently expected at around 60p/kWh for electricity and 18p/kWh for gas.

Wholesale charges are only part of what makes up the final costs on an energy bill. The capped wholesale prices will not be the final rates that businesses pay, so your kWh rate will not be 21.1p and 7.5p, respectively.

The charts below are dependent on what price is agreed in the contract, but wholesale (commodity) costs are around 78% of your cost on gas and 72% on electric.


What if you are out of contract now?

If you are out of contract, then the government has advised you to set up a contract now and you will automatically have the appropriate reductions to your energy price for the duration of the scheme applied.

With the scheme, those on out-of-contract rates will only receive a per-unit discount on energy costs, up to a maximum of the difference between the Supported Price and the average expected wholesale price over the period of the Scheme. This maximum discount is likely to be around 40.5p/kWh for electricity and 11.5p/kWh for gas, subject to wholesale market developments.

What if you’re about to sign a new fixed-price contract?

You should still sign a fixed-term contract now, as the relevant price reduction will be automatically applied to your bill by your supplier. If you are sitting on the out of contract rates you will still get support from the scheme but will likely be paying more than if you are in a contract.

What if you are up for renewal after the scheme?

Business energy rates are not forecast to see much relief in price until summer 2025. If you are up for renewal after the scheme ends, then you should get in touch, and we can assess the market and recommend the best time for forward-purchase your next energy contract.

What if you signed before 1st April?

If you signed before the 1st of April, you would have missed the cut-off and not be eligible for the support scheme.  This is because you would not have been exposed to the recent wholesale price rises, so you will not be eligible for support under the scheme.

Will I have to apply for the discount?

No, the suppliers will automatically apply the discount from November onwards. You will not need to do anything or contact your supplier to have this applied if you are eligible.

Example:

This is an illustrative example based on recent averages of forwarding wholesale prices and may differ from those experienced in practice; other examples can be found on the government website via the link below.

A pub uses 4 MWh of electricity and 16 MWh of gas monthly. They signed a fixed contract in August 2022, giving them a current monthly energy bill of about £7,000. When they signed their contract, wholesale prices for the next six months were expected to be higher than the government-supported price of £211/MWh for electricity, and £75/MWh for gas, meaning they can receive support under this scheme.

The difference between expected wholesale prices when they signed their contract and the government-supported price is worth £380/MWh for electricity and £100/MWh for gas, meaning they receive a discount of £3,100 per month, reducing their bill by over 40%.

If you would like more information, then please do not hesitate to reach out. If you would like to read the full policy paper, visit the government website here.

Get the best energy prices that are currently available. Contact us today to compare tariffs.

 

Using EPOS to improve customer retention

We have looked at how you can control your stock so now let’s explore how you can keep people buying it. It’s more cost-effective to have repeat customers than getting new ones so improve your customer retention and treat your customers with the help from your trusty EPOS system.

Loyalty Scheme

Everyone loves a freebie whether it’s collecting points or offering direct discounts. The information you can collect (providing the customer consent of course) can give you a valuable insight into your business.

Loyalty schemes are not just the domain of large companies, any business can offer a scheme to customers. With loyalty software, you can reward your loyal customers and encourage new ones to sign up and invest in your company. With EPOS you can tailor-make the scheme to your business by:

  • Offer points on purchases to be redeemed later against future transactions
  • Exclusive member-only discounts
  • Buy X amount and get your next free

All of these are easily manageable with an integrated system. You could use traditional loyalty cards that are kept in the customer’s wallet or integrate with 3rd party apps.

Customer Experience

Let’s face it, the British are renowned around the world for many things one of them being queuing. We don’t have to be asked to queue we just do it, but in all honesty – who likes queuing? We are all busy people so an easy-to-use EPOS system makes the point of sale processes quick and your queues shorter. It is a win-win – your staff can serve more customers quickly and accurately while keeping customers happy.

For the tech-savvy customer (or the ones who can never find the paper receipt) you can email receipts directly and encourage them to interact with your business. Why not add a link to the email with a survey or incentive to give you accurate customer feedback, allowing you to evaluate your service and adapt quickly to customer demands.

