UK: Buying Solutions awards IT outsourcing contract to Bull IT
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Buying Solutions, the public sector procurement agency awarded Bull IT a framework agreement for IT Managed Services.
Under the agreement, Bull’s IT managed services will be made available to all UK public sector organisations which are seeking to contract a supplier who can design, implement and manage end-to-end, cost effective Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services.
The framework agreement provides a simplified procurement process that meets the European legislative requirements of public sector organisations with nationally negotiated pricing and pre-agreed terms and conditions.
This removes the need for lengthy tendering processes or complex procurement arrangements meaning efficiencies can be achieved in much shorter timescales.
This announcement follows Bull being awarded a framework agreement for IT Infrastructure Products and Services by Buying Solutions in April this year.
With framework agreements for IT Infrastructure Products and Services, and now, IT Managed Services, the UK public sector will be able to meet Government budgetary and environmental targets. These include saving £300m per year on ICT projects and reducing power and cooling requirements by 75%.
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The Met awards £10m contract extension to Logica
The Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) and Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) have granted Logica a £10m three-year extension on its pay and pensions outsourcing contract.
The extension covers the period 2013-2016 and renews the existing contract between the two organisations, signed in 2005.
Logica already provides a fully-integrated, managed payroll and pensions’ administration service for the 58,000 police officers and staff of MPS.
This extension will also see Logica offer the opportunity for MPS to benefit from introduction of organisation-wide electronic payslips, overtime and expenses which it has not had to date. The new contract maintains the focus on providing quality services at good value for money.
The pensions’ administration service will continue to be managed through Logica’s partner Xafinity Paymaster.
Logica will also provide an even more resilient and flexible solution providing additional benefits to MPS employees through greater use of self-service IT systems. Additionally, Logica’s technology and payroll solutions, which were developed specifically for the public sector, have been tailored to meet the specific needs of Logica’s Police User Group.
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Capgemini acquires stake in Brazilian IT services player
IT and outsourcing consultancy Capgemini has acquired a 55% stake in Brazilian IT services company CPM Braxis.
Capgemini has an option to buy the remainder of CPM Braxis’ capital (45%), and the existing shareholders have an option to sell their remaining shares. These options can only be exercised between the 3rd and the 5th anniversary of the closing date (on the basis of an estimated price based on fair market value at the time of the exercise of these options).
The deal will enable Capgemini to considerably boost its presence in Brazil an IT services market amongst those with the highest potential.
The agreement will see the group widen its client base and contributes to Capgemini’s ability to better support its international clients in their developments in Brazil.
CPM Braxis’ client portfolio includes major Brazilian and international companies, particularly in the financial sector. The company expects to record 2010 revenues of around BRL 1bn (€450m).
CPM Braxis will also benefit from Capgemini’s assets –its global reach, methodologies and network of alliances - to serve its own clients, both in Brazil and around the world.
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CBI awards 5 year contract to Wipro
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Central Bank of India (CBI), one of the largest public sector banks in India has awarded IT solutions supplier Wipro a five-year total outsourcing agreement to provide state-of-the-art, technology-driven, core banking solution for seven sponsored Regional Rural banks (RRBs).
The engagement will allow the Central Bank of India to achieve its objective of financial inclusion and bring low cost and efficient banking services to the rural masses.
The Centralised Core Banking Project is expected to facilitate efficient internal operations for the seven Regional Rural Banks. It is also expected to provide the competitive edge by enabling regional rural banks offer innovative products and services at optimum costs.
The Core Banking project would integrate 2,000 sites which include branches, extension counters, satellite offices, regional offices, head offices and back offices in a phased manner. The solution would also offer alternate delivery channels like Internet banking and mobile (including SMS Alerts) banking.
Wipro will also setup a 24-hour centralised Helpdesk facility for the project covering applications, Data Centre, networks, security and end user systems.
The software has been provided by Infosys using “Finacle” along with other standard products such as ALM, Govt. Business, Internet, ATM, EMS, AML etc. With this, RRBs of Central Bank of India will be in compliance with statutory & Regulatory requirements including MIS.
The contract is the outcome of a competitive bidding process which attracted several global and Indian IT majors.
Earlier, last week, Wipro signed a 7 year Total Outsourcing contract with 5 RRBs sponsored by UCO Bank, a leading Public Sector Bank, for implementing a Core Banking Solution (CBS) across 803 branches of the sponsored RRBs. The contract with Central Bank is the second in the series of wins for Wipro, related to driving financial inclusion through RRBs.
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Alcatel-Lucent acquires OpenPlug
Alcatel-Lucent has acquired OpenPlug, a mobile software and applications development tools vendor.
The OpenPlug toolset will be incorporated into Alcatel-Lucent’s Developer Platform and external linkOpen API Service, thus broadening the functionality available to service providers, enterprises and developers for the exposure of network assets and the rapid introduction of new services across mobile and Web domains.
The move advances Alcatel-Lucent’s Application Enablement strategy, which is focused on combining the trusted and secure network capabilities of service providers with the speed and innovation of the Web to provide a richer end-user experience.
The acquisition will allow Alcatel to offer OpenPlug’s functionality to service providers, enterprises and developers so they can create and deploy applications across multiple mobile devices and within service provider app stores.
This is the second acquisition Alcatel-Lucent has made over the past three months to expand and enhance the application ecosystem. In June, the company acquired ProgrammableWeb, the technology industry’s go-to source of API-related content.
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Sony increases outsourcing to Taiwan
Japan’s Sony Corp is increasingly outsourcing television manufacturing to contract makers, primarily its Taiwanese partners, during this fiscal year to boost its market share.
The electronics giant expects for 50% of its TVs to be produced by its manufacturing partners during the fiscal year ending March 31 of next year.
Sony would see Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, one of the biggest electronics manufacturing service providers, become its biggest local partner. Taipei County-based Hon Pai acquired a second TV factory, located in Slovakia, from Sony in March.
This year, Sony added Compal Electronics Inc, a top contract notebook computer maker, to its manufacturing partner list.
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NMC awards £5.2m contract to BSG
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the nursing and midwifery regulator for over 660,000 registered nurses and midwives in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Islands, has signed a five year contract worth up to £5.2m with Business Systems Group (BSG).
Under the agreement, BSG will be managing and hosting NMC’s core IT infrastructure across two different data centres.
This will include the managing and hosting of NMC’s servers and networks, disaster recovery, systems monitoring, technical design and ongoing consultation.
BSG will also be providing database and operating system support and managing NMC’s Microsoft Exchange email, Citrix desktops and telephony (using Cisco CallManager).
The contract requires BSG to ensure 99.9% service availability and timely incident management. All software applications will be hosted by BSG, including NMC’s OpenAccounts financial management system provided by BSG’s sister company, COA Solutions.
BSG will also be providing the NMC test and development environments, including release management, as new applications come online.
NMC’s IT infrastructure and systems are currently managed in-house by a four person IT team, they will be TUPEd across to work for BSG.
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Bunzl results match predictions
UK-based distribution and outsourcing group Bunzl has delivered half-year results bang in line with expectations as a recovery in North American revenues offset ongoing weakness at the distribution and outsourcing group’s business in the UK & Ireland.
The group’s largest business, Outsourcing Services, has seen profits increase and is benefiting from some significant sales gains made earlier in the year. This business continues to develop its position in the more resilient sectors and is also benefiting from growth in support services to the resources sector.
The company expects the challenging economic environment will further impact its businesses, but underlying growth in North America should continue.
The UK & Ireland is expected to improve margins despite tough conditions holding back revenue, though Continental Europe is seen “sluggish” compared with a strong second half of 2009.
Positive results are likely to see the company continue its acquisition-based growth strategy. The company, has made eight acquisitions so far this year spending some £100m, said the expected boost to revenue will come through in the second half of the year.
The two most recent acquisitions are California-based Cool-Pak, which will increase the company’s presence in a specialist area of the food processor market in the US; and AM Supply in Brazil expanding Bunzl’s product offering into the developing oil and petrochemical sectors
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Equinix to build $63m data centre in Hong Kong
Global data centre provider Equinix is to build its second international business exchange™ data centre, HK2, in Hong Kong. The new $63 million HK2 IBX data centre will provide total capacity for more than 1,450 cabinet equivalents.
Targeted for opening in the third quarter of 2011, the $20m first phase of the HK2 IBX centre will offer an initial 450 cabinet equivalents. The expansion enables Equinix to continue serving the Hong Kong market with business exchange services for global enterprises, banking and financial companies, and cloud and IT service providers.
The Hong Kong market is one of the largest concentrations of banking and financial companies in the region. The HK2 facility will have direct fibre connection with the HK1 IBX data centre.
This connectivity will enable prospective customers at HK2 to enjoy close proximity and direct access to the financial ecosystems, including trading venues, buy and sell side firms, market data providers, technology providers and financial networks, at the HK1 IBX data centre.
The HK2 is the fourth in a series of recently announced IBX data centre expansions in the Asia Pacific region. Equinix has recently announced the expansion of SY3 data centre in Sydney, the third phase expansion of the existing SG2 centre in Singapore, and launched a new market in Shanghai with its partnership with Shanghai Data Solution (SDS).
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Sunoco awards application support services deal to IBM
Friday, August 27, 2010
Sunoco has awarded IBM a deal that will see the manufacturer and marketer of petroleum and petrochemical products outsource its managed business process services and application support services.
Under the agreement IBM will help Sunoco drive improvements to a number of its back office processes by leveraging IBM’s experience in the oil and gas industry, and deep business and applications process expertise, existing tools, and operational knowledge, thus enabling Sunoco to focus more of its resources on critical growth initiatives.
Similarly, as part of the agreement, IBM will provide services to Sunoco from its global operations centers, enabling Sunoco to better manage its Application Enhancement, Application Maintenance, Finance and Accounting, and Indirect Procurement processes.
It is not clear how large the contract is but last year Sunoco spent close to $90m, signing a $34m contract extension with India-based Wipro’s Infocrossing unit.
Sunoco also has contracts with AT&T Services and CompuCom. The company hired consulting firm EquaTerra earlier this year to identify other areas that might be ripe for outsourcing.
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HP raises the bidding bar; can Dell keep up?
Earlier this week Dell trumped Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) $24 a share offer, but that was yesterday’s news. The bidding war between HP and Dell is getting more interesting as HP raised its offer from $27 a share (announced mid-week) to $30 a share.
Dell’s offer of $ 24.30 per share was made on 23 August and would see it pay $1.6bn (over £1bn) for all common 3Par stock.
But if Dell thought this would be enough to dissuade HP from the game, they were wrong.
On 26 August HP made its offer which was $3 higher than its original offer; 11% premium over Dell’s latest bid, which values the company at $2bn.
Since Dell made its original bid at $18 per share on 16 August the price offer per share has increased dramatically.
The stakes are rising quite quickly and it will be interesting to see who ends up making the acquisition.
While Dell may have made the first move, at $53bn its annual revenues are half of those of HP ($115bn). For Dell it maybe one of those games from which it is safer to walk away.
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Patni lands Serco Learning contract; wins 7-figure deal with RSA Group
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Global IT and BPO services provider has been awarded a seven-year contract with Serco Learning for the development and delivery of ‘Progresso’; Serco’s new information management platform for schools.
The Progresso platform is being designed by Serco and developed by Patni and will be available at the end of 2011.
The platform is a centrally hosted management information platform that provides relevant data, tools and services directly to schools, parents and local authorities.
It will reinforce the Serco Learning position as a provider of high quality and innovative solutions in education and over time will replace ‘Facility’, the existing platform
Serco will continue to provide direct user support and market direction for both, Facility and Progresso. Patni and Serco will deliver the new Progresso platform and then optionally host it as a managed service to schools, academies and local authorities.
Patni has also won a three-year contract from Codan Group part of the insurance giant RSA Group.
The seven-figure agreement will see Patni provide managed services around some of Scandinavia’s core insurance platforms.
The Codan Group, which operates in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, invited five leading outsourcing companies including Patni to bid for the application management contract in September 2009.
It short-listed three vendors in March 2010 and made its final decision to appoint Patni in June.
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UCO Bank and Wipro sign seven year outsourcing contract
Public Sector Bank UCO Bank has awarded IT and business transformation service provider Wipro Infotech signed a 7 year total outsourcing contract with five Regional Rural Banks (RRBs).
The contract is for implementing a Core Banking Solution (CBS) across 803 branches of RRBs under UCO Bank’s sponsorship.
With this initiative, all five RRBs would come under the ambit of core banking, thereby ensuring uniformity in technology platform and related business processes for improved business efficiency and customer care.
The scope of services includes building, hosting and managing the underlying infrastructure at the Data Centers, in addition to implementing the Finacle CBS across the five RRBs in question.
Wipro would also provide network management and user training across all 803 branch locations as a part of the Total Outsourcing relationship.
The CBS would be executed on an Application Service Provider (ASP) model where Wipro would get paid on a monthly pay-per-use basis. Roll out of all branches is expected to be completed by September 2011.
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Carillion posts healthy results
UK support services and construction service provider Carillion has recorded a healthy set of interim results, with profit before tax up 17% at £58.8m for the six months ending 30 June 2010; close to £9m higher that during the same period last year.
However, revenue shrank 11% to £2.51bn (H1 2009: £2.83bn), owed to the disposal of non-core businesses, the sale of equity investments in public-private partnership (PPP) projects, among other things.
Earlier in August, the firm was awarded a five-year extension to its existing infrastructure contracts with EDF Energy Networks, worth £40m a year.
Under the extension, which is set to kick in January 2011, Carillion will deliver infrastructure services for sub-stations and cabling to support the electricity network in the East of England.
The coalition government’s spending review, due in October. With projects such as the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) being axed, many in the construction and outsourcing community are waiting to get a better grasp of the extent to which cuts to public spending will affect them.
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RCN implements cloud-based telephony solution
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has implemented NewVoiceMedia’s cloud-based telephony solution ContactWorld, to ensure that its members can always speak with an expert consultant regardless of any problems that the call centre encounters.
The RCN contact centre in Cardiff is a vital resource to nurses, providing advice and support on issues such as pay, working conditions, law, employment and retirement concerns, as well as specialist counselling services.
