Industry news

Sitel has expanded further in EMEA by opening a second customer experience centre in Bulgaria, creating more than 400 new jobs in the process.

Sitel has already invested considerably in Bulgaria as a location for offshore outsourcing. The company opened its first centre in Sofia in 2006; it has invested over $2.2 million in the local economy since that time.

Ivan Portnih, mayor of Varna where the new centre is being opened, commented: “This investment is a testament to the potential that the city, with its young, educated and skilled people, is holding. I hope that this will set an example for many other investors to find a good environment for the development of their business in our city.”

Bulgaria was heralded as a top choice for offshore BPO earlier this year, coming third in Cushman & Wakefields’ BPO and Shared Services Location Index, beaten only by Vietnam and the Philippines.

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Related: Vietnam Confirmed as the World’s Top Outsourcing Location

Cerdo, the Swedish banking and finance company, has opted to nearshore its savings and payments services unit, outsourcing these responsibilities to Tieto, based in Finland.

“Cerdo has been a pioneer in the Swedish financial industry when establishing integrated BPO services as a commercial product,” said Vahid Zohali, Tieto’s vice president of banking. “However, Tieto has the size and market penetration capabilities to grow and further develop the concept to a wider market, and address new service areas.”

Up to 30 Cerdo employees may be TUPE’d to Tieto as part of the deal.

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Related: Nordic Countries Show Strong Favour for Indian Outsourcing

Accenture has launched its new Analytics Applications Platform, analytical software focused on industry and function-specific applications.

So far, the platform offers four applications: three that support the retail industry’s trade marketing, demand forecasting and fraud detection strategies, along with an inventory optimisation application designed for manufacturers.

The platform was originally attained through Accenture’s i4C Analytics acquisition in May 2014. More recently, Accenture acquired independent Salesforce consultant Tquila in a bid to advance in the CRM consultancy market.

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Related: Accenture Buys Salesforce Consultant Tquila

Domino’s Pizza has chosen Capgemini to help it implement a cloud-based supply ordering system, with hopes that this new technology will make online and phone ordering processes more efficient.

The system, built on the NetSuite SuiteCommerce platform, is expected to entirely replace the existing supply order management platform – a mammoth task considering Domino’s has over 1,000 independent franchise in North America alone.

Kevin Vasconi, VP and CIO at Domino’s, praised Capgemini’s capabilities: “With the help of Capgemini, we are significantly improving the efficiency, availability and functionality of our franchisee ordering system, ultimately providing an improved experience for our franchise partners and a platform for Domino’s to drive future growth opportunities.”

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Related: Capgemini Acquires IGATE: Hear from the CEOs

Amey, the UK-based infrastructure support service provider, has scooped an outsourcing contract worth £235 million to provide environment and infrastructure services to Trafford Council.

The services provided will include commercial and domestic waste collections, street cleaning, grounds maintenance and highway services, along with overseeing bridges, street lighting, road safety, furniture drainage and property services. The contract comes into effect from July 2015 and is expected to run for 15 years.

Mel Ewell, chief executive of Amey, commented: “Trafford Council is taking a pioneering approach to the way services are provided and we are delighted to be working with them on this contract.

“Combining these services allows us to support Trafford Council with efficiency savings while ensuring a high quality service is delivered to local residents.”

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Related: Cornwall Council Delivers Ultimatum to BT

Independent analyst and consultancy firm Ovum has released its 2015 CRM Outsourcing Business Trends Survey, revealing new business patterns and client expectations relevant to the world of contact centre outsourcing.

Ovum found that, for the first time since the global financial crisis, a higher percentage of contact centre managers plan on increasing their CRM budgets than those who indicated that their budgets would remain flat or decline. While this is good news for their organisations, it is a cause for concern for third-party suppliers who have relied on winning business by offering their services at a lower cost.

Ovum’s main recommendation for those service providers is to focus on providing excellent customer experience. The survey found that contact centre enterprises overwhelmingly want to increase customer satisfaction first and foremost, ideally while simultaneously decreasing costs and increasing revenues. The suppliers who can offer a service capable of this quickest will be in a prime position to pick up new clients.

The 2015 CRM Outsourcing Business Trends Survey interviewed 200 enterprise contact centre managers in Western Europe, North America and Australia.

You can find further information on the Ovum website.

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Related: ISG Finds Global Outsourcing Market in Decline

As the race to acquire Serco India gets ever closer to finishing, $46 billion global private equity firm CVC Capital Partners has thrown its hat into the ring.

CVC is now competing with Blackstone Group for the acquisition; Blackstone originally sold the unit, formerly known as Intelenet, to Serco for $634 million in 2011, and now the company wants it back.

According to the Time of India, Spi Global, seen as a favourite to acquire Serco India just a few weeks ago, is no longer a prime contender.

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Related: The Race to Acquire Serco India Nears the End

After a poor financial performance in 2014, Serco Group PLC has announced that it is trading in line with expectations so far this year.

Last year, marred by a number of high profile contract scandals, resulted in an overall operating loss of £1.3 billion for the company, causing share values to plunge. Serco’s new CEO Rupert Soames reflected on the year claiming that “having confessed out sins and in taking the punishment, we are now ready to start on the road to recovery”.

2015 has been far from unblemished for the company. In April Serco let another contract slip, after its staff failed to properly sterilise equipment in a hospital in Western Australia.

However, Serco’s C-Suite will be looking forward to the imminent sale of Serco India, valued at $400 million; the company is selling off large parts of its BPO portfolio, as it intends to focus on public sector services from now onwards.

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Read this next: Serco Seeks Redemption after £1.3bn Operating Loss

Vishal Sikka, chief executive of Infosys, has begun to lay down a blueprint revealing how the company will come to be worth $20 billion by 2020.

The plan involves unprecedented dedication to the company’s top 100 clients such as Microsoft, Bank of America and Apple, cutting labour costs through automation and achieving higher profits from services such as consulting.

Earlier in 2015, Sikka announced his intention to personally oversee 1,000 of Infosys’ outsourcing accounts, a project that was said to involve directly management, developing solutions and even writing code where necessary.

We’re yet to see whether the CEO’s “helicopter parenting” approach will prove to be a burden or a blessing for Infosys.

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Related: Infosys CEO to Personally Oversee Outsourcing Projects

After providing East Cheshire NHS Trust with expected savings of at least £1.5 million through HR transformation, arvato has been rewarded with the expansion of its contract with the Trust.

The four-year agreement has been extended to incorporate two new services: the Trust has commissioned “Governance Direct”, a new central governance information portal accessible for all employees, along with a new workforce analysis service.

Some of the money saved through the transformation of Cheshire NHS’s HR services has been directly reinvested back into patient care. 99 per cent of employees at the Trust still deem the HR service to be “good” or “excellent”.

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Related: NHS Struggling to Manage Service Providers