Industry news

Research conducted by The Hackett Group has found that many medium-sized cities in the United States are becoming increasingly popular as outsourcing locations for finance, IT and other business service operations.

The research found that an increasing number of US companies are opting for the likes of Syracuse and Jacksonville over cities in India, the Philippines and other prevalent offshore locations.

Verizon Communications is just one of many companies that has chosen to reshore, consolidating nearly 1,500 financial operations staff into two US-based service centres over the past two years.

Hackett Group has cited the following as the top US cities for outsourcing, according to their study: Syracuse, NY; Jacksonville, FL; Tampa, FL; Lansing, MI; Grand Rapids, MI; Atlanta, GA; Allentown, PA; Green Bay, WI; Richmond, VA; Longmont, CO.

The Group concluded that “the number of new business services jobs moving offshore has declined steadily over the past few years and will continue to do so, as companies reach the practical limits of the type of work in these areas that can be effectively offshored.”

You can find further details by reading the press release on the Hackett Group website.

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Everest Group has found that, in the first quarter of 2015, Europe surpassed Asia in “new setup activity” of service centres for the very first time.

This is despite a sluggish start to the year for outsourcing overall, with global transaction activity continuing to decline for a third consecutive quarter.

Everest reports that Europe’s success largely came down to the manufacture, distribution and retail sector, as well as local technology firms building research and development centres in nearshore locations.

Salil Dani, vice president of Everest Group, commented: “A highlight of Q1 is that the overall GIC market continued to increase and is shifting toward getting better, thanks to persistent demand from adopters.

“In particular, we are seeing GIC setups for IT and R&D/engineering work gaining traction, driven by the increased adoption of Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud—or SMAC—technologies.”

The full Market Vista Q1 2015 report is available for purchase on Everest’s website.

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Related: Genpact Named BPO ‘Leader’ by Everest Group

Capita has signed a contract with Ark Data Centres, meaning that Ark will supply secure, energy efficient data centre space for the new Capita Private Cloud platform.

In a press release Ark Data Centres has claimed that, by using Ark’s services, Capita will spend one-tenth the capital cost compared to what it would stand to spend maintaining its existing facilities.

Executive director of Capita IT Enterprise Services Peter Hands said: “Ark Data Centres offers modern facilities which integrate its innovation in cooling technology, dynamic monitoring, modularity, security by building not site, guaranteed power usage effectiveness (PUE) and speed.

“Combined with our expertise in cloud based services, we’re in prime position to deliver the availability that our customers need, with the flexibility and security that they want and with the reduced carbon footprint that everyone seeks.”

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Related: Capita Finds Success Rewarding Staff through Gamification

The London Borough of Hounslow has extended its contract with Liberata. The extension, worth £9.5 million, will see Liberata manage the digital transformation and automation of its business processes.

Liberata originally won the contract in 2005, taking over from Serco to provide administration and call centre functions for Hounslow.

This has saved the council £22 million through the contract so far, with further savings planned to help fund schools and care for older people.

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Related: Amey Wins £235 Million Contract with Trafford Council

Teleperformance USA has announced that it will be expanding its 1,000 man facility in Killeen, Texas with an additional 400 new roles.

The facility already caters to several major global clients. It has been reported that one of Teleperformance’s largest clients specifically chose the Killeen site to support its business expansion, hence why the new jobs have been created.

Miranda Collard, president of operational delivery for Teleperformance USA, commented: “Killeen has been a wonderful home to Teleperformance and we are excited to grow our presence here.

“The area has a terrific pool of hardworking, educated people who bring passion to our business. Our clients recognize the wealth of talent in this area and look forward to growing with us in this community.”

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Related: Teleperformance Generates 300 Jobs in Gateshead

Bangalore-based IT services company Mphasis has seen profits decline over the past year, and expects this to continue as its parent company and client HP plans to cut around $2 billion in costs from its enterprise services business.

The Indian Economic Times has reported that, despite owning just over 60 per cent of Mphasis, HP has no plans to offer further financial support to the software services company. However, Mphasis chief executive Ganesh Ayyar insists that his organisation will not be stepping back from the BPO arena.