In addition to the disaster recovery function, RCN will use ContactWorld to manage incoming calls from nurses, students and healthcare professionals to its library service. All RCN members have access to the organisation’s library, currently one of the biggest specialist nursing resources in the world.
The NewVoiceMedia solution is entirely cloud-based, and can work with any phone - PBX extensions, home landlines and mobile phones - and does not require expensive hardware to operate.
Similarly, integration with other existing telephony systems is easy, allowing RCN to simply switch between its standard solution and ContactWorld within minutes via the web should an incident arise.
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Lloyds extends its managed factsheet service contract with Factbook
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) has awarded Factbook, a specialist provider of fund reporting, marketing and data management solutions to the investment community a extension of their managed factsheet service.
LBG has chosen to migrate their Bancassurance factsheet production for both Halifax and Bank of Scotland to Factbook’s fully managed production environment, building upon the success of the earlier Clerical Medical factsheet project.
This latest roll-out sees peak monthly document delivery from the LBG production platform almost double to in excess of 250 retail fund factsheets.
The relationship between LBG and Factbook is already a couple of years old and it is expected to further develop over the coming months.
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Hydro selects Accenture for three-year SAP contract
Oslo-based aluminium firm Norsk Hydro has awarded Accenture a three-year application outsourcing (AO), which covers support and maintenance of two of Hydro’s SAP systems globally.
The agreement is designed to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of Hydro’s SAP-based business processes through an industrialized approach that offers higher quality and innovation.
The services will be provided to Hydro users in multiple countries by Accenture’s Global Delivery Network, using centres in Germany and India. The delivery of the outsourced services is scheduled to begin in October 2010.
Norsk Hydro and Accenture have worked together in the areas of consulting and technology services since the late 1980s.
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FSA fines Zurich £2.27m for data loss
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined the UK branch of Zurich Insurance £2.27m for failing to have adequate systems and controls in place to prevent the loss of customers’ confidential information.
This is the highest fine levied to date on a single firm for data security failings.
Zurich lost the personal details of 46,000 customers, including identity details, and in some cases bank account and credit card information, details about insured assets and security arrangements.
The loss could have led to serious financial detriment for customers and even exposed them to the risk of burglary; however there is not evidence to date to indicate that the data has been misused.
Zurich UK outsourced the processing of some of its general insurance customer data to Zurich Insurance Company South Africa Limited (Zurich SA).
In August 2008, Zurich SA lost an unencrypted back-up tape during a routine transfer to a data storage centre. The absence of proper reporting lines meant Zurich UK did not learn of the incident until a year later.
As Zurich UK agreed to settle at an early stage of the investigation the firm qualified for a 30% ‘discount’, without which the fine would have been £3.25m.
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Unisys awarded Flowserve end-user services ITO contract extension
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Unisys Corporation has been awarded a five-year extension on its contract to provide end-user support services to oil & gas supply manufacturer Flowserve Corporation.
Under the new agreement, valued at close to $37m, Unisys will provide ongoing and expanded services to support approximately 10,000 of Flowserve’s employees in more than 50 countries worldwide for five years beyond the originally contracted 2011 expiration date.
The ongoing services include service desk support in nine languages, desk-side support, equipment maintenance, and installs, moves, add and changes for desktop and laptop PCs, BlackBerry smartphones, servers and printers.
Expanded services to be provided –from 2011 –will see Unisys implement its Converged Remote Infrastructure Management Suite service offering for Flowserve.
The solution provides a single, unified view of an entire IT infrastructure. It will enable Unisys to provide integrated monitoring and management of some 500 servers deployed in Flowserve locations around the world.
In addition, Unisys will implement an IT Services Management framework, based on the ITIL v3 standard, for continuous improvement in service delivery.
Unisys will also enhance both the self-service portal for Flowserve employees and the knowledge management solution that stores information about prior service events so that end users and service personnel can anticipate and more quickly resolve potential equipment problems before they lead to potentially costly downtime.
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Mahindra appoints new associate VP for Europe
Global consulting and IT services provider Mahindra Satyam, the brand identity of Satyam Computer Services has appointed Gaurav Gupta as associate vice president, Strategic Partnerships in Europe for the Aerospace and Defence sector.
In this role, Gupta will lead development of customised partnership arrangements in the sectors of Aerospace and Defence. He will focus on building new business opportunities and, using the synergies of the Mahindra Group, convert them into large global relationships.
His appointment comes as Mahindra Satyam looks to strengthen its focus on specialty offerings for this sector and to meet the specific challenges facing the industry, namely; cost, time to market, and a need to maintain research and development at reduced costs.
Gupta has more than a decade’s experience in the industry which began when the Aerospace and Defence sector first started looking at outsourcing and off-shoring in a major way.
Prior to joining the Mahindra Group, he worked as a director of Business Development with HCL, based in the UK.
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BT and Avaya extend partnership
Comms vendor Avaya and telco BT have extended their global partnership for a further three years.
The telco firms are looking to deepen their partnership which covered contact centre equipment and services and explore new areas including voice and unified communications (UC).
As part of the relationship, BT will provide integration and consultancy services to support the Avaya product suite. Avaya and BT will jointly market and sell the products and services to businesses around the world.
The new agreement between the two companies covers next-generation contact centres, unified communications and services, and complements BT’s portfolio of networked IT services.
Both firms have been working together for the past 10 years.
Following Avaya’s acquisition of former rival Nortel, its relationship with BT has been under close scrutiny from the comms industry.
Nortel, which entered Chapter 11 in early 2009, had a longstanding relationship with BT, signing a four-year partnership as recently as May 2009 – Avaya agreed a deal two months prior to that.
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HP counters Dell 3Par bid; offers 33% premium
Monday, August 23, 2010
HP has submitted an offer to 3PAR Inc for the acquisition of all of the outstanding shares of 3PAR for $24.00 per share in cash, valuing the business at $1.6bn.
The deal which counters Dell’s offer made last week– which was until now considered a done deal.
The proposed transaction, which is not subject to any financing contingency and has been approved by HP’s board, represents a 33.3% premium above the price proposed by Dell.
If approved by 3PAR’s board, the transaction would be expected to close by year’s end.
Under the terms of last week’s deal between Dell and 3Par, Dell has the right to match HP’s price. The original transaction also included a termination fee of $53.5m.
The move by HP comes weeks after the allegations brought up against Mark Hurd, its former CEO caused his ousting.
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IBM and Texas: legal battle escalates
The State of Texas’ Department of Information Resources (DIR) has announced it would be taking over the multi-year project’s management and re-soliciting bids for completing parts of the project from other companies.
Last month, representatives of the DIR sent an eight-page letter to IBM expressing its discontentment and citing its various reasons and giving the contractor 30 days to come up with a plan to address the issues.
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Last week DIR sent another letter to IBM stating the contractor had failed to produce a an suitable plan; also informing IBM that it would be taking over the project management while launching re-soliciting tender.
The seven-year project aims to consolidate the IT infrastructure of 28 state agencies into two data centres.
Texas will be searching for new bidders to complete each of the smaller tasks into which the four-year-old IBM contract will be broken into.
The legal battle continues as IBM is disputing Texas DIR right to terminate the master service agreement.
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HP plans to invest $1bn on end-to-end technology services
It is understood that Hewlett Packard (HP) is seeking to invest $1bn to transform its end-to-end information technology services. Similarly, part of the investment will be directed towards retiring legacy assets and building new, modernised facilities.
The multi-year transformation and investment, will allow HP to consolidate enterprise services’ commercial data centres, management platforms, and networks tools.
HP also intends to enhance applications to create a more scalable modernised and automated IT infrastructure.
The firm is also seeking to capitalise on the Asia Pacific region encouraged by the region’s growth rate which albeit slower in the past quarter continues to surpass that of other markets.
Indeed, figures recently put out by consulting firm Everest Group indicate that the region is ahead of both Central and Eastern Europe – perhaps affect by lower demand due to economic crises in Greece, Spain and Portugal; and Latin America.
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Sheffield Hallam university joins €4m Web data project team
A team from Sheffield Hallam University working on data search technology that has the power to change the World Wide Web has secured €370,000 funding from the European Commission with help from Enterprise Europe Yorkshire.
The funding is part of a €4m collaborative project lead by German technology leaders, SAP, that will focus on how improved data searching will impact on business.
Dubbed the ‘Semantic Web’ by father of the Internet, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the next generation of the World Wide Web will allow users to search more data than ever before, return more relevant results and save users time surfing the web.
Currently only a proportion of data posted on the Internet can be ‘read’ intelligently by computers and users have to visit multiple websites to find the information that they want.
The project will develop methodologies and a platform that combines essential features of semantic technologies and business intelligence.
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Intel acquires McAffee
Friday, August 20, 2010
Intel Corporation has acquired McAfee a deal that highlights the importance of security as a component of online computing.
The present security approach does not fully address the billions of new Internet-ready devices connecting, including mobile and wireless devices, TVs, cars, medical devices and ATM machines as well as the accompanying surge in cyber threats.
The move will allow Intel to tackle this challenge. The company has elevated the priority of security to be on par with its strategic focus areas in energy-efficient performance and Internet connectivity.
McAfee, has enjoyed double-digit, year-over-year growth and nearly 80% gross margins last year, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, reporting into Intel’s Software and Services Group. The group is managed by Renée James, Intel senior vice president, and general manager of the group.
The deal, valued at $7.68bn saw Intel pay $48 per share in cash. Both boards of directors have unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close after McAfee shareholder approval, regulatory clearances and other customary conditions specified in the agreement.
Intel was advised by Goldman Sachs & Co and Morrison & Foerster LLP. McAfee was advised by Morgan Stanley & Co and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, PC.
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India management process market to grow 31% in 2010 - Gartner
India domestic process management services (PMS) segment forecast to reach $683m in 2010, a 31.1% increase from 2009 revenue of $521m, according to global consultancy Gartner.
The market will experience steady growth through 2014 when process management services revenue in India will reach $1.6bn.
Large scale outsourcing of process management will bring in the next wave of growth in the Indian domestic IT/IT-enabled services (ITES) industry. High economic growth, competitive pressure, agility, time to market, innovation and adoption across verticals and breadth of services will be driving this high growth rate in this segment.
In 2009, the Indian IT Services/business process outsourcing (BPO) market showed resilience with greater interest from corporate level executives in outsourcing decisions. Prioritisation for outsourcing spending aligned with organisations’ agility, scalability and cost focus. Cautious buyers, cost containment were evident in mature verticals.
Currently process management services are restricted largely to telecommunications and banking and financial services sectors.
However moving forward it is likely to be adopted in verticals such as government, utilities, healthcare and retail. These are high growth sectors with high degree of transaction processing work requirement.
Such transactional processes, although crucial, are not core to the activities of those organisations. There are high degrees of inefficiencies built into the system.
Outsourcing of such processes to third party specialists would bring in advantages of efficiency, efficacy and cost thereby increasing the competitive edge.
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BSF awards £4m contract to RM
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Education specialist RM has signed a contract expected to be worth £4m to provide IT services in Southwark Council’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.
In May last year, RM, the council, BSF Investments and construction services giant Balfour Beatty formed the 4 Futures partnership to deliver and manage BSF projects across the London borough. RM has now signed a contract covering Phase 2a of the programme, which will see projects undertaken at four schools.
The projects are just a few of the many that had been left up in the air by the government’s decision to axe the BSF scheme. The signing of the contract means the deals have now reached “financial close”, guaranteeing RM revenue of about £4m.
In July this year, all-new spending on the BSF project was frozen; the 14 projects that had reached preferred bidder status facing a case-by-case review. RM is among these preferred bidders.
At the time, education secretary Michael Gove addressed Parliament announced that his department was slashing its end year flexibility requirement to carry over unused budget by £1bn in 2010/11. This meant excising £156.5m from capital budgets “where commitments [were] no longer affordable”.
Axing the BSF scheme meant the immediate cancellation of 715 school-rebuilding or -refurbishing projects. Projects underway or having ” reached financial close” will still go ahead.
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Teleperformance acquires beCogent
Contact centre provider Teleperformance Group has wholly acquired UK-based contact centre business beCogent.
The agreement will see Teleperformance significantly extend its geographic position in the UK, while tapping on Scotland’s technologically skilled and multi-lingual workforce.
Following the acquisition, Teleperformance becomes the second largest UK contact centre operator.
Based in Scotland, beCogent has recognised expertise and deep experience in numerous industry sectors, with an emphasis on the retail, financial services and telco/ISP industries.
beCogent has around 3,000 employees across four call centers in Airdrie, Erskine, Kilmarnock and Glasgow and forecast 2010 revenue of approximately £50m.
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Global outsourcing activity shows Q2 growth: Everest
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The global outsourcing market saw a 12% increase in transaction volumes with continued growth led by Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services, BFSI sector deals contributing one-fifth of overall global market activity, and North America and Europe driving three-fourths of all global transactions.
Indeed, figures released in the latest Market Vista report, produced by BPO market activity increased by 15% and 33% in transaction volumes and ACV respectively.
The BFSI sector in particular saw a 41% increase in transactions, with most contracts were signed in the banking sub-sector; volume recorded was double over the previous quarter.
As for location, offshore activity saw 32 delivery centres established in Q2, the majority of which in Asia, followed by Eastern Europe and Latin America.
The figures also revealed that centre delivery in Eastern Europe fell to nearly half the levels observed during the first half of 2009. This was mostly owed to the impact the recession and economic crises in Greece, Spain and Portugal have had on demand.
While activity in Asia has slowed down, the region appears to be recovering faster than other emerging markets locations.
China appears to be slowly establishing itself as an outsourcing hotspot, although currently its capability renders it an attractive offshore destination regionally (i.e. Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia).
However, according to Everest’s research, China still lacks the right characteristics to attract European and Northern American offshoring business. At the top of the list, sufficient numbers of experienced project managers able to deal with North American and European clients.
China is not likely to be a contender to India or the Philippines – at least not for the next five to seven years.
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50% of firms in DACH Region to up software expenditure; PAC
Nearly half of companies in DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) plan to increase their expenditure on CRM and ERP software, according to a recent survey conducted by Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC).
Companies are planning to mainly invest in ERP, CRM and business intelligence (BI) solutions in the period until 2011 (see figure below).