Customer Insight

Build up a picture of your customer base using your EPOS systems. It can store a lot of data (with customer consent of course) to help your business. If you have some stock which you would like to move on for an example and you can see that several customers buy this, you can market this to your customers on a special offer.

Marketing

If you have the info on the who, what, and why from your EPOS system this is going to make marketing and promotions and your life much easier. Use this information to market products to people based on their buying history e.g. you wouldn’t promote a special offer of juicy succulent steak to someone who has only ever bought vegan food!

People deal with people in business to build relationships and retain them. If you can speak the customer’s language this is only going to improve your business with a little help from your EPOS system.

Give us a call at Fidelity if you want some more information.

Credit article: Modern World Solutions

BREAKING NEWS: Energy bills capped to protect from soaring prices

A typical household will pay no more than £2,500 annually for its gas and electricity bills from the start of October, Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced.

In the first major policy announcement of her premiership, Ms Truss said the new price guarantee will last for two years and save the average household in England, Wales and Scotland £1,000 a year on future bills.

The policy, which Downing Street believes will curb inflation by up to five percentage points and will be enacted through emergency legislation, builds on the £400 payment to households set out by former chancellor Rishi Sunak earlier this year.

A six-month scheme for businesses, schools and hospitals will provide equivalent support over the winter.

Further targeted support for specific industries like hospitality is set to follow after that, with a review in three months to decide which sectors should benefit.

There is currently no cap on energy costs for businesses and a specific figure on support has not been given due to differences in how the wholesale energy market operates compared to the retail market.

Fidelity works for you to get your business energy costs reduced, while you focus on your business. Find out more. 

The price guarantee will not affect those on fixed contracts for their energy, but ministers are confident discounts will be offered to those customers in due course after talks with suppliers.

Content and article sources from Sky News. Read more here.

Modern World Solutions strategically partners with The Fidelity Group

Modern World Solutions, a leading UK merchant service specialist has announced its partnership with The Fidelity Group. This partnership enables Modern World to expand their portfolio and introduce their channel partners to the world of Software solutions, Telecoms solutions and Energy procurement solutions, and The Fidelity Group the same with Payments-as-a-Service to their extensive list of partners.

Warren Whitfield, Managing Director of Modern World, said, “The synergy between both businesses as software lead enabler-based companies means that a collaboration was inevitable. We are also both partner-centric organisations both inwards and outwards and our world revolves around our fantastic partners that sell our products.”

“We are excited to take the next step in partnering with Modern World and growing our value-add services”, said Alan Shraga Managing Director of Fidelity Group. “Our Partners will now have access to additional revenue streams, a fully managed merchant payment platform as well as industry leading service and support.”

Modern World and Fidelity pride themselves on finding the ultimate software and tech to place into businesses to improve efficiency and make savings where possible. Warren Whitfield adds, “We live in a world that is moving so fast and our commitment to UK businesses and our partners will ensure that no one is left behind by new technology and solutions being introduced into the marketplace. Our mission is simple, we want to be the centrepiece of the UK payments, software and telecoms scene and for us to achieve this we aim to attract the best-in-class partners in their space.”

Services provided:

  • Payment Software Solutions, Credit Card Terminals, Online Payment Gateways, EPOS and E-commerce Services.
  • Connectivity and Data, Voice and Hosted Telephony, Cloud and Hosting, Business Mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), Energy Procurement and Management, Telecoms Billing Platform.

More about Fidelity

More about Modern World

Fidelity Group Launches Payments-as-a-Service

Fidelity Group, a leader in creating customer inspired software, telecoms and energy procurement solutions since 2008, has announced the launch of Payments-as-a-Service. This will now see Fidelity expand into the SME UK merchant payment market by providing Payment Software Solutions, Credit Card Terminals, Online Payment Gateways, EPOS and E-commerce Services.

