ScaleAround is launching two online AI courses. Leading Through AI is a one-day, CPD-certified programme for senior leaders on governing AI and leading people through the change. Practical Prompt Engineering is a 3-hour course for anyone who uses AI tools at work and wants consis
Most businesses cannot tell you whether their AI spend is working, and the surveys say so plainly. PwC's latest survey of 4,454 chief executives found 56% had seen neither revenue growth nor cost savings from AI in the past year. McKinsey's 2026 research found only 29% of executi
Short version. A CTO owns what you build, the product, the engineering, the technology you sell or that sells for you. A CIO owns how you run, the internal systems, the data, the security, the tools your staff use every day. If your technology is the product, you need a CTO first
A board does not need to understand how AI works. It needs to know where the business is using it, what could go wrong, who is accountable, and how it would find out if something did. Good AI governance at board level is four questions asked regularly and answered honestly. Every
ScaleAround sponsored the Specialist Team of the Year award at the 28th Cnect Wales Awards on Friday 25 September 2026, and I had the job of presenting it on stage at Cardiff City Stadium. More than 500 people from Wales' customer contact and customer experience industry filled t
Both certify the same five security controls. The difference is who checks. Cyber Essentials is a self-assessment your business completes and a certification body verifies. Cyber Essentials Plus adds an independent technical audit, where an assessor tests a sample of your devices
An AI agent is software that reads the web and acts on it. It shortlists suppliers, drafts the comparison, books the call. More of your customers use one every month, often without saying so. Getting ready means making your business readable and trustworthy to software, not only
For 20 years, being found online meant ranking on a page of blue links. That is breaking. More buyers now ask an assistant a question and get a single answer, with two or three named suppliers, and never see a results page at all. If the AI does not know you, or does not trust wh
ScaleAround is now a supplier member of Cnect Wales, the network for Wales' customer contact and customer experience industry. We joined in September 2026. The short reason is that the businesses Cnect brings together, contact centres, customer operations teams and the firms that
A fractional CIO runs the technology that runs your business, part-time. The systems your staff use, the data that moves between them, security, suppliers, and the risk and compliance that sit underneath. Most mid-sized businesses have outgrown the IT manager but cannot justify a
A good fractional CTO spends the first 90 days doing three things. Working out what you actually have, stopping whatever is on fire, and setting a direction the business can hold to once the noise dies down. By day 90 you should have a clear picture of your technology, a short li
If you put personal data into an AI tool, UK GDPR applies exactly as it did before. The ICO's position is simple. You need a lawful basis, you must tell people what you are doing, and where the use is high risk you must complete a data protection impact assessment before you swit