According to the survey, applications for financial accounting, enterprise resource planning (ERP), human capital management (HCM) and customer relationship management (CRM) are among the most frequently used business solutions.
While smaller firms concentrate on introducing one application at a time, larger enterprises mostly intend to invest in several applications.
Companies with 500 to 1,000 employees are particularly interested in CRM solutions. More than half of them are planning to invest in this area by 2011 – either by purchasing a new CRM software, or by expanding an existing application.
Another finding from the survey is that CRM applications are very common among banks and insurers.
The survey interviewed around 240 IT decision makers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland hailing from a variety of sectors including manufacture, banking/insurance, retail & wholesale, public/healthcare, telecommunications & utilities, transport/logistics and services & media.
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TfL Oyster card: Cubic takes over from TranSys
Transport for London (TfL) has agreed on a new contract for the future management and development of the Oyster card system and other ticketing services with Cubic Transportation Systems Limited and EDS.
The move is part of TfL’s £2.4bn efficiency savings outlined last week in its ten-year Business Plan. It replaces the existing Public Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, and sees TfL get ownership of the Oyster brand.
The system was originally created, and has been maintained, via a PFI contract held between TfL and TranSys, a consortium whose principal partners are EDS and Cubic; other partners included Fujitsu Services Ltd. and WS Atkins Consultants Ltd.
TranSys was responsible for developing, installing, managing and maintaining London’s automated fare collection system including the Oyster card system, on behalf of TfL.
The contract was put in place in 1998 for a term of 17 years but in August 2008, TfL gave notice to terminate the contract with the TranSys consortium; the break has come into effect this week.
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Bundesbank printers protest against outsourcing
Deutsche Welle reports that around 250 employees of Germany’s Federal Printing Works demonstrated in front of Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, in Frankfurt on Tuesday.
The protest came as the Bundesbank considers outsourcing the printing of German euro notes to printers outside Germany.
According to the German union Verdi, 180 jobs in Berlin are on the line. Meanwhile, close to 400 jobs at Giesecke & Devrient, a supplier of banknote paper with offices in Munich and Leipzig, are also at risk.
The union said the decision would also jeopardise research and development work worth millions of euros.
The Bundesbank has said it’s required by German and European law to advertise the tender EU-wide.
The printing contract has been tendered across the European Union attracting interest from printers in France and the Netherlands; Giesecke & Devrient has only been awarded a part of the contract.
The awarding of the contract, initially expected 2 August, has been delayed as the Federal Cartel Office investigates the matter. A final decision is expected by the end of the month.
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Premier Foods renews IT contract with Capgemini
Premier Foods, one of the UK’s largest food producers, has renewed its long-term IT outsourcing alliance with Capgemini once more.
The new contract is worth an estimated £9m for the five-year period 2014-2019 and covers the Premier Foods’ IT infrastructure including data centre and technical support for all core business systems.
Under the contract Capgemini will continue to support the IT infrastructure that underpins the many famous Premier Foods brands such as Hovis, Ambrosia, Mr Kipling, Sharwood’s, Batchelors, Quorn, Loyd Grossman, Oxo, Bisto and many others.
The agreement involves the deployment of Capgemini’s Rightshore® strategy, which makes its global resources available to customers.
Capgemini teams in the UK, Poland and India will work in collaboration with one another and with client personnel with the intent of maximising service levels and cost-effectiveness for Premier Foods.
Systems supported involve hardware at Capgemini data centres in Rotherham and Bristol, with additional support from the company’s infrastructure management command centre in Krakow, Poland, and from a Capgemini development centre in Mumbai, India.
Capgemini also provides support for a number of key applications software systems at Premier Foods under a separate long-term Applications Management outsourcing contract.
The new deal follows the announcement last year of a contract between the two companies covering the period 2009-2014 which in turn renewed arrangements dating back to 2001.
With the decision Premier Foods aims to secure improved certainty of its IT costs, quality and service levels so that essential long-term planning and budgeting activities can be done with confidence.
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European national lottery awards licensing contract to Convergys
A major European national lottery has awarded relationship manager Convergys Corporation a multi-year licensing, support, and maintenance contract.
The agreement will implement Convergys Smart BSS Solutions, including Convergys Rating and Billing Manager, to support the lottery’s dealer billing and commissioning.
This new Convergys client required a sophisticated billing and commissioning solution that would enable it to quickly launch new and innovative games and commissioning schemes to retain and attract new lottery agents.
With Convergys’ integrated portfolio of Smart BSS Solutions, the lottery determined that it would receive the flexibility it needed to expand its market share in the newly liberalised and increasingly competitive European gaming market.
This national lottery manages games of chance including lottery, scratch card, and sport gambling games, and sells and collects revenue through thousands of resellers nationwide.
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Alcatel-Lucent appoints new India country head
Alcatel-Lucent has appointed Munish Seth as country head for its Indian business, he will report to Rajeev Singh-Molares, president of the Asia-Pacific region.
Seth has 20 years of expertise and experience in the telecoms industry. Before his new role, he had been in charge of Customer Solution and Support for Alcatel-Lucent’s Asia-Pacific region.
Previously, he was chief technical officer and director Bids & Proposals for Alcatel-Lucent, India. He has been instrumental in strengthening Alcatel-Lucent position in India by introducing innovative business models, and helping service providers maximize technology investments.
Prior to joining Alcatel-Lucent, Munish was chief technical officer at Tekelec.
Seth takes over from Vivek Mohan, who now heads Alcatel-Lucent’s global services business.
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Luxoft opens UK Development Centre
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Global provider of advanced application and product development services Luxoft, has opened its technical development centre in the UK.
Located in Welwyn Garden City, near London, the new facility is a significant investment in the company’s growth strategy and further expansion of its global delivery capabilities.
The Luxoft Development Centre has been set up to provide product realisation services for large telecom equipment vendors.
One of Luxoft’s major partners, Avaya, will help kick off the opening of the development centre by continuing its relationship with Luxoft at the UK facility, jointly working on the development of Avaya’s IP Office product range.
Luxoft’s Centre opens with a team of over 50 highly skilled engineers, with capacity for growth. With a larger presence in the UK, Luxoft will be able to better serve existing UK-based customers such as Deutsche Bank, UBS and Areva, as well as establish new partnerships in the region.
The full portfolio of services to be provided by the Development Centre includes: software engineering, complete product development, detailed trouble shooting of equipment, as well as customer support services and account management for UK–based customers.
Luxoft’s new facility complements current delivery sites located in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, enabling the company to offer blended onshore / offshore delivery capabilities to deliver highly skilled innovations and developments, cost effectively and with a customer-centric approach.
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Tamil Nadu reveals rural BPO policy
According to reports, the government of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu has revealed a special policy offering capital and training subsidy to rural business process outsourcing (BPO) units.
While Tamil Nadu is an important Information and Communication Technology (ICT) hub, the BPO industry’s presence is mainly limited to Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore.
With the ICT industry now expanding to smaller cities, towns and into villages the state government felt the need for a comprehensive Rural BPO policy to increase employment opportunities in the rural areas.
The decision seeks deepen penetration of the sector in the state, specific policy initiatives to attract BPO units to rural areas are necessary.
The Tamil Nadu government IT department will facilitate the process by liaising with interested institutions wishing to pursue a partnership with BPO units.
Also, a subsidy of 15% would be supplied on capital investments such as cost of hardware and equipment to any rural BPO unit that had been functioning at least three years and directly employing a minimum of 100 trained people.
New rural BPO units needing to train its operational staff, a training subsidy of Rs 1500 per month per person for three months would be provided by the government.
The policy anticipates will promote entrepreneurship amongst rural youth benefiting faculty and students of educational institutions.
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Dell acquires 3PAR
Dell has acquired 3PAR, a global provider of highly-virtualised storage solutions with advanced data management features, including dynamic tiering and thin provisioning, for multi-tenant cloud-computing environments.
The acquisition will allow Dell to lead an open and integrated approach to data management delivers increased efficiency with a goal of radically reducing data management costs and significantly streamlining operations.
These savings enable Dell customers to make room in their budgets for other strategic investments. 3PAR’s product portfolio complements Dell’s goal to make IT simpler and more affordable.
Dell plans to make 3PAR an integral part of storage portfolio, including PowerVault, EqualLogic and Dell/EMC. With 3PAR, Dell will offer systems and customer choice at every storage tier, from direct-attach to highly-virtualised, clustered SANS.
The transaction is valued at approximately $1.15 billion, net of 3PAR’s cash. Terms of the acquisition were approved by the board of directors of each company.
After closing, Dell plans to maintain and invest in additional engineering and sales capability. There are no plans to move the current operations.
3PAR was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Fremont.
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Centrica appoints new CIO
Cetrica has appointed David Bickerton as its global chief information officer (CIO); he joins from British Gas, a Centrica subsidiary.
Bickerton is now heading up the development and delivery of an integrated information system strategy for the energy group.
Bickerton joined Centrica in 2004 and has previously worked for Fujitsu and ICL where he held a number of general management roles.
As the British Gas CIO, Bickerton took the company’s IT in-house, breaking ties with IT supplier Accenture in a highly-publicised legal battle over a billing system.
He then rebuilt the firm’s IT department which now comprises more than 600 employees, who have delivered around 180 projects in 2009 in connection to the billing platform. An additional 100 staff hires are expected this year.
The news of Bickerton’s promotion follow the release of Centrica’s financial results last month - the company’s profits jumped 65% to £886m in the first six months of the year, fuelled by higher gas prices and a strong performance from its US arm Direct Energy.
The Centrica CIO role had been vacant for some time; the previous CIO at Centrica was Gareth Lewis, now chief information officer at the Financial Services Authority.
British Gas has yet to find a replacement for Bickerton.
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Swansea hunts for £12m ITHC framework deal
Monday, August 16, 2010
Swansea City and County Council is seeking a four-year framework agreement to check the condition of technology. The agreement will be accessible to all public sector bodies across Wales and would be worth between £4-12m.
The framework agreement for the supply of an Information Technology Health Check (ITHC) and associated services, would enable compliance with security best practice guidelines and the requirements of GCSx Code Of Connection (CoCo) 4.1 and PCI-DSS accreditation.
The majority of public sector networks are currently accredited to handle protectively marked information up to level 3, ‘restrict’, but some members may have a requirement to test their network at higher levels.
Compliance with PCI-DSS, a payment card industry standard, will also be covered by the deal.
The contracts will be awarded principally on supplier and service quality (60% of the weighting), followed by price (40%).
Vendors have until 8 September to request participation; up to seven suppliers will be invited to bid.
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ITC and Oracle join forces in loyalty and marketing BPO services
Global IT services & solutions company ITC Infotech, fully owned subsidiary of ITC Ltd, is working with Oracle to provide Loyalty & Marketing based BPO services.
As per the BPO initiative agreement, ITC Infotech will have the non-exclusive license to use the Loyalty & Marketing programme solution offered by Oracle.
Oracle’s cutting edge offerings will support ITC Infotech in providing customers loyalty, marketing & customer relationship management (CRM) solutions in an outsourced business process model.
ITC Infotech is the first system integrator company globally to implement Siebel Loyalty for the airlines industry, for the hospitality industry, and for a coalition loyalty across hospitality & retail companies.
Along with its partner(s), ITC Infotech, can also provide services in the areas of loyalty strategy and program design, rewards and fulfillment, analytics, partner management, hosting, etc.
This new partnership with Oracle will allow ITC Infotech to expand its services to the BPO market globally.
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Bournemouth sewer-based FTTH contract dropped
Wessex Water cites commercial and technical reasons for dropping sewer-based fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) rollout, although a pilot project was completed.
The project will be completed using micro-trenching and digging up roads as a way to avoid the rollout “coming to a halt”. Borough Council has given planning permission for these techniques to be used.
Network supplier i3 Group was planning to deliver the FTTH service for Bournemouth residents through sewer systems owned by Wessex Water.
In a released statement i3 indicated that “citing technical issues as a reason is misleading in respect to the viability of the i3 Group’s FS System, a patented method of laying fibre in ready made ducts including sewer pipes.”
But the reasons for the change in plans remain vague at best.
Meanwhile, Scottish Water has recently signed a non-exclusive framework agreement with i3 to expand operations across Scotland. The utilities provider is working with i3 Group to allow a similar sewer-based FTTH project in Dundee.
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TfL launches speed cameras tender
Transport for London (TfL) has published a tender for the provision of average speed cameras for a project it plans to trial, according to the notice published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 10 August 2010.
The government department said that the cameras will be used to “enforce average speed limits in urban areas”, according to GC News.
The notice is a pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) and that there are no concrete plans in place yet, however it will form part of a wider project currently being undertaken with four London boroughs.
More announcements are expected to be made post-October.
The speed camera notice was published three days after TfL cancelled a tender for road traffic predictive modelling software due to tighter spending measures being introduced at the organisation.
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Electricians strike at St James’ Hospital Dublin
Electricians at St James’ Hospital Dublin are staging a one-day stoppage as a dispute over outsourcing work escalates.
Members of the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) will walk off the job the hospital after no agreement was reached at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC).
Union leaders confirmed emergency life and limb cover will be provided during the industrial action, but warned the technical services department will be affected.
This is the third stoppage by members at the hospital since the beginning of the month.
On 10 August, talks over outsourcing the work of electricians in the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union adjourned after three hours with no significant progress made.
The dispute is over management moves to reduce the role of electricians on site. Outside contractors have been brought in without prior agreement with the TEEU under agreed procedures. The union is concerned about health and safety, as well as job security issues resulting from the contracting out of services.
Other craft workers at the hospital, including members of Unite and UCATT, have refused to pass the pickets, leading to the effective closure of the Technical Services Department at St James’s hospital during the stoppages.
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BIS: Elgar contract renegotiation to save £5m
Friday, August 13, 2010
According to reports, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has predicted that the renegotiation of its Elgar contract will save £5m this year.
Elgar is an outsourcing contract to supply and manage IT equipment and core services put in place by the former Department for Trade and Industry. Fujitsu receives about £28m annually under the terms of the deal.
The renegotiations with supplier Fujitsu were completed last autumn, and “resulted in savings of £50m a year over the life of the contract,” from 1 April 2009 to 2014.
The department’s resource accounts for 2009-10 say that it renegotiated the contract to remove the majority of the ‘technology refresh’ element.