“Since inception, Fidelity has successfully diversified and scaled its service offerings in line with their ‘Everything-as-a-Service’ model, said Alan Shraga, Managing Director of Fidelity. “The launch of Payments is another value-add service that can help retail businesses access state-of-the-art payment software solutions and technology at affordable rates.”

Fidelity Payments is a combined partnership with Modern World business Solutions merchant platform. The synergy between both businesses as software lead enabler-based companies meant that a collaboration was inevitable.

Alan Shraga adds, “We are excited to take the next step in growing our value-add services and also look forward to introducing Payments-as-a-Service to our exclusive channel partners. Our partners will now have access to additional revenue streams, a fully managed merchant payment platform as well as industry leading service and support.”

Fidelity Payments will first launch with a mobile credit card terminal with Elavon as the acquiring bank. Soon after, Fidelity plans to expand the service offering to Online Payment Gateways, EPOS and E-commerce services. They will also become acquirer agnostic by attaining certifications with multiple acquiring banks.

To find out more about Fidelity Payments-as-a-Service please visit: www.fidelity-group.co.uk/payments/.

To become a reseller partner please visit: https://www.fidelity-group.co.uk/partners/

The Future Of Cloud Services: Everything as a Service (XaaS)

Credit article: www.datatechvibe.com/data/xaas-the-future-of-cloud-service/

The all-in-one service is said to be the future of cloud computing that can leverage data capabilities. But what makes it so unique from others? Is it revolutionising cloud services?

The different ways a cloud platform service can be hosted and used has provided an enormous canvas to manage solutions according to one’s needs for the particular service. Every deployed cloud service operates on a similar principle of virtualising the computing power of servers into specific required services that provide processing and storage capabilities to data and software-driven applications.

The “as-a-Service” model of cloud computing is a trend that continues to gain traction, especially SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service). Now, we have XaaS.

Everything as a service is a category of services related to cloud computing and remote access. It includes a vast number of products, tools, and technologies delivered to users as a service over the internet.

Any IT functionality can be transformed into a service for enterprise consumption. The services are paid for in a flexible consumption model rather than an upfront purchase or licence. In a XaaS model, products are usually deployed on online platforms.

Easy-to-use workspaces can be deployed and easily accessed through a browser. Whenever a change is made or data downloaded, the browser sends a request to the hosted platform. XaaS provides Sandboxes, Security, APIs, Analytics and more – all on a single platform. Such a model removes the need to build everything in-house; organisations can purchase XaaS products for extended periods at low costs, making the most of it. XaaS is a combination of SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS offerings.

The Emerging Service

XaaS and the Internet of Things (IoT) are also inter-connected. Making use of intelligent edge and hybrid services, XaaS leverages the space for emerging technologies and is becoming increasingly popular due to its sheer ability to boost business agility and reduce costs that help improve workforce efficiency.

The technology can easily accelerate innovation and get products into the market faster. Many consumer-facing organisations are finding ways to integrate data tools into their existing products to provide users with increased value. An example of one such company is Rolls-Royce.

In recent years, XaaS has emerged to support customer engagement with offline activities like food delivery, property searches, and doctors on-demand.

Instead of having various functions operating in individual silos, XaaS enables organisations to set up services that can be made available for multiple departments at the same time to leverage in the way that they need. There are several benefits of XaaS –  it helps improve the expense model, speeding new apps and business processes, and shifting IT resources to higher-value projects.

Multi-dimensional functionalities such as Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) and Container-as-a-Service (CaaS) can be implemented using XaaS. In CaaS, several software code components are packed together in “containers” that can be read and run anywhere and executed whenever required. Containers required to store code can be purchased through provider companies.

On the other hand, DaaS enables users to manage their whole workforce within the organisation over a secure web browser. DaaS services are now replacing the need for businesses to build and provide custom and localised desktop systems.

Benefits of XaaS

Using the XaaS model, businesses can cut costs efficiently by purchasing services from providers on a subscription basis. However, before XaaS and cloud services, businesses had to buy individual products – software, hardware, servers, security, infrastructure – and install them on-site, further linking everything together to create distinct networks.

The XaaS cloud model delivers rapid access to new capabilities from anywhere globally and scalability – two significant key benefits.