"The HP decline is a very bitter pill that we have to swallow and we continue to explore newer ways of attempting to arrest the decline… Over the last 12 months, things have looked up in our international BPO business and we've also won a few orders there, in fact, BPO is a big focus area for us this year.”

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Related: Sale of Serco India Falters, “Price too High” Private Equity Firms Say

Serco Group has appointed ex-Centrica chief executive Sir Roy Gardner to replace Alistair Lyons as its chairman.

Alistair Lyons quit the post last November due to the part he played in “strategic and operational missteps”, volunteering to leave as soon as his replacement was found.

Gardner’s past roles include chief executive of Centrica, chairman of Manchester United football club (which he subsequently sold to the controversial Glazer family), chairman of Plymouth Argyle football club and chairman of Compass, the contract catering and support services company.

Serco chief executive Rupert Soames believes that Gardner’s “broad experience” will prove to be extremely valuable. Serco is in the process of turning its prospects around after a disastrous 2014, a process which involves selling off its BPO portfolio in order to focus on public services.

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Related: Serco is “Trading in Line with Expectations”

Despite the total value of UK outsourcing deals signed in the first quarter of 2015 dropping year-on-year, the value of outsourcing contracts in the local government sector reached a five-quarter high at the end of March 2015, according to analysis conducted by arvato and NelsonHall.

arvato also reported that new deals signed with the public sector totalled £350 million in Q1 2015, meaning that the public sector accounted for 65 per cent of total contracts agreed in the UK.

It is likely that private sector outsourcing slowed at the beginning of 2015 due to uncertainty surrounding the general election. Kerry Hallard, CEO of the National Outsourcing Association, has since suggested that the UK will see a “plethora of new outsourcing deals in the coming months” now that a stable Conservative government has been confirmed.

You can find the full UK Outsourcing Index on arvato’s website.

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Related: HR Outsourcing isn’t just Growing. It’s Evolving.

The NOA’s Professional Awards took place 21st May at the Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal FC. The glittering evening was a celebration of the individuals and teams that add significant value to their companies, their partners and the global outsourcing industry.

Kerry Hallard, CEO at the National Outsourcing Association (NOA) said:

“Now in its third year the NOA’s Professional Awards bought together 200 members of the outsourcing industry. It was an outstanding event highlighting the best in outsourcing. I was delighted to see the variety of organisations represented, how well they networked and their willingness to share learning and experience. The Awards showed the immense depth and range of talent and capability in the outsourcing industry. Thank you again to our sponsors: Capgemini, Capita and Sykes.”

The winners were as follows:

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Rising Star of the Year

Bryan McGovern, Head of MI & Dialler Support Services Private Sector, Serco Global Services

Manager of the Year

Gavin Cox, Head of Operations/Operations Manager, Serco Global Services

Advisor of the Year

Paul Silver, Senior Associate, CMS

Strategic Leader of the Year

Rosaleen Blair, CEO and Founder, Alexander Mann Solutions

Award for Professional Development (Individuals)

Alison Haigh, Head of Procurement, UKAR

Award for Excellence in Supplier Management

NHS Blood and Transplant

Award for Excellence in IT Delivery

Cognizant

Award for Excellence in FAO

Tata Consultancy Services and National Grid

Award for Excellence in Outsourced Customer Service

Teleperformance and E.ON

Award for Excellence in BPO

Xchanging and Federal-Mogul

Best Offshore Team

Serco Offshore Mortgage Services Team

Best Shared Services Team

CGI

Skills Development Programme of the Year (Corporate)

Capita’s Regulatory Solutions, Active Manager Programme

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The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has awarded Capita their end user computing tower contract. The three year contract is valued at £6.6 million. Capita will be installing and maintaining the new devices as well as providing the core software which underpins the entire strategy. The DVSA and the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) are planning on merging their end user computing requirements into a joint tower model. Their full tower model includes SIAM, applications, end user computing, hosting, networking and communications.