BIS will now pay for new hardware directly from its own capital budgets for the remainder of the contract period.
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Connaught: Lloyds stands by group as other investors bail
The woes of debt-laden integrated services group Connaught continue.
More than £400m have been wiped off the value of Connaught after it warned on 25 June that public spending cuts would see its revenues fall by £80m this year.
Lloyds Banking Group a junior member of a lending syndicate led by Royal Bank of Scotland, confirmed on Wednesday night that it would not start selling off loans. A debt-for-equity swap with the banks remains a possibility.
Investor confidence in the firm suffered after Barclays sold its entire debt exposure of £19m ($29.7m) for about 37% of face value.
Breeden European Partners, Parvus Asset Management and Norges Bank, which manages the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, have sold down their stakes. Toscafund, which has built a stake over the past month, is also believed to have reduced its holding.
Deloitte is investigating Connaught’s accounting policies while a new management team has been set up to lead an attempted turnaround. The firm’s CEO, Mark Tincknell, and its finance director, Stephen Hill, left the business in early July.
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ArcelorMittal awards transformational IT contract to Wipro
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Global steel company ArcelorMittal has awarded IT services provider Wipro a five-year transformational engagement consolidate and migrate its messaging systems to the Microsoft Exchange 2010 messaging platform.
The agreement will see Wipro host the new global messaging system on its hardware, hosted at six ArcelorMittal datacentres, spanning across North America, Latin America, East and West Europe and Asia.
As a critical component of this contract, Wipro will secure ArcelorMittal’s global messaging system using state-of-the-art anti-virus, anti-spam and archival solutions.
Wipro will also manage ArcelorMittal’s global messaging systems for the entire period of the contract. This engagement will help transform ArcelorMittal’s messaging environment and curtail their global messaging spending.
Wipro will use its Next Generation Global Command Center (GCC) for rendering the global messaging management services.
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SSON launches collaborative research tool
The Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (SSON), the largest and most established community of over 35,000 shared services and outsourcing professionals, has launched SSON Collaborative Research, powered by Peeriosity a solution for researching and evaluating best practices.
Organised around the interests of the community’s members, advanced communications and networking techniques ensure a knowledgebase is created through member interactions, as a natural outcome of leading companies collaborating on the most pressing issues they face.
Leveraging state-of-the-art technology and professional facilitation, members interact via advanced networking methods, iPolling, and monthly webcasts featuring actual peer experience; with online access to member shared documents, vendor contributed documents and case studies, and high level benchmarking surveys.
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M&Y Data Solutions rebrands to M&Y Global Services
Business process outsourcing (BPO) provider M&Y Data Solutions has officially changed to M&Y Global Services.
The new name reflects their growth in the Global BPO Services arena with their expanded breadth of service offerings and cross-industry solutions.
Founded in 2001, M&Y initially focused on providing document management services to UK and Australian markets. Today, M&Y provides a range of BPO services to the US and China markets as well.
M&Y Global Services has broadened its range of business processes offerings to include services for domains in insurance and banking, retail, construction and manufacturing.
Additionally, M&Y now offers cross-industry services in finance & accounting (F&A), contact centre, market research and supply chain management.
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Wipro launches greener and more flexible data centres
Wipro Infotech, the India and Middle East and Africa division of IT and business transformation services Wipro has launch of its FluidStateTM data centres targeted at SMEs.
Based on its model-driven engineering framework for next-generation data centres (DC) called FluidState, the FluidStateTM data centres from Wipro is essentially a pre-designed, prefabricated data centres, which can be setup in less than a week –almost 10 times faster than a conventional data centres.
FluidStateTM framework which stands for Flexible, Lean, Upgradable, Intelligent Data Centre, standardised for accelerated deployment, has been successfully implemented in many of the data centre projects undertaken by Wipro.
The modular design of the DC means it can be upgraded or downgraded without any downtime. The framework offers a greener data centre in terms of a unified computing environment with 24x7 lights out operation, capacity on demand, 4 times higher density per rack, up to 40% lower cooling cost and reduced carbon footprint. The data centre uses virtualisation and highest density in its building blocks.
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Harvey Nash opens City office to focus on London’s Financial Community
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Global professional recruitment and IT outsourcing group Harvey Nash has announced the opening of another London office location in the heart of the financial district further strengthening the group’s market position in professional technology recruitment for the financial services sector.
The additional office will continue to service the group’s existing financial services clients located in the City and Canary Wharf areas of London and also leverage new client and candidate opportunities.
Forming a crucial part of the Group’s global footprint, the team will also seek to support financial services organisations headquartered in New York, Connecticut, Edinburgh, Frankfurt and Zurich who are increasingly looking to recruit talent in their London operations.
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HP appoints new senior VP of Global IT
HP has appointed Ahmed Mahmoud senior vice president in Global Information Technology at HP, effective immediately.
Mahmoud will lead the IT teams responsible for the company’s hp.com, e-commerce and marketing organisations.
He will report to Randy Mott, executive vice president and chief information officer at HP.
Mahmoud most recently was senior vice president and chief information officer for Advanced Micro Devices. Prior to that, he held a variety of IT management roles at Dell over a 13-year period, including application development for global manufacturing, finance, supply chain, sales, Dell online and data warehousing. Before that he was an Oracle database administrator at Eastman Kodak.
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India protests US bill on foreign workers visas
New Delhi has pronounced itself against the hike on the US visa fees for foreign workers; India termed the bill “discriminatory”.
The bill, which would see the cost of a visa application to $2,000, would cost Indian companies over $200m a year.
The legislation would raise fees for H1B and L1 visas, which outsourcing companies use to send workers to the US for project work.
The fee increases would only be levied on companies where over half of US -based employees use work visas.
It has been argued that the bill unfairly targets Indian companies as US companies like IBM, Microsoft and Intel - which use more foreign-worker visas than Indian companies - would not be liable for the increased fees because a greater proportion of their workers are American.
The visas, usually issued for a three-year period, allow temporary employment of foreign workers in specialty occupations. The US has a quota of about 100,000 H1-B visas each year.
Indian companies, such as Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services, top the list of companies receiving the largest number of these work permits.
Indian software services companies pay over $1bn each year to the US government in the form of Social Security, “with no benefit or prospect of a refund”.
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Amadeus bids for PAL passenger service system contract
It is understood that Spanish IT solutions provider Amadeus is bidding for Philippine Airlines (PAL) comprehensive passenger service system (PSS) system contract.
The PSS system covers the reservation, inventory and departure control of a full-serviced airline. PAL is to upgrade its IT systems in a move to become more cost efficient and globally competitive.
PAL asked bidders to submit their PSS proposals last year. The Lucio Tan-owned company, which is undergoing labour issue problems, is expected to announce the results of its decision by next month.
Currently, Amadeus distributes PAL’s international bookings through its global distribution system, but runs on a 40-year-old IT system PACERS 2 system.
Amadeus would like to expand its partnership by proposing to provide its entire PSS, which covers the reservation, inventory and departure control,of the country’s one and only airline company.
While adapting to the new Amadeus Altea Suite, which is being used by most legacy airline companies globally, could mean displacing some people because this means automating some functions, this new way of doing business would add more value to an airline because it would mean efficient operations and cost efficiency.
Outsourcing of IT system will enable the airline to allocate more resources to more critical areas of their business.
So far, 160 airlines are using the Amadeus platform because it provides better integration with travel agents and airline partners. Amadeus Altea Suites accounts for 64% of One World airline alliances, 30% of Skyteam carriers and 63% of Star Alliance Carriers.
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Northgate wins place on Buying Solutions’ IT Managed Services framework agreement
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Northgate Information Solutions has today announced that it has been successful in
being awarded a place on the IT Managed Services framework agreement by Buying
Solutions, the national procurement partner for UK public services.
The new framework agreement provides the public sector with a wide range of IT
services from remote access to fully managed IT services.
Northgate successfully competed to become one of the twelve suppliers who have
been awarded a framework agreement. The awards are based on a range of criteria
including service delivery, customer services, sustainability and pricing and
contractual considerations.
Northgate has previously been awarded a place on Buying Solutions’ Applications
Solutions framework agreement. The company is now able to offer its full range of
services to customers across the public sector.
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Wipro TEchnologies to manage Citi Bank data centre
Indian IT service provider Wipro Technologies has signed a deal with Citibank to take over the operation and management of its data centre in Meerbusch Germany. The company intends to use the site to support other outsourcing clients and expects the data centre to support the delivery of its mainframe, Windows, Unix, Linux and AS/400 outsourcing services. The Meerbusch, Germany centre will be Wipros first data centre facility in Europe and will enable the company to offer a full portfolio of infrastructure management offerings to its global clients.
In addition, the company plans to extend its Dynamically Adaptive Infrastructure (DAI) cloud platform to the German data centre to deliver outsourcing offerings in Europe that can be managed remotely, delivered in the companys data centre or installed on the companys cloud infrastructure.
Citi will lease back office and data centre space from Wipro for at least 30 months, and Wipro will provide Citi with facilities management and physical infrastructure management services during the period.
Sameer Kishore, president of Wipro Infocrossing, the data centre outsourcing practice of Wipro, said: The addition of a data centre in Europe represents an important milestone in the companys growth strategy. In 2007, Wipro acquired Infocrossing, a US-based provider of data centre outsourcing offerings.
The addition of the data centre delivery capability enabled Wipro to compete more aggressively for large, total outsourcing engagements in the US. The Meerbusch facility will enable Wipro to extend its capabilities to the European market and strengthen the Companys ability to compete for global outsourcing opportunities.
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Aditya Birls expands BPO operations
Aditya Birla Minacs, the business process outsourcing (BPO) arm of the USD 28 billion Aditya Birla Group, expanded its operations in Eastern India with the inauguration of its 31st and 32rd delivery centers in Kolkata and Ranchi respectively.Both the facilities were inaugurated by Navanit Narayan, chief service delivery officer, Idea Cellular Ltd, said a press release.
Speaking at the launch, Navanit Narayan said, Yet another step in our growing partnership and engagement with Minacs, the launch of these two centers will help us address the customer and business requirements of Idea in Eastern India. The talent available in both Kolkata and Ranchi along with Minacs robust Connect India model will further augment our customer service in the region.
Milind Godbole, president – APAC, Aditya Birla Minacs said the launch of these two centers aligns with the companys strategic effort toward creating business solutions that meet their clients needs.
Emerging as customer acquisition hubs, Kolkata and Ranchi are strategic locations for Minacs pioneering Connect India model in eastern India. These new state-of-the-art centers will provide our clients a competitive business advantage in the region, he said.
Connect India is an outsourced customer relationship management (CRM) services delivery model providing access to the economically vibrant Indian hinterland, said the company.
It currently has operating centers in Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Vadodara and Aurangabad.
Commenting on the hiring plans for the new centers, Milind Godbole said, We plan to grow the employee base at the Kolkata facility to more than 600 by early next year from the current 425 associates. In the Ranchi facility too, we will have close to 600 employees by mid-next year from the current 115.
The US is the largest market for the company and contributes nearly 65% to its revenue. It has already identified three probable locations where the proposed facility can come up. Aditya Birla Minacs expects to soon freeze its South American plans. The way to do business in the US has changed significantly than what it was even 2 to 3 years ago, said Aditya Birla Minacs president (Asia Pacific) Milind Godbole.
Minacs currently serves several Fortune 500 telecom clients globally - including a leading US wireless technology provider, a large global telecom company, and a global broadband service provider, said the company.
Godbole also said it was keen on establishing a facility in Latin America with an eye on catering to the clients in the United States, which contributes about 65 per cent of the companys total revenues.
Every US company is focusing more on the customer experience and South America understands North America very well, he said.
The company intends to either set up a greenfield facility or look at acquisitions for this unit, which will primarily cater to the US market.
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RCG IT Named to Global Services 100 List Again
RCG Information Technology announced that it has been named as a 2010 Global Services 100 provider for the fourth year. Conducted by Global Services in association with NeoAdvisory, the globalization and sourcing advisory firm, the Annual GS100 study identifies the top 100 Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service providers throughout the world. The GS100 model for analysis is based on four primary pillars: Management Excellence, Customer Maturity, Global Delivery Maturity, and Breadth of Services Portfolio.
“Outsourcing has become such a valuable and practical solution to providing efficient IT services. Our global delivery model provides a proven yet flexible approach to meeting our clients’ needs,” states Rob Simplot, President and CEO of RCG Information Technology, Inc. “We are honored to again be one of the 2010 Global Services 100, as it shows our commitment to delivering excellence.”
“There is a recognition in large companies that outsourcing as a means to reduce costs has had its time; these companies are increasingly looking at service providers being able to make their operations more effective globally and even to transform key areas of their business. The GS100 companies are the ones who are delivering on these fronts and are equipped to demonstrate new forms of value in outsourcing to their clients,” says Atul Vashistha, Chairman, NeoAdvisory.
RCG IT’s Offshore Delivery Center (ODC) operates 3 facilities in the Philippines and is headquartered in the Philamlife Tower, which is the most technologically advanced building in the Philippines, strategically situated in the heart of the Makati business district. Manila is currently home to 20 million people and over 250 US and multinational companies, which helps RCG IT expand its delivery options based on their clients’ needs.
RCG IT’s ODC has centers of excellence for Web Development, Quality Assurance & Software Testing and Business Intelligence & Data Delivery. Web Development is focused on .NET, J2EE and PHP frameworks in the development, modernization, maintenance and enhancements practices. Quality Assurance & Software Testing spotlights manual, automated and keyword drive testing using cutting edge tools from HP/Mercury, Compuware, and Rational as well as economical open source testing frameworks such as Robot. Business Intelligence & Data Delivery concentrates on the processes and tools from Informatica, Datastage, Microsoft, SAP, Cognos, Oracle, MicroStrategy, and Ab Initio. RCG IT’s ODC also has considerable expertise in legacy technologies (C#, C++, VB) as well as mature toolsets such as RPG and Synon. RCG IT’s ODC is assessed at the highest level of CMMI software process maturity, Level 5. The CMMI mechanisms link the entire system development and engineering process to our clients’ business objectives.