Access to newer technologies and increased scalability to more easily adapt to sudden changes in an operating model or workforce shifts, in turn, helps organisations innovate quicker and offer new products and services that attract new customers while keeping existing customers satisfied.

Another benefit about XaaS is that it usually requires a lesser investment than technical architecture on the front and back ends, and allows businesses to rapidly grow or expand usage and service levels as needed.

Businesses can buy what they need, and as much as they require and pay-as-they-go. This allows organisations to continue to reinvest in business strategies more than infrastructure or maintenance costs. What was previously a capital expense has now become an operating expense.

The best choice of deployment model completely depends on the specific needs of each organisation, but the benefits of moving towards a more cloud-based model can significantly outweigh any drawbacks.

Using XaaS as a delivery model can help streamline services and operations to free up several resources for innovation. It eases the digital transformation of previous services to become more agile, increases reach and aids more users in accessing next-gen technology, generalising innovation.

As the tech space continues to move toward a mobile-first, cloud-focused environment, it is becoming essential for businesses to keep everything on the cloud, which is widely accessible and up to date. More and more businesses are now valuing access and outcomes over ownership, with ways to future-proof their business, specifically related to customer experience and technology. As with any digital transformation effort, it is crucial to have a robust and cohesive vision for how a business will use XaaS; otherwise, one may risk landing in a messy situation. To pave the right road, it is necessary to think through marketing and technology strategies, customer engagement plans, and business objectives.

Credit article: www.datatechvibe.com/data/xaas-the-future-of-cloud-service/

Businesses are NOT Protected by Energy Price Caps

Unlike your household energy, if you let your business fall on out of contract rates you will be paying a significant premium. We have seen some business customers unknowingly pay between 200-500% extra then if they were on fixed term contract rates instead.

Wholesale gas prices have surpassed UK records this year due to the energy crisis and the conflict in Ukraine.

Suppliers can amend their out of contract rates for businesses when they wish and have been increasing their deemed rates each month in order to afford the elevated wholesale prices of gas and power.

What does this mean for your business?

Wholesale gas has peaked at over six-times the pre-2021 record and market analysts say there is no sign of downward pressure on prices for the next few years.

Energy markets are also heavily dependent on how the conflict between Ukraine and Russia develops further.

We can support and guide you through these unprecedented times, to help you make the best, most informed decision for your business.

hello@fidelity-group.co.uk | 0800 840 6800

 

PSTN and ISDN 2025 Switch Off

In 2025, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is being switched off by BT Openreach, which means everyone, including businesses, currently using PSTN-based services will need to move to another service before then.

The alternative? Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a solution that transmits voice calls and data using an internet connection.

This is a major step towards the United Kingdom’s mass IP-network migration, with VoIP core networks set to replace all the legacy PSTN services in just a few years’ time.

What is the PSTN and ISDN Switch Off?

The Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) is aging and will reach the end of life in December 2025. The PSTN supports a number of Openreach products which Communication Providers (CPs) purchase at regulated pricing and often sell to businesses and consumers, wrapped up in their own line rental, broadband and call package deal. These include: Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).

ISDN is available in two common variants: ISDN2 supports channels in pairs and you can have between 2 ISDN channels or 8 ISDN channels. ISDN30 is provided for larger business customers usually, with options to have between 8 ISDN channels and 30 ISDN channels on each service. A single ISDN channel will provide a customer with 1 concurrent call at a time. At the end of December 2025 traditional telephony, including fixed lines and services in the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) will be switched off and withdrawn from service.

Embrace the future of telephony by replacing your landline with VoIP before the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) is switched off in 2025.

Why is Openreach withdrawing the PSTN and ISDN network in December 2025?

The Public Switch Telephone Network allows calls to be made over copper telephone lines and fibre telephone lines using analogue signalling and is known as “traditional telephony”. As broadband services have increased in reliability and quality over the past 10 years, the PSTN has evolved to support this change to an almost completely digital network using digital technology. This means there will no longer be a requirement for the majority of traditional fixed line telephony users for fixed-analogue services in the coming years and traditional fixed lines and calls will cease to exist. The priority for Openreach moving forward, is to maintain a high availability fibre first network, as a result their legacy infrastructure and equipment serving the PSTN is now ageing and becoming more difficult to maintain.

