Happy New Year! And welcome to our new Blog. Xmas Festive Holidays are good for Resting, Reflecting and Planning and a blog was on the cards with the latest news. 2023 was one that saw further growth, doubling the customers and reaping the efforts of a challenging business environment. Inflation was the buzz word and fortunately it started to come down by the end of the year. However, growth in the UK markets is still pretty stagnant and hopefully with inflation down, investment can start to help. Also 2024 is probably going to be a year for a general election which could be quite tumultuous.

Energy Markets update: Power and gas prices have dropped, with higher than average seasonal temperatures decreasing the demand for heating and wind generation forecasted to increase this week and next. Supply concerns are also limited, with healthy UK storage levels and a sufficient volume of LNG cargoes expected by next week. Most businesses are now returning to locking in for 2 or 3 years as 2023 saw pricing drop from the historic highs of 2022 and plateau by the end of the year. Prices are most likely not going to return to where they were in 2020 but are now more sane.

Card Machine Services continue to prove fruitful though with the UK market saturated with the massive growth in sales over the last few years, Alpha Connectivity has plans to expand into Ireland and Spain probably around March/April but watch this space. Business Funding is still a popular option for businesses looking for affordable finance quickly and last year saw Restaurant Management Systems coming on board - an area we really want to expand on.

A big and popular development with Dojo is the Tap 2 Pay for Iphone which enables businesses to turn an Iphone into a virtual card terminal - great for short term requirements like running a Christmas market stall or when things get busier at weekends as it comes at no extra cost (no extra rental for it!).

Telecoms: 2025 is the so called switch off year of the old network and coverage of fibre around the UK has certainly massively increased. However there are still patches where customers cannot even get FTTC which came in to being around 10 years ago now. So I would be surprised if the UK is all ready to go with the new Fibre network. It has brought down install times but when all the stars are aligned but there are still instances of long install delays where further work is required; fortunately these are generally rare.

IP Telephony is now taking over from the old WLR3 network so customers now get much better functionality at great prices. Things like Apps, Voicemail to email and improvements in voice quality have really made a marked difference. The list of improvements is too big for a small blog post but if you are still on the old WLR3 ISDN or PSTN then I would recommend changing today.

Let me know what your plans are!

Gavin