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SourceRight Solutions Selected by Siemens to Manage Contingent Labor Procurement Programs in the U.S
Monday, August 09, 2010
Leading talent acquisition outsourcing firm to provide first-of-its-kind Managed Services Program (MSP) oversight in the United States.
SourceRight Solutions, a division of SFN Group, Inc. (NYSE: SFN), was selected to provide contingent labor procurement program oversight for two Siemens business sectors in the U.S.: Siemens Healthcare and Siemens Industry, Inc. SourceRight will provide a streamlined Managed Service Program (MSP) solution designed to enhance compliance, increase efficiencies, improve cost-effectiveness and centralize management and operations for the procurement of contingent labor positions.
SourceRight, who has been working with Siemens Healthcare since 2006, was awarded a multi-year contract renewal and a significant expansion of its service footprint to additional business units in a competitive selection process. SourceRight’s resources, knowledge and technical expertise to run a highly complex MSP were contributing factors to the win.
“SourceRight was chosen to help us consolidate and move our contingent labor procurement strategies to a single platform. They have demonstrated ability to run complex MSPs for companies worldwide and their commercial model invokes true transparency, providing an open-book relationship for the supplier and the customer,” said Doug Cutrell, director of global sourcing of Siemens. “It’s a win-win-win for all parties.”
In the United States, this is the first MSP designed in this unique commercial configuration on the Fieldglass technology platform which is aimed at neutralizing the economic strains that both Staffing Suppliers and large employers are facing. SourceRight’s optimized services approach enables all parties, including Suppliers, Siemens and SourceRight, to have a clear view of the program’s financial structure, achieve cost advantages and increase efficiencies, while delivering high-quality talent. Specific benefits of the delivery structure include:
A break-out of statutory costs such as state, unemployment, social security and workers’ compensation to provide maximum cost transparency and minimize risk exposure
Graduated supplier gross markups based on sourcing demands and difficulty levels by job family
Realization of cost savings through tenure discounts and volume incentives
Distribution of volume incentives based on market share to ensure equity across suppliers
Process optimization leveraging Fieldglass, a leading vendor management technology system for contingent labor procurement
The SourceRight program will encompass Siemens Healthcare and Industry operations in nearly all of the 50 states, as well as Canada and Puerto Rico.
“Through our relationship with Siemens over the past four years, we’ve proven our ability to continually provide service excellence and innovative solutions. This history of success coupled with SourceRight’s unique capability to deploy complex programs was pivotal in the company’s decision to expand the relationship into other sectors,” said Rebecca Callahan, president of SourceRight Solutions. “In addition to helping guide Siemens in future workforce decisions, we look forward to executing a total contingent labor strategy with management model and philosophy that nurtures transparency and efficiency.”
SourceRight’s MSP is a scalable outsourcing model that includes flexible configuration options, global program management oversight, optimized supplier management and decision support analytics. Siemens will benefit from SupplierEdge, a SourceRight delivery services solution that streamlines order processing and supplier management to ensure a measurable ROI, access to proven, high-performing preferred suppliers, performance quality and compliance with supplier diversity programs. Siemens will also gain added value from SourceRight Advisor, a workforce analytics and thought leadership solution that provides data and trend analysis to help businesses develop better-informed strategies to optimize their services and workforce management spend.
SourceRight will manage supply chain strategies across all Siemens job families, including IT, engineering, professional, technical, administrative, light and heavy industrial, and more.
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BPO deal for Infosys
T-Mobile UK has signed a five-year outsourcing contract with Indias Infosys BPO, the BPO arm of Infosys Technologies. The contract covers several core processes for their finance directorate which cover customer finance, commercial finance and accounting (F&A), and procurement operations, Infosys BPO said in a statement.
“We are pleased to have been selected by T-Mobile UK. Our strong F&A capabilities combined with our understanding of the telecom industry helps us successfully transform businesses of our clients,” Infosys BPO Vice President and Head (Communications, Media and Entertainment (CME)) Gopal Devanahalli said.
T-Mobiles UK arm has come under pressure to cut costs and boost market share to avoid a possible sale by its German parents. The company appointed a new Managing Director, Richard Moat who took over a couple of months ago.
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Nordea to outsource
Accenture has signed a five-year application outsourcing contract with Nordea, a leading financial services group in the Nordic and Baltic Sea region, to develop and maintain applications that will support the banks customer websites.The company said the deal is designed to help Nordea improve customer service and increase cost efficiencies. As per the deal terms, Accenture would assume responsibility for maintaining and developing Nordeas Web content management platform for its customer websites and would also provide the services through local facilities in Denmark and through its Global Delivery Network using centers in Bangalore, India.
“This agreement gives us access to skilled resources and the benefits of international expertise in Web application development and maintenance,” commented Henrik Korch, business chief information officer for Marketing at Nordea.
“In selecting a reliable business partner to help us, we focused on track records of innovation, creativity and new ideas,” said Juha Toivari, Vice-president and head of digital marketing at Nordea. “Accentures knowledge of our business and proven ability to provide enhancement and management services for Microsoft applications make it an ideal business partner.”
Accenture will deliver the services in collaboration with Avanade, a business technology services provider that connects insight, innovation and expertise in Microsoft technologies to help customers realize results. Avanade is majority owned by Accenture.
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TCS Wins PwC’s Contract to Handle IT Support System
Friday, August 06, 2010
The US and UK arms of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have awarded a contract for back-office information technology (IT) support to Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), India’s biggest IT company, after the professional services firm announced laying off at least 500 IT employees at its Tampa Bay, Florida office, according to two PwC executives who didn’t want to be identified.
TCS declined comment. Its spokesperson Pradipta Bagchi said the firm does not comment on individual clients.
Those being laid off can carry on till 31 December and apply for other “open positions” within the firm, Jonathan Stoner, spokesperson for PwC US, said in a phone interview. If they cannot get another job by then, they would be paid a generous severance package, he added.
Before the layoffs were announced, there were some 1,100 IT professionals at its Tampa Bay office, which employs over 1,800 people in all. The layoffs are part of a restructuring exercise aimed at aligning the internal IT needs of PwC’s US and UK firms, according to Stoner.
These two firms would outsource IT services to an “India-based vendor”, he added. He refused to name the vendor, citing company policy.
A few of those being laid off are Indians. One of them said the move has triggered “quite a stir” in Florida, more so because earlier this year, the firm cut back its tax practice in Orlando. “PwC is one of the bigger employers in Tampa,” he added, requesting anonymity. “So many people laid off in one stroke is big news here.”
The deal signals that large firms in the US and Europe don’t want in-house IT professionals on their payrolls for back-office support, said an analyst at the Indian arm of a global consulting firm.
“Indian outsource managers typically charge two-three times the employee cost of the company closing its back office,” added this person, who asked that neither he nor his firm be identified.
This is because such outsourcing includes all costs of delivery: travel, communication, establishment, etc. The company outsourcing its work saves on establishment cost.
So, if PwC was paying those being laid off at Tampa $30 million a year collectively, TCS would charge at least $50-60 million annually, he added.
Outsourcing firms such as TCS offer back-office support to so many firms that their cost of delivery is very small compared with large firms managing their own back-offices, said another analyst who, too, did not want to be identified.
“Companies such as TCS have well-evolved systems and practices, which make back-office management extremely cost-efficient,” he added.
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Wipro Signs Outsourcing Services Agreement with Citibank N.A. and takes over Citi’s Data Center
Transaction Establishes Wipro’s First Data Center in Europe, Strengthens IT Infrastructure Management Portfolio
Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT) and Citibank N.A. (NYSE:C) announced that the companies have signed an agreement for Wipro to take over the operation and management of Citi’s data center in Meerbusch Germany, a suburb of Dusseldorf. In conjunction with the transaction, Wipro has taken the data center from Citi and intends to use the site to support other outsourcing clients. Citi will lease back office and data center space from Wipro for at least 30 months, and Wipro will provide Citi with facilities management and physical infrastructure management services during the period.
The Meerbusch, Germany center will be Wipro’s first data center facility in Europe and will enable the Company to offer a full portfolio of infrastructure management solutions to its global clients. Wipro expects the data center to support the delivery of its mainframe, Windows, Unix, Linux and AS/400 outsourcing services. In addition, the Company plans to extend its Dynamically Adaptive Infrastructure (DAI) cloud platform to the German data center. The expanded capabilities will enable Wipro to deliver comprehensive outsourcing solutions in Europe that can be managed remotely, delivered in the Company’s data center or installed on the Company’s cloud infrastructure.
“The addition of a data center in Europe represents an important milestone in the Company’s growth strategy,” stated Sameer Kishore, President of Wipro Infocrossing, the data center outsourcing practice of Wipro. “In 2007, Wipro acquired Infocrossing, a US-based provider of data center outsourcing solutions. The addition of the data center delivery capability enabled Wipro to compete more aggressively for large, total outsourcing engagements in the US. The Meerbusch facility will enable Wipro to extend its capabilities to the European market and strengthen the Company’s ability to compete for global outsourcing opportunities.”
The facility is comprised of approximately 9,000 square meters of total space, including approximately 1,700 square meters of raised floor. The facility meets the standards for a Tier III data center and has been owned and operated by Citi for more than 20 years. The agreement transfers ownership of the data center and operations to Wipro, and provides a period of up to 30 months for Citi to migrate its computing infrastructure out of the data center. As Citi vacates the facility, Wipro plans to make improvements to the data center and begin migrating new clients to the site.
“Wipro’s data center capabilities have become a key component when competing for large outsourcing engagements,” added Ralf Reich, General Manager & Country Head, Germany. “With the addition of the Meerbusch site, we will be able to deliver a full portfolio of mainframe, Windows and AS/400 outsourcing services from a Wipro data center in Europe, and extend our cloud computing platform to the region. This demonstrates our commitment to building localized and global delivery capabilities, and provides an important point of differentiation from our competitors,” Mr. Reich concluded.
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Patni sets up Texas centre for BPO
Patni, leading global IT and BPO services provider, has announced the establishment of a new North American hub for Business Process Outsourcing operations in El Paso, Texas. The move was triggered by a multiyear, multimillion-dollar BPO services contract with a leading healthcare technology and services provider. Adding the El Paso center follows through on the stated corporate strategy to invest in specific regions around the world and contribute toward generating economic opportunities in these regions. Patni has set a goal to increase the size and scope of its North American operations to adapt to market conditions that encourage the establishment of more on-shore delivery capabilities.
Establishing the new service hub expands Patnis Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) delivery capabilities to service North American customers from domestic locations in a cost-effective manner, deliver cost take-outs locally and employ highly skilled local talent. When fully staffed, it will employ more than 300 skilled professionals providing a wide range of insurance, financial services, finance and accounting, technical support and multi-lingual helpdesk services to Patnis North American clients. In addition, the BPO services deal strengthens Patnis healthcare delivery capability across the Payers and Providers segment.
Patni currently has three principal service delivery centers in the U.S. in Bloomington, Ill.; Milpitas, Calif.; and Cambridge, Mass., and is committed to adding more on-shore delivery capabilities.
“We have embarked on a plan to expand our domestic operations to address evolving customer requirements for cost-effective services from onshore locations,” said Naresh Lakhanpal, EVP and President, Patni Americas. “El Paso is a preferred domestic location possessing state-of-the-art infrastructure, cost advantages, a positive business climate, support from the local government and a highly skilled work force.”
The establishment of the El Paso site follows Patnis recent move to open a “nearshore” center in Queretaro, Mexico, to serve North American and Latin American markets and augment the companys global delivery capabilities. The Texas location offers Patni access to U.S. customers that either prefer to or are required by regulators to keep sensitive data processing operations on shore.
Patni plans to expand the offerings on site to deliver high-quality BPO services to a wide range of industries central to the companys mission, including life sciences, telecommunications, financial services, insurance and manufacturing.
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WTTIL signs up outsourcing contract
Technology giant IBM has signed a five-year, multi-million dollar deal with Quippo-WTTIL for managing the telecom tower companys IT infrastructure.This is IBMs fifth such outsourcing contract in the Indian telecom space. It is already working with Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular and state-owned telco BSNL. As part of the deal, IBM will provide technical support for Quippo-WTTILs IT infrastructure system, including managing the hardware, mailing and infrastructure management software applications, IBM said in a statement.
Quippo-WTTIL manages over 38,000 telecom towers and has plans of rolling out nearly 25,000-30,000 additional towers in the next two years.
“With this agreement, our aim is not just to have an IT partner, but an enabler of growth to enhance our operational efficiencies,” Quippo-WTTIL CEO Arun Kapur said.The decision to outsource the management of services is an attempt to create a unified IT environment for the efficient functioning of the joint entity, the company said on Thursday. As per the agreement, IBM will also deploy server and storage support, networking and security services at Quippo-WTTILs hosted data centre in Gurgaon. Quippo-WTTIL currently operates about 38,000 towers and plans to roll out nearly 25,000 additional towers in the next two years.
“IBMs solution for Quippo-WTTIL will help synchronise the recently merged companys everyday business needs, from e-mail to help desk support, enabling Quippo-WTTIL,” IBM India/South Asia Director-Integrated Technology Services Neeraj Sharma said.
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Netcall join up with Telephonetics VIP to deliver complete contact centre solutions
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Netcall plc has completed the agreed acquisition of Telephonetics plc.
The joining together of the two companies and the further integration of Q-Max, acquired by Netcall in 2009, delivers a wide and compelling suite of contact centre and enterprise communications solutions.
Henrik Bang
Organisations require a number of tools to plan and forecast demand and supply of agents, route calls effectively, automate appropriate transactions, deliver exceptional caller experience, and gather together disparate sources of data to provide valuable management information.
Henrik Bang, Netcall CEO, commented, ‘The enlarged Netcall group delivers an enhanced proposition for customer interaction solutions with a broadened and improved product offering. I am really excited about the future opportunities for the group to deliver the key benefits of improved customer experience and minimised costs to organisations.’
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Rostrvm provides outbound solution to UK Insurer
Aviva UK General Insurance (UKGI) has partnered with Rostrvm Solutions to provide the technical expertise and innovation required in building a market-leading outbound operation.
Aviva UKGI is well accomplished in acquiring and retaining its customers. Nearly 170 people are employed in its outbound contact service, operating more than 130 workstations across two Centres of Excellence, based in Glasgow, Scotland.