What other lines and calls services are impacted by the 2025 closure?

The Public Switch Telephone Network currently supports WLR, ISDN2 and ISDN30, Local Loop Unbundling Shared Metallic Path Facilities (LLUSMPF), Narrowband Line Share and Classic Products. These products are commonly mentioned by providers when discussing the PSTN Withdrawal but most providers fail to mention the connectivity products which are using these services like Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Lines (ADSL) Broadband and Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) Broadband which will be impacted the WLR End of Life project. This is because the underlying line product is being withdrawn, therefore there is no underlying WLR telephone service to support the broadband.

For Fidelity connectivity solutions click here.

How and when will Openreach start withdrawing service?

Openreach’s method to withdraw WLR and ISDN telephony products is still to be confirmed. Their strategy for UK wide withdrawal is still undefined in regards to if this will be at exchange level, geographical area or premise technology availability. Openreach have begun trailing the withdrawal in two exchanges, with the first starting as early as September 2019. This is the date CPs expect Openreach to issue a formal notification of stop sell in their Salisbury Exchange, Wiltshire. This exchange is the Openreach Full Fibre Trial and is the first of two Openreach Trial Exchanges, which will see full withdrawal of WLR and ISDN by December 2022. The second exchange is the Mildenhall Exchange which will see the first Single Order (SO) trial begin circa January 2020. This exchange will focus on a complete withdrawal of services by the December 2022 also, even if no fibre is available. Premises serviced by the Mildenhall Exchange will be replaced with SOGEA and SOTAP products and the communication provider will need to provide an over the top VoIP replacement service such as a hosted PBX system license or SIP Trunking.

What will happen to Alarm lines, payment terminals and other special line rental services after 2025?

During the Public Switch Telephone Network closure, all these services need to be tested with new IP technology and the SO products. This means alarm line companies, payment terminals, traffic light systems, payphone lines, emergency pendants, dialysis machines, telemetry devices and any other special service must be tested by the equipment manufacturers.

Will Openreach meet the December 2025 Deadline?

Openreach are adamant the December 2025 deadline is set in stone. Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) Lines that have not migrated to alternative services in April 2025 will be deemed as Orphaned Assets and Openreach intend to work with CPs to identify and migrate these customer to alternative products by the December 2025 deadline so they do not lose service. The actions to be taken are yet to be defined and the difficulties identifying the use of the line, and in some cases the end user customer, along with the contractual agreement to move is still to be confirmed but be assured, services will be withdrawn and customers will be impacted should they not move in time.

Credit article and imagery: Digital Wholesale Solutions | www.digitalwholesalesolutions.com

What Is XaaS? Everything (Anything) as a service.

What is XaaS? XaaS is a group of services that helps users engage in cloud computing. Many professionals in IT use XaaS because it can recognise several types of products and technologies that they can then offer as services to clients. If you work in IT or are interested in the technology field, you might benefit from learning about XaaS in case you ever want to use it for your own cloud computing. In this article, we define what XaaS is and explore some of its most common benefits, followed by tips for using it.

What is XaaS?

XaaS stands for anything/ everything as a service and refers to the collection of services that people can offer through cloud computing. While there are other popular services in cloud computing, such as software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), XaaS combines all of these into one category. The emergence of XaaS might result from innovations in technology that allow users to group services together and the growing popularity of information technology processes in the business world.

For example, many companies that use XaaS typically provide digital B2B, or business-to-business, services such as developing applications and managing servers. This means that these companies can use XaaS to offer services to other companies that comprehensively manage their IT processes.

Benefits of XaaS

Here are some of the key benefits of using XaaS:

Improved purchasing options

One of the clearest benefits that XaaS can offer is a new option for purchasing cloud computing services. Before XaaS, customers typically had to purchase individual products and services to install on their devices manually, such as software, servers and cybersecurity programs. However, XaaS allows users to purchase different levels of subscriptions to services that they can access and install on their devices from almost any location. This can benefit companies by enabling them to only pay for the products they want to use and to adjust their payment plans and subscriptions according to how their needs change over time.

Higher-level opportunities for IT professionals

XaaS can also be beneficial to companies by taking care of basic IT operations. This can allow IT professionals to spend more time focusing on higher-level projects that might require their attention. For example, if a company typically employs IT professionals to oversee data storage, it can start using XaaS to organize its data and transition those IT employees to more complex projects, such as developing new applications or creating new infrastructure for communication systems. This can also lead to more innovations in technology that result from IT professionals having time to pursue creative or independent projects.

Increased adaptability for businesses

Another benefit of using XaaS is that it can help businesses adapt to new conditions in the market where they operate. This can occur because XaaS provides ways to quickly start new technology projects, such as coding new applications and creating new responses to cybersecurity threats. As XaaS operates on the cloud, users can also typically access their projects quickly and scale their infrastructure using automated processes, which can help businesses adjust their operations according to market demands and emerging technologies.

XaaS also allows for resource pooling and responsive elasticity support, so businesses can add or remove services from their XaaS subscriptions easily, depending on which services they use more frequently throughout the year.

Higher productivity

Using XaaS can also benefit a business because it can result in higher overall productivity. This is because XaaS services typically streamline and automate processes that might otherwise take long periods of time to complete. Using XaaS can reduce the time required for certain projects and allow employees to finish more work in a shorter length of time.

Credit article: https://www.indeed.com/

Top 3 reasons why we suggest you have a look at your business internet post lockdown

The last year-and-a-bit has been very challenging for businesses, especially those who’ve had to shut their doors for long periods due to lockdown restrictions. And although we may not be out of the woods quite yet, it looks like normality is just around the corner.

Offices, retail stores and businesses within the hospitality industry have all gradually reopened in recent months — with a tentative aim to get UK workplaces back to full capacity by June 21st when there’ll be no limit on social contact.

If all goes to plan, things are going to get very busy, very quickly. In which case, businesses nationwide will need to ensure they have the infrastructure to handle the sudden spike in activity from both customers and staff.

For many businesses, this may mean upgrading your current internet connectivity to something faster and more reliable to cope with the increased demand. If you currently have standard broadband, then a leased line (sometimes referred to as business ethernet) will probably better meet these requirements.

A leased line is essentially fibre-optic that runs directly to the premises and isn’t shared by anyone else. In other words, it is a dedicated line set up to serve only your company. As such, leased lines can offer symmetrical speeds of up to 10Gbs, ten times faster than regular fibre.

Furthermore, leased lines are considered the gold standard in terms of connection quality and reliability, making them ideal for organisations that require an uncompromised and consistent data connection.

Another option is SoGEA (Single order Generic Ethernet Access), which is a dedicated line, of sorts, in that it is reserved solely for the internet and does not require a phone line. You receive exactly the same performance as FTTC or GFast, so not quite as speedy as a leased line, but it may be a viable alternative depending on your budget and requirements.

With this in mind, here are three statistics to suggest you may need to upgrade your business internet in preparation for coming out of lockdown.

Half of all UK workplaces expect remote working to continue post-lockdown (source. O2, ICM, YouGov)
Businesses across the country were forced to adopt remote working conditions during the lockdown. However, reports suggest that employers now recognise the benefits, with more than half expected to continue giving staff the flexibility to work from home.

This kind of setup requires an extensive, unified comms system with fast and flexible internet to support hosted telephone systems, remote network access and various other forms of media sharing.

59% of customers will continue to spend more online (source. ChanelAdvisor, Dynata)
In the wake of the pandemic, online sales sky-rocketed. Predictably, many of these sales were attributed to sectors that have historically dominated the e-commerce space, such as fashion and tech. Still, the crisis has seen less likely industries sell online also. These include restaurants and pubs, offering customers click-to-collect, and many B2B companies, facilitating the sale of their services through e-commerce.