The company needed greater functionality in its outbound operation, to make high-quality, tailored calls to meet a complex blend of acquisition, retention and additional business needs. Often driven from customer-initiated interactions, the calls need to be targeted to meet the ever-changing mix of both market and customer requirements – and focused to enhance the overall customer experience. The solution needed to accommodate this, while reducing the total cost to acquire/serve.
Shona Anderson, Technical Manager, Telephony, said, “Rostrvm Solutions exhibited a partnership ethos and flexibility that surpassed the traditional technology provider/client relationship. Equally, it was clear that Rostrvm had identified that the key to their success was being able to rapidly meet and anticipate the ever-evolving needs of their clients, in response to shifting market dynamics.”
Rostrvm has provided a strategic outbound dialling solution for initially up to 250 users, with the potential to expand to over 600. Although for Aviva, the rostrvm Outbound dialler is being hosted by Cable&Wireless and has been installed in their network for use as ‘software as a service’ by Aviva.
Alan MacEwan, Outbound Strategic Delivery Manager at Aviva, adds, “The Rostrvm solution has quickly become a pivotal component in Aviva’s General Insurance strategy across multiple brands, products and customer touchpoints. Rostrvm will continue to support our growth and their expertise will be crucial in allowing Aviva to innovate, drive greater efficiencies, maximise data usage and truly exploit the potential of a professional and experienced outbound solution.”
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SourceRight Solutions Named Number One Overall RPO Provider
SourceRight Solutions today announced that it has been named the top RPO provider in HRO Today’s annual “Baker’s Dozen” listing. Additionally, for the third consecutive year, SourceRight was recognized as the number one provider in the ‘Quality of Service’ ranking.
The HRO Today “Baker’s Dozen” listing ranked the top providers of RPO services – both in the U.S. and internationally – and was based on three categories: breadth of service, size of deals and quality of service. In addition to being named the number one overall provider as well as number one in quality of service, SourceRight Solutions was recognized as a top provider across all three categories.
According to Elliot Clark, CEO of SharedXpertise, publishers of HRO Today Magazine, “SourceRight Solutions has been the top performer in our survey in Quality of Service for three years and has ascended to the top position as the No. 1 enterprise provider. They have demonstrated a clear commitment to their customer base, ongoing process improvement, and innovation in some of the largest and most complex programs in the industry. SourceRight’s top rated performance on this year’s survey is a tribute to their company and their dedication to excellence.”
Rebecca Callahan, president of SourceRight Solutions, commented, “We are thrilled to be named the top enterprise provider of RPO services, as well as the number one provider of quality of service for the third year in a row. In this highly competitive field, more and more companies are looking for a recruitment partner that can deliver total workforce solutions delivered with high standards of service excellence. This prestigious recognition validates SourceRight’s commitment to our client relationships and unmatched talent acquisition capabilities.”
HRO Today’s “Baker’s Dozen” methodology is based on established standards for customer satisfaction research components. RPO buyers complete Web-based surveys that rate 50 providers from which the final Baker’s Dozen is ranked on three dimensions related to the breadth of service or complexity of the programs, the size of the programs and the quality of the service they receive. These ratings are calculated into an overall index. The annual survey is confidential and uses buyers identified by the provider community and buyers who are contacted directly by HRO Today Magazine. There is a survey verification process. With more than 600 surveys completed by HR professionals who are current buyers of RPO services, the HRO Today RPO “Bakers Dozen” is the largest survey of RPO buyers conducted in the RPO industry.
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Capgemini Named HP Partner of the Year for Application Implementation
Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, has been recognized by HP with the Application Implementation Partner of the Year Award at HP Software Universe 2010. Working together for more than 18 years, Capgemini and HP have leveraged their alliance to provide solutions for major financial services clients.
During the awards ceremony at HP Software Universe 2010, Capgemini’s sales and delivery teams were recognized for their application management services that satisfied stakeholders at leading financial services institutions. By leveraging its collaboration with HP, Capgemini has helped one Wall Street firm define a structured, enterprise-wide testing methodology with oversight and governance, allowing the company to better utilize its investment in HP testing products. Capgemini has also helped a major global banking company execute a successful HP Quality Center upgrade for more than 2,000 projects and 10,000 clients and users.
“The combination of Capgemini’s implementation experience and HP’s application testing products and services has offered critical solutions to a number of the world’s largest financial institutions,” said Roy Stansbury, managing director for Capgemini financial services in North America. “Capgemini’s alliance with HP has augmented our clients’ abilities, keeping them armed with the most relevant and cutting-edge application management and testing strategies.”
Other examples of success include Capgemini’s work with a major mutual fund company to configure their HP testing products in order to provide a CIO-level dashboard view of their testing operations, and realize the expected ROI on their tool set. Also, a major custodian bank with worldwide operations was able to define a clear, actionable plan for deploying an enterprise-wide test strategy, using HP testing products and Capgemini’s financial services expertise and strategic approach.
“For well over a decade, we have partnered with Capgemini to respond to client needs, and deliver solutions successfully into the market, resulting in high client satisfaction,” said Scott Strubel, vice president, HP Americas Alliances and Channels. “As HP’s Application Implementation Partner of the Year, Capgemini has effectively demonstrated how they help clients transform their businesses through the innovative use of HP products and services.”
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C3/CustomerContactChannels Opens New Contact Center in Salt Lake City, Utah
C3/CustomerContactChannels, a global contact center provider, announced today that it is in the process of opening its newest contact center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Company will bring 500 new jobs to the Region in addition to establishing its West Region technology hub.
Centrally located at 5215 Wiley Post Way in Salt Lake City, the new center is approximately 40,000 square feet in size. In addition to its efforts to fill several key local management positions, C3/CustomerContactChannels is actively recruiting for licensed insurance agents within the area and is offering a $500 bonus after employment to agents with licenses that expire in 2011 or later. Additionally, the Company is offering paid training and licensing to qualified applicants interested in obtaining their insurance license.
“Salt Lake City is ideal for C3/CustomerContactChannels to set up operations due to its highly educated workforce, strong work ethic, and multilingual capabilities,” commented Bob Tenzer, SVP of Human Resources for C3/CustomerContactChannels. “The response thus far to our recruitment efforts has been quite strong and we are very happy that our Company’s growth can bring so many new jobs to this area.”
C3/CustomerContactChannels prides itself on a culture that encourages employee and leadership development, community involvement, and career advancement in an environment that is both fun and exciting. Qualified applicants can apply online by submitting a cover letter and resume at http://www.c3connect.com/careers .
The C3/CustomerContactChannels Management team founded Florida-based Precision Response Corporation (PRC) in 1982, a leading, global provider of contact center services which grew the Company to over 14,000 employees globally under their leadership, and sold in 2000 to IAC/InterActiveCorp. C3/CustomerContactChannels is uniquely positioned to offer boutique style client management in a global operating environment built upon proven operational best practices and a veteran leadership team.
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Outsourcing deal for HCL
Meggitt have signed an engineering management outsourcing contract with HCL. The contract is worth $50 million and will see HCL providing engineering services for the companys global operations. The contract was awarded after a multi-vendor review which ran for several months. Terry Twigger, Meggitts chief executive says that this strategic initiative will help us respond to the current economic environment while successfully positioning us for future growth.
“With more than three decades of experience helping large corporations address complex engineering environments, HCL integrates the right capabilities and business models to ensure organizations such as Meggitt establish a competitive advantage,” said Sandeep Kishore, senior VP and global head of sales and practice, HCL ERS.
“HCLs alignment to the key business imperatives of Meggitt and synergy with business objectives proved to be the biggest differentiators during the evaluation process and culminated in this strategic win,” he added.
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Meggitt PLC is an international group operating in North America, Europe and Asia, known for its specialised extreme environment engineering. Meggitt is a world leader in civil and military aerospace equipment, sensing systems, combat support and defence systems training, the release added.
Meggitt is a UK headquartered company with a presence in North America, Europe and Asia. It specialises in extreme environment engineering
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Infosys BPO acquires McCamish Systems
Infosys BPO completed the acquisition of US-based insurance and retirement business process solutions provider McCamish Systems LLC. The deal establishes Infosys BPO as a key player in business platform services for the insurance and financial services sector and will enhance companys capability to deliver end-to-end business solutions, according to a press release.
With this acquisition,Infosys BPO strengthens its presence as a global outsourcing services provider.We look forward to an exceptional relationship with McCamish Systems LLC and are delighted to be working with a dynamic and outstanding group of individuals”, Ritesh Idnani, Head, World Wide sales and marketing and business Head, Banking, Capital Markets, Insurance, Healthcare and Emerging Markets and Americas Operations, Infosys BPO said.
J Gordon Beckhan Jr., President and CEO, McCamish Systems said “we as a part of Infosys BPO are excited to be associated with an organisation that is driven by an ethos of values and knowledge capital. Our customers would also benefit from this partnership at a global scale”.
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BT to provide Nationwide with managed security services
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
BT has been awarded a contract by Nationwide, the world’s largest building society, to provide the organisation with managed security services.
The five year contract which was signed in June, strengthens BT’s existing relationship with Nationwide, building on an outsourced contract to provide networked IT services that was awarded to BT in 2008.
BT will provide Nationwide with a range of services including Managed Security Monitoring Services (to monitor and protect the network), security firewalls and managed email and web access. Together these services will transform the building society’s existing bespoke security infrastructure to a fully managed service.
Peter Stafford, IT Director at Nationwide, said: “Nationwide is seeking to introduce standard security services across its business, to reduce costs and to improve business agility. BT was chosen because it demonstrated a complete understanding of the security architecture needed to ensure delivery of these objectives”.
Andy Nicholson, president, global banking and financial markets, BT, said: “Like many organisations in the fiercely competitive UK financial services market, Nationwide is looking to improve its business agility and remain focused on its core activities. Outsourcing security presents a key area of opportunity and as BT is the market leader in providing enterprise security solutions, we are a perfect fit for Nationwide.”
Ray Stanton, Executive Global Head of business continuity, security and governance, BT Global Services, said: “Our existing security services and BT Counterpane threat monitoring services were the starting point for introducing wider depth and standard security services to Nationwide. BT Counterpane now forms the backbone of our overall value add service offering to Nationwide, bringing together analysis and reporting across a range of different services and technologies to help Nationwide mitigate further its risk profile and improve overall service and cost.”
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U.S. To Train 3,000 Offshore IT Workers
$22 million, federally-backed program aims to help outsourcers in South Asia become more fluent in areas like Java programming—and the English language.
Despite President Obama’s pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $22 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia.
Following their training, the tech workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent’s low labor costs.
Under director Rajiv Shah, the United States Agency for International Development will partner with private outsourcers in Sri Lanka to teach workers there advanced IT skills like Enterprise Java (Java EE) programming, as well as skills in business process outsourcing and call center support. USAID will also help the trainees brush up on their English language proficiency.
“To help fill workforce gaps in BPO and IT, USAID is teaming up with leading BPO and IT/English language training companies to establish professional IT and English skills development training centers,” the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, said in a statement posted Friday on its Web site.
“Courses in Business Process Outsourcing, Enterprise Java, and English Language Skills will be offered at no charge to over 3,000 under- and unemployed students who will then participate in on-the-job training schemes with private firms,” the embassy said.
USAID is also partnering with Sri Lankan companies in other industries, including construction and garment manufacturing, to help create 10,000 new jobs in the country, which is still recovering from a 30-year civil war that ended in 2009.
But it’s the outsourcing program that’s sure to draw the most fire from critics. While Obama acknowledged that occupations such as garment making don’t add much value to the U.S. economy, he argued relentlessly during his presidential run that lawmakers needed to do more to keep hi-tech jobs in IT, biological sciences, and green energy in the country.
He also accused the Bush administration of creating tax loopholes that made it easier for U.S. companies to place work offshore in low-cost countries.
As recently as Monday, Obama, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Atlanta, boasted about his efforts to reduce offshoring. The President said he’s implemented “a plan that’s focused on making our middle class more secure and our country more competitive in the long run—so that the jobs and industries of the future aren’t all going to China and India, but are being created right here in the United States of America.”
Obama in January tapped Shah to head USAID. At the time of his appointment, Shah—whose experience in the development community included senior positions at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—said the organization needed to focus more on helping developing nations build technology-based economies. “We need to develop new capabilities to pursue innovation, science, and technology,” said Shaw, during his swearing in ceremony.
Sri Lanka’s outsourcing industry is nascent, but growing as it begins to scoop up work from neighboring India.
In addition to homegrown firms, it’s attracting investment from Indian outsourcers looking to expand beyond increasingly expensive tech hubs like Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai. In 2007, consultants at A.T. Kearney listed the country as 29th on their list of the top 50 global outsourcing destinations.
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CSC Signs 10-year Contract Extension with Swiss Re
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
CSC’s Business Process Outsourcing Services Help Reinsurer Optimize Operations and Improve Customer Service.
CSC (NYSE: CSC) today announced a 10-year extension to its business process outsourcing (BPO) services agreement with Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest and most diversified reinsurers. Under the extension, CSC will continue to provide industry-leading administration for Swiss Re’s direct life insurance business through July 2020.
Building on a relationship that began in 1995, CSC supports Swiss Re’s Admin Re® business unit in the United States, one of the highest growth areas for Swiss Re’s global life and health segment. Through its Admin Re® programs, Swiss Re provides capital and risk solutions to primary life insurance carriers by acquiring blocks of life insurance business, enabling these primary insurers to release capital and gain access to future profit streams from in-force portfolios. This strategic renewal solidifies the global market leadership and commitment of both organizations in providing cost-efficient alternatives for life insurance policy administration.
To strengthen the combined offering, CSC and Swiss Re have jointly outlined innovation strategies to drive even greater efficiencies in administration, improved customer service and enhanced system alignment across the business. As part of this initiative, the team will be incorporating new features of CSC’s CyberLife, Customer Service Accelerator and Claims Management Accelerator software to provide additional e-delivery and self-service capabilities and enhancements to claims processing.
“Having worked with CSC for 15 years, we know the team understands our unique strategic goals,” said Donna Kinnaird, president, Swiss Re Life & Health America Inc. “Our renewed agreement positions Swiss Re to continue pursuing Admin Re® acquisition opportunities and to benefit from CSC’s insurance processing expertise and system capabilities.”