Why is this important? Well, it looks like this isn’t going to suddenly stop when lockdown ends. Customers are keen to continue shopping online — citing cost, convenience and safety as the main reasons. As a result, businesses will require a robust and reliable internet connection to cope with the increased demand for various systems and processes that support their online sales model.

Leisure travel is expected to skyrocket but business travel will drop off (source. McKinsey)
Circling back to what we said earlier about continued remote working, it looks as though businesses will be travelling a lot less in general, especially now that video conferencing has become the preferred method for businesses to meet. This essentially comes down to the practicality, efficiency and convenience of video conferencing over long-distance travel. Still, it’s also worth noting that more businesses are conscious of their environmental impact, adopting new ways of increasing their sustainability efforts. Regardless of the driving force, companies will need to ensure they have the connectivity to handle quality video.

Meanwhile, leisure travel is expected to take a massive upturn, as people will be keen to get out and about when restrictions are lifted. There is a building demand for national and international travel, which means businesses in the travel and hospitality sector will need to equip themselves to manage the surge of inquiries, bookings and processing, most of which are handled online.

Why choose Fidelity Group for your business internet
While the transition out of lockdown is going to be hugely beneficial to businesses, it’s also going to put a massive strain on those who are unprepared for the sudden spike in activity from both customers and staff.

At Fidelity Group, we can help get you up to speed, establishing a service based on your internet requirements, ensuring solutions remain tailored now and in the longer term. We then bolster this with 24/7/365 dedicated technical support, keeping your business connected, and providing first-rate assistance whenever you need us. See what our clients have to say by visiting our Trustpilot review page here.

For more information about our data services, speak to a member of our team today.

Testimonials

What our customers have to say.

George

I used to be a customer of one of the major UK networks. Billing or tech queries took  a hours of waiting. Each time I contact Fidelity Group they get back to me promptly with the answer. The service is impeccable.

AA Lighting Group.

Our preferred provider, Fidelity Group, came to our rescue. Other companies pretend to be the best but Cristian was not just a step ahead – he was miles ahead!! Thank you, Cristian, Thank you Fidelity Group!

Emma

We have been a customer of Fidelity for a number of years now and the service is always impeccable….SIM cards are sent out next day, which is extremely helpful for our fast-paced business. I would highly recommend working with Fidelity Group.

George Serbanescu

My old supplier took hours of me waiting on hold and I was never able to get a clear answer. Each time I contact Fidelity Group they get back to me promptly with the answer regardless if this is about billing, a technical issue, roaming. The service from Fidelity is impeccable.

Gwen S

We moved to Fidelity 2yrs ago. Moving to Fidelity was extremely simple and the saving was significant. The service received from you is amazing. You always deal with everything in the a professional manner responding to all queries in no time.

Julia Connely

I have had difficulties using Horizon on my mobile and Carl has helped me to get the new hub connected with a lot of patience. Found out that my broadband provider had to give permission for connection as it wasn’t their hub I was using anymore. He has been very calm throughout.

Mac McGlone

I spoke with Carl after my system was down. He guided me through the problems and kept me informed. The follow up was excellent until the problem was resolved.

Richard Davies

We recently changed from a standard broadband line to a leased line with Fidelity. It was installed within two months of signing (and that included the Christmas/New Year break), so much quicker than we expected. And it is far superior to our old line. A very efficient service.

Matthew Finn

Been a hosted telephony customer of Fidelity now for almost a year and be delighted with the service. The tech support is first class as you get a dedicated adviser to handle your case all the way through, which I love! I would definitely recommend.

Neeta Patel

Marco has helped a great deal on the problem and has helped to improve the services after discussion, some of which I did not realise were available. He kept in touch until we were fully happy.

Mike Hawkes

Great company, helpful and always available when required.

Kevin Dowling

Fidelity is an excellent telecoms provider. The levels of support we receive pre and post-sales are second to none.

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If you’d like to find out more, why not call us now on 0800 840 6800 or simply fill in our contact form below and we’ll be in touch.

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