“We continue to help Swiss Re achieve its business, service and cost goals through unparalleled levels of industry service and competitive pricing,” said Michael W. Risley, president of CSC’s Life Insurance and Annuity Division. “Insurers of all sizes can benefit from our dual focus on technology advancements and insurance industry expertise, which enable continuous process improvements and long-term cost performance.”
In December 2003, Swiss Re and CSC entered into a 10-year BPO arrangement that surpassed industry benchmarks for service capability and quality. To date, Swiss Re has successfully acquired and transitioned more than 40 U.S. life insurance blocks into CSC’s Life and Annuity BPO operations for full policy and claims administration.
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Co-op moves IT roles in-house following Somerfield Acquisition
The Co-operative has brought 36 IT roles back in-house following its acquisition last year of supermarket chain Somerfield. The roles relate to helpdesk and store systems support, as the company opts to re-create jobs previously outsourced by Somerfield.
According to reports, 613 of the original 1,022 employees working at Somerfields Bristol headquarters, have already left, with most of the remaining staff expected to leave by Christmas. The Co-operative began its plans to close the Somerfield headquarters over a year ago in order to deliver cost savings.
Director of information systems food retail Mark Hale insisted that the grocery chain’s IT department will not be hit by the plans:
“What happened within Somerfield was that the vast majority of IT functions were outsourced to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which left a fairly small retained team of about 18 people. We’ve decided to take a number of services back in-house and so we’ve created some new roles.
“We’ve actually created a number of roles and brought a number of those jobs back from TCS into Manchester,”
Hale explained that Somerfield used a totally outsourced approach to IT, whereas Co-op had been selectively outsourcing IT functions, depending on where it could see value in outsourcing.
“We decided that our model of selective outsourcing is the model we wanted to use moving forwards, rather than a total outsource,” said Hale.
“We reviewed the cost. Our cost model was, broadly speaking, the same as Somerfield if not slightly better, and we didn’t see any benefit of going down the total outsourcing model route.”
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Cognizant Reports Record Second Quarter 2010 Results
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation, a leading provider of information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services, has announced record-breaking second quarter 2010 financial results.
In addition to a 15% sequential rise in revenue, Cognizant has also topped the client satisfaction rankings in the 2009-10 Europe ITO Service Provider Performance and Satisfaction (SPPS) study carried out by EquaTerra.
Cognizant topped the study’s general satisfaction ranking with a score of 79%, also emerging as the only service provider with no dissatisfied clients among those surveyed. The study evaluated 25 service providers based on a variety of different assessments, and by using feedback from CFOs and CIOs from more than 750 of the top IT spending organisations in Europe.
“Second quarter results further substantiate the strength of the Cognizant model and the continued importance of investing in deep industry expertise, expanded geographic reach and emerging technologies,” said Francisco D’Souza, President and CEO of Cognizant.
“During the quarter, spending levels were very strong across clients in all our business segments and geographies. Our clients are investing again in discretionary programs to foster growth and innovation. We saw particular strength in our financial services segment, which had previously been hard hit by the global credit crisis.”
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esure achieves IT independence with Capgemini
London - Outsourcing contract puts focus on security, reliability and scalability.
Leading UK insurance company esure has completed a comprehensive migration of its IT platforms and hardware away from former joint venture partner, Lloyds Banking Group, through a £26m ‘build and run’ outsourcing contract with Capgemini UK plc – who will now manage the majority of esure’s IT infrastructure for the next five years.
Launched in 2001 by Chairman Peter Wood to offer competitive insurance cover online and by phone, esure became one of the fastest-growing insurance brands in the world, attracting over a million customers in its first five years and launching the ground-breaking Sheilas’ Wheels brand. Its staff numbers have grown from 50 to over 1200 since launch.
Comprehensive new IT has been deployed by Capgemini following esure’s management buy-out in February from Lloyds Banking Group, which had previously provided IT support. Capgemini was selected by competitive tender because of its commitment to fully collaborative working and its track record of success in large-scale IT and outsourcing assignments. A partnership approach was used throughout with Capgemini working as an integral part of the project team.
Peter Wood, Chairman and founder of esure, said: ‘We needed a managed IT solution that would match the levels of quality, reliability and security that we require for all aspects of our business, and that is what Capgemini have delivered. They have fully met our requirement to effect this major transition with virtually no disruption to our business, and we are pleased that our relationship is now set to continue for a further five years.’
The transition managed by Capgemini involved migration of the esure IT infrastructure from Lloyds Banking Group (HBOS) facilities to Capgemini secure data centres at London City and London Southbank, and the implementation of new hardware and systems software including a new Sun Solaris environment, Unix systems management based on IBM Tivoli Workload Schedulers, and a new Wintel estate involving Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, Blackberry and content management. Under the contract esure will also receive help-desk and incident management support from Capgemini service centres in Inverness and Nairn, Scotland.
The infrastructure managed by Capgemini runs all the esure core applications including finance systems and its customer-facing online and call centre policy administration and acquisition systems such as sales, marketing, website content, quotations and claims management. Capgemini is also managing esure’s telephony systems including call management, via a subcontractor.
A key feature of the project was the deployment of rigorous and comprehensive testing at all key stages, using the Testing Services methodology that has recently been launched by Capgemini as a Global Service Line. The process confirmed the capability of the new infrastructure to satisfy esure’s stringent requirements for security, reliability and scalability.
Greg Hyttenrauch, Chief Executive Officer of UK Outsourcing at Capgemini, said: ‘As a web-based business esure needs excellent IT support 24/7 and we are naturally delighted that the company has selected Capgemini to meet that need. We look forward to a long and effective collaboration with this dynamic company.’
About Capgemini
Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, enables its clients to transform and perform through technologies. Capgemini provides its clients with insights and capabilities that boost their freedom to achieve superior results through a unique way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM. The Group relies on its global delivery model called Rightshore®, which aims to get the right balance of the best talent from multiple locations, working as one team to create and deliver the optimum solution for clients. Present in more than 30 countries, Capgemini reported 2009 global revenues of EUR 8.4 billion and employs 95,000 people worldwide.
More information is available at http://www.uk.capgemini.com.
Capgemini Outsourcing Services (OS) draws on the expertise of more than 25,000 employees to manage, innovate and improve the IT systems and business processes of its clients. Capgemini OS offers a full spectrum of services including Applications Outsourcing, Infrastructure Outsourcing, Business Process Outsourcing and Transformational Outsourcing.
For more information: http://www.uk.capgemini.com/outsourcing
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“Outsourcing in the Middle East - focus on the UAE (market dynamics)” Published
Recently published research from Ovum, “Outsourcing in the Middle East - focus on the UAE (market dynamics)”, is now available at Fast Market Research.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the most prosperous countries in the Middle East and one of the region’s largest IT service markets. While the recent global recession brought an abrupt end to a period of unprecedented growth in the UAE, there remains significant potential for expansion in the IT service sector. It is therefore unsurprising that a growing number of foreign vendors are setting up operations in the key business centers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. This report aims to provide an overview of the current state of the UAE’s IT service market, including a close look at the competitive landscape. It will also identify key points regarding the UAE’s economy as a whole, of which all firms looking to do business in the region should be aware.
For more information or to purchase this report, go to:
http://www.fastmr.com/prod/72683_outsourcing_in_the_middle_east_focus_on_the_uae_market_dynamics.aspx
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Wipro selected to develop core software for Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System
Monday, August 02, 2010
Wipro Infotech, a leading provider of IT and business transformation services, has been selected as the Software Development Agency (SDA) for the Centre for Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) project, a mission mode project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), one of India’s largest e-governance projects to date.
CCTNS is a scheme from Ministry of Home Affairs, aimed at creating a nationwide networked infrastructure for the evolution of IT-enabled and state-of-the-art, criminal tracking system. The CCTNS will span across all 35 States and Union Territories and electronically link over 14,000 Police Stations and 6,000 Higher Police Offices across the country. The project includes vertical connectivity of police units (linking police units at various levels within the State and between States and Union Territories) as well as horizontal connectivity (linking police functions at State and Central levels to external entities). CCTNS will also present a citizen-interface to provide basic services to citizens.
As part of the scope, Wipro will develop the core application software to be used by the States and another core application to be used by the Center for digitization of crime and criminal records. Once implemented, the application will link the State Crime Records Bureau with the National Crime Record Bureau, thereby creating a database that can be accessed in real-time from any police station across the country. Wipro’s solution is expected to greatly enhance police efficiency in the detection and prevention of crimes.
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Symphony Services Appoints Sanjay Dhawan President & CEO
Global software product engineering outsourcing services specialists Symphony Service Corp. today announced the appointment of Sanjay Dhawan as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. The move sees Pallab Chatterjee, Symphony Services’ current Chairman & CEO, reverting to his role as Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors.
Dhawan’s appointment comes after Symphony Services achieved impressive recent business results. The company’s laser focus on Engineering Outcome Certainty has translated into 10 percent quarter-over-quarter revenue growth, with 30 percent EBITDA growth. The total contract value of new bookings is at 90 percent of the company’s annual revenue run rate level in the June quarter.
“I’m very excited to welcome Sanjay Dhawan to Symphony Services,” said Pallab Chatterjee, Chairman of the board of Symphony Services. “Over the last year we have virtually transformed the company to ensure we commit to delivering on business outcomes for clients that span multiple technology and industry sectors and Sanjay’s leadership will help us accelerate growth in the ISV, embedded and engineering services markets.”
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Accenture to Implement Singapore’s National Electronic Health Record System
According to reports, Accenture has been awarded a contract by The Singapore Ministry of Health to implement the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) system, a key enabler of Singapore’s vision toward a national, integrated health care system. The NEHR is designed to improve the quality of healthcare for citizens, lower the costs of health services, and promote more effective health policies.
With an initial system release in April 2011, Singapore will be one of the first countries in the world to implement a national electronic health record system, which will allow key medical information such as patient demographics, allergies, clinical diagnoses, medication history, radiology reports, laboratory investigations and discharge summaries to be exchanged among healthcare providers.
“As the centerpiece of Singapore’s connected health vision, the NEHR is intended to provide a holistic view of a patient’s health information. With this market-leading offering, health care providers can have the right information at the right time to make the best care decisions,” said Stephen J. Rohleder, group chief executive of Accenture’s Health & Public Service operating group. “We congratulate the Ministry of Health for taking this bold step to create a new foundation to help support meaningful advances to Singapore’s health care system.”
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Steria reports optimistic half year figures
Friday, July 30, 2010
Mid year results seem to be showing positive results despite on-going price pressures. During the first half of the year, Steria revenue increased by 1.4% on a like-for-like basis in the first half 2010. During the second quarter 2010, activity was stable, with consolidated revenue amounting to €417.5m (-0.1% like-for-like versus the second quarter 2009).
Indeed, Steria’s figures have been positive across most European geographies – Spain was perhaps the exception with results being ‘close to flat’ but given the difficulties the Spanish economies has faced in recent months, this is still good news.
In the United Kingdom, excluding currency, the trend in second quarter revenue exceeded initial expectations at -3.9% versus the second quarter 2009. The quarter was notably characterised by the signature, in June 2010 with the Cleveland Police Authority, of one of the largest contracts ever won by the Group for an inital amount of €211m over 10 years.
While some may be quick to point out that the optimism may be misplaced –it does take 18-24 months from the initial tender to the awarding and signing of the contract – Steria also recorded a 17.6% rise in new orders during the second quarter 2010, leading to a total increase of 3.2% in the first half 2010 versus the first half 2009.
Similarly, H1 has proven a good one for the Indian ITO sector, holding out the promise of higher perks for the millions of IT professionals. Results for HCL, showed a positive trend. While Patni showed a 10.7% year-on-year results despite a 2.8% drop in revenue quarter on quarter. The company’s revenues stood at $167.6m, down from $172.3m in Q1. The company attributed the revenue drop due to project delays by some of its BPO clients.
Wipro also beat estimates in the June quarter, though a softening in Europe’s revenue contribution raised concerns about profits ahead. The software services exporter’s Europe revenue share fell mainly due to currency volatility, but it continued to see a strong business pipeline from the region. Indeed, the company posted a 31% jump in profit and beat analysts’ estimates as demand for computer services rose.
Wipro’s results add to those of industry leader Tata Consultancy Services.
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Capgemini acquires Swedish ITO/BPO provider
Global consulting, technology and outsourcing services firm Capgemini has acquired Swedish IT and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service provider Skvader Systems AB (Skvader), specialising in the provision of smart meter deployment services and smart meter managed business services. .
As a part of the deal Capgemini will acquire a software solution developed by Skvader to support its managed business services contracts.
The software is sold to other utilities and utility service providers through SaaS contracts to support 1 million smart meter deployments. This software will enhance the solutions that Capgemini currently deploys in support of Smart Energy Services contracts in Europe and North America
Skvader is one of the delivery partners of Landis+Gyr, a leading provider of integrated energy management solutions, in Landis+Gyr’s contract for the installation and management of 400,000 meters in Sweden at power and gas company E.ON.
This will now be a part of Capgemini’s Smart Energy Services business, further extending the company’s share of both the Swedish and European smart energy market.
Capgemini estimates that over €300m of smart energy service contracts will come to the Nordics over the next three years, underlining the strategic significance of this acquisition.
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Global IT services provider HCL announces revenue increase
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Leading global IT services provider HCL Technologies Ltd, has announced a 24.1% global revenue increase in its results for both the year and the quarter ended June 30 2010.
Indian firm HCL was ranked number one in both Tier 1 Traditional IT Infrastructure Outsourcing (ITO) and Remote Infrastructure Management Outsourcing (RIMO) earlier this year in Datamonitor’s 2009-10 Black Book of Outsourcing, a feat that has been attributed to the strength of the company’s client relationships and reputation for consistently providing results that deliver measurable value.
HCL’s results show that its global revenues have increased by 24.1% to $2.7b, while year on year revenues have increased by 21.5% to $738 m, thanks to a number of significant contract wins. During the last financial year alone, HCL won contracts within its key vertical and horizontal service lines in Europe, including Equitable Life, GlaxoSmithKline, Royal Mail, Sky Italia, St Gobain and News International.
“Over the last year we have developed facilities, invested in local operations and increased headcount in the region and with it our ability to service European clients locally. This is a continuation of our European growth strategy of making strong investments during the downturn, to be best positioned to accelerate our business forward in the European market.” commented Rajeev Sawhney, President for HCL Europe.
“This commitment to Europe has enabled us to welcome new clients to HCL, as well as extend current relationships. This growth exemplifies the cornerstone of our core philosophy on Employees First, Customers Second and in our success of gaining momentum in the region.”
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European outsourcing market suffers from lack of activity
The commercial outsourcing market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) has yet to exhibit signs of recovery following the sharp downturn in demand in mid-2008, according to the latest figures published by data and advisory firm TPI in their Q2 2010 Index.
Reduced outsourcing activity in the UK and Germany in the first half of 2010 has caused an overall decline from the same period last year.
In the first half of 2010, the Nordics accounted for almost 17% of global total contract value (TCV), making it the second-largest outsourcing market in the world behind the US. The impact of the decline in these traditionally strong markets was offset somewhat by a number of large contract signings in the Nordic region and France.
“So far this year the Nordics ranked as the second largest outsourcing market in the world – mostly owed to a few significant restructuring deals,” noted Duncan Aitchison, partner and president of TPI, EMEA. “Germany dipped a little this year but is still reasonably strong and has the greatest potential for sustained growth. In comparison, growth in the Nordic region is likely to be less consistent.”
He added, “The UK is without a doubt the market that has suffered the most, certainly in Europe but the case could be made globally. For a long time the two big markets were the US and the UK, with the UK knocking a 20%+ of the global market –reaching close to 30% in 2008. We have witness it step down, halving from 2008-2009 and again from 2009 to the first half of 2010.”
One of the latest additions to the EMEA TPI Index is the reporting on public sector outsourcing trends in the region , which has shown that public sector contracts awarded in EMEA in the first half of 2010 stood at over €9bn, with the UK Public Sector accounting for 86% of EMEA public sector expenditure.
Between 2005 and 2009, the UK public sector accounted for 57% of all outsourcing, compared to the commercial sector’s 43% share. In the first half of 2010, there was a notable shift as the commercial sector share fell to just 25% of the UK market. With a 75% share of UK outsourcing spending and an increased appetite to explore outsourcing options, the public sector has become an increasingly important target for service providers to help balance the reduced opportunities in the commercial sector.
Nevertheless, Aitchinson admits that activity is not likely to increase significantly, as few contracts have been launched. “So far this year there has been little to no news of contracts in the works. The first six months were dominated by talk about the election, and now the coalition government is setting up the agenda.”
The overall picture for the remainder of 2010 is not a rosy one, given the number of uncertainties that prevail at the macroeconomic context.
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Sage in bid for private equity backed TeamSystems
Media reports suggest that accounting software provider Sage is among the interested parties bidding for Italian management software manufacturer from private equity firm Bain Capital in a deal that could reach up €650m.
The move is in line with Sage’s build-up strategy –in 2006 the company invested £617.5m in acquisitions including the £307m purchase of Emdeon Practice Services.
The group has a strong position in the traditional off-the-shelf software and is trying to build upt its software as a service (SaaS) capabilities.
But while the Newcastle-based firm may have fallen behind competitors in the SaaS space, it has worked to raise cash and reduce its debt which it is reported to have falledn from £558m in Q1 last year to £280m as at June this year.
Other interested bidders in the auction include private equity firms HgCapital and Cinven.
This is not the first time Sage goes head to head with a private equity firm for an acquisition. Four years ago it lost a bid against HgCapital for Norwegian software group Visma.
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Fujitsu lands new private sector deals as cloud-based restructure takes effect
According to reports, Fujitsu UK & Ireland has landed three new private sector deals worth a total of £200m, in an announcement which many hope will signal a change in the fortunes of the UK IT industry.
The announcement comes after 30 months of extremely depressed sales in the private sector, with Fujitsu CEO Roger Gilbert explaining that the deals were done as part of a ‘flurry of activity’ in the last quarter, much of which was driven by mergers and acquisitions, as well as by demergers and ‘disaggregations.’
Gilbert, who confirmed that the three contracts, were for a desktop management programme, a global support and logistics programme, and mix of back office and shop floor systems for a major retailer, also said that the level of orders from the private sector had trebled in the first quarter of 2010.
The news comes in the same week that Fujitsu announced that it was restructuring its product lines in order to compete more vigorously as a global supplier of cloud-based and managed services.
Gilbert insisted that although the firm had yet to engage the government in detail to discuss their needs, he felt that the new approach, combined with new initiatives designed to give a quicker payback, such as sharing desktop architectures, consolidating network assets, could present the public sector with substantial savings.
Fujitsu was expected to announce its first-quarter 2010 results on 29 July, to reflect the new structure.
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Britvic selects Atos origin for IT contract
Beverage manufacturer Britvic has awarded international IT services provider Atos Origin a new five-year contract worth around £15m.
The deal announced covers IT hosting services for Britvic’s centrally located UK systems including all its SAP, Siebel and associated applications for the back office functions. It follows a three-year contract awarded in 2008 for applications management.
For this new contract Atos Origin and Britvic have agreed a commercial model where the fee is based upon the transactions delivered. This provides Britvic with more flexibility to better plan and budget for services in line with its business processes.
Following the recent acquisition of Fruité Enterpises in France, Britvic needs flexible, cost-efficient IT systems that can support business operations and ensure product delivery to customers.
The agreement will help Britvic to better address critical business challenges, such as enabling the supply chain to prepare for the international growth and to ensure that it can continue to respond fast to peaks in demand for its products.
Atos Origin provides support from both the UK and its Indian delivery centres in Mumbai.
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GM renews two outsourcing contracts with Capgemini
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Car manufacturer General Motors (GM) has renewed two contracts with global consulting, technology and outsourcing services provider Capgemini, to provide application outsourcing services for GM’s global sales & marketing and dealer.
The combined value of the five-year agreements is approximately $250m (€190m).
Under the new contracts, Capgemini will provide global application sustain and development services as well as help desk support for GM’s global sales & marketing and dealer systems located in 38 countries, as well as hosting services for test and development servers.
Capgemini started delivering services to GM under the new agreements from July 2010, one year ahead of the end of the previous contract term. The original contracts between GM and Capgemini were effective June 2006.
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Bayer picks SAP for Global IT Strategy
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Chemical and pharmaceutical company has finalised a five-year global enterprise agreement (GEA) with SAP AG.
Under this agreement, SAP will support close collaboration in the globally standardized implementation of SAP business applications at Bayer.
A fully unified, global IT strategy is of central importance to Bayer in order to increase market share and profitability in an environment of global supply chains and a high degree of international competitive pressure.
Bayer wants to profit in the future from reduced operational costs by means of a scalable and efficient software landscape within the company.
With this agreement, the two companies will focus on supporting Bayer’s IT strategy based on the comprehensive, long-term deployment of standardized SAP® solutions across Bayer’s worldwide operations.
Under the contract, Bayer will primarily rely on SAP software for IT processes, which underscores the great strategic significance of SAP for the company’s IT.
The close partnership between these two companies has existed since 1984. As part of a developer partnership agreement in 2000, SAP became Bayer’s most important strategic software partner.
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Capgemini appoints head of capital markets
Consulting, technology and outsourcing service provider Capgemini has appointed Aloke Paskar as head of the capital markets sector for North America and the UK.
In his new role, Paskar will be responsible for overseeing business operations and client relationships, as well as sales and delivery.
Prior to taking on this position, Paskar served as vice president of India and China operations for Capgemini Financial Services.
Paskar brings to Capgemini over 20 years of global experience in the financial services industry, including co-founding capital markets IT services company, TechSpan.
He joined Capgemini in 2005 as North America delivery head for the company’s Rightshore operating model, which aims to get the right balance of the best talent from multiple locations working as one team to create and deliver the optimum solution for business needs.
In 2008, he joined Capgemini’s financial services business unit as head of Asia Pacific before becoming the head of operations for India and China.
Paskar’s appointment comes on the heels of Capgemini’s announcement of its acquisition of Strategic Systems Solutions (SSS), a global IT services and business process outsourcing firm (BPO) focused on the financial services industry.
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Xchaning expands Indian operations
British business process outsourcing (BPO) firm Xchanging Plc is expanding its back office operations at Shimoga in central Karnataka to a 2,000 seat facility.
The centre will be located on a six-acre space in the new special economic zone (SEZ) at Shimoga.
The London-based BPO firm has been operating at Shimoga, about 270 km from this tech hub, from rented premises since 2008, employing about 300 people from the region.
The £750m back office firm also operates from Bangalore, Chennai and Gurgaon.
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Royal Mail forms alliance with Capgemini
The UK’s national postal service Royal Mail Group Ltd (RMG), has signed a six-year IT contract with consulting, technology and outsourcing services provider Capgemini UK, a subsidiary of Capgemini group.
The agreement aims to transform its business and consumer online services, help to reduce its annual website IT costs and support expansion and diversification into a wide range of new web-based business opportunities without the delays and expense of traditional IT.
The cloud computing a technology which will be deployed will enable IT-on-demand to be piped into an organisation as a ‘smart utility’ on a money-saving pay-as-you-go basis.
The new technology can be quickly and easily reconfigured to support RMG in launching new business ventures and bringing new services to market as quickly as possible.
Areas seen as strong candidates for expansion and diversification at RMG include services for personal and small or medium business customers, and high-quality, innovative parcel delivery services to meet the needs of the UK’s boom in online shopping.
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Connaught feels pressure from budget cuts; finds itself the object of FSA probe
Budgets cuts are partially responsible for the wave of woes afflicting housing maintenance provider Connaught, which is under increasing pressure from lenders as it could soon breach the terms of its loans.
Connaught Plc is set to breach the terms of its loans and desperately needs more cash, the social housing services company said on Monday as government cuts eat into its livelihood.
The covenant that is believed to have been breached is that net debt must be less than 3x EBITDA, while the company’s debt is set to exceed £200m and it has begun talks about securing additional funding from banks.
An announcement on an agreement with banks could be made within the next week. Despite fears over losing contracts, Connaught’s plight is also thought to have been aided by securing a couple of new contracts in the past fortnight.
But the company is also being probed by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) after a director sold shares in the firm before a profit warning last month.
Peter Jones, managing director of Connaught’s northern business, made £264,953 by selling shares on 21 May and 23 June, just ahead of an announcement by the group of a shortfall in its revenue. He has since been suspended pending an investigation.
Connaught confirmed that it had received requests for information from the FSA, though the City watchdog has not yet launched a formal investigation of the firm.
The news caused a further two-thirds to be wiped off the group’s share price, which has now lost 90% of its value since June’s profit warning.
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William Hill nearshores telebetting to Gibraltar
Monday, July 26, 2010
Gaming specialist William Hill Online (WHCL) is to establish a new telephone betting operation based in Gibraltar; the move will also see the firm close the group’s telephone betting subsidiary in the UK, William Hill Credit Limited (WHCL).
The company’s existing telephone betting business made losses of £1.8m in 2009, while it expects a small operating loss in the first half of this year.
The move is expected to result in cost savings of approximately £4-7m per annum expected to commence from the start of 2011. However, it added the move would cost a one-off cost of £7m.
The agreement will see business processing outsourcing (BPO) and customer management outsourcer Vertex, take over the Sheffield-based call centre currently run by WHCL and that William Hill Online will also manage customers from Gibraltar. Customers will be able to use their telephone betting account for online transactions.
WHCL’s second call centre in Leeds will close, with all staff being offered alternative positions.
William Hill will continue to have a substantial presence in the UK and Ireland, including more than 2,300 licensed betting offices and around 16,000 employees.
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LuraTech establishes UK presence
IT solutions provider LuraTech has opened a subsidiary in the UK appointing Gary Hodkinson as managing director.
Hodkinson possess an important track record of successfully establishing companies in the document conversion market. His previous positions include European partner manager at ActionPoint (subsequently purchased by Captiva and EMC), and the MD for Paradatec Ltd.
The Luratech has its headquarters in Berlin, Germany and offices in the USA and provides integration platforms and production-level document conversion software solutions.
Founded in 1995, the company provides two major product lines are the LuraDocument PDF Compressor Enterprise - a production grade application for compression, conversion to PDF(/A), OCR, classification and form data extraction, and DocYard - a complete platform integrating all the functions of document conversion in workflows, which can be managed centrally.
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Home Office sacks Raytheon Systems main supplier for e-Border programme
Friday, July 23, 2010
The government has sacked the supplier responsible for delivering the £750m e-Borders contract, due to serious concerns about the running of the much-delayed programme and confidence in the US defence and security firm’s ability to address these delays.
It has been reported that the project was singled out for early attention by the cross-government “efficiency and reform group” headed by Francis Maude at the Cabinet Office and Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury.
While, immigration minister Damian Green said in a written statement to Parliament that Raytheon Systems has been in breach of contract since July 2009 and extensive negotiations had failed to produce a resolution.
The Government now is seeking for a supplier to replace Raytheon and, according to reports, Raytheon’s sub-contractors on the project, which include Detica, Qinetiq, Serco and Accenture will also be changed.
The Home Office signed the deal with Raytheon, lead contractor in the Trusted Borders consortium, in November 2007.
The programme is designed to track the movement of people in and out of the UK’s borders, and will involve checks being made against incoming passengers at their point of embarkation to see if they are on police and security watchlists.
The project was initiated by the Labour government, but has always been supported by the Tories. At the time the agreement was valued at more than £650m.
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Grupo Vips selects BT for comms network contract
Spanish restaurant and retail operator Grupo Vips, has picked UK telecoms operator BT to renew its current communications network.
The five-year contract valued at €8.2m includes the migration to the new iVPN service, and the highly advanced voice and data services needed between all of its restaurants across Spain, including TGI Friday’s and Starbucks.
It also comprises voice and data services via BT’s iVPN service for Grupo Vips’ 350 establishments including six restaurant chains and 10 fine dining restaurants, and more than 10,000 employees.
The new contract builds on the existing relationship between BT and Grupo Vips and is expected to directly contribute to the efficiency and quality of their communications, their management and the efficiency of their cost structure.
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