Industry news

On the back of Proxima's newest CPO report, in which the industry's leading voices share their insights on the year ahead, the procurement specialist outlines the key trends impacting the commercial environment.

Proxima recently released its latest CPO report in which the industry’s leading voices share their insights on the year ahead. In this article, Proxima outlines the key trends impacting the commercial environment.

Read more on CSW here.

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) is the UK’s biggest procurement organisation. It uses its commercial expertise to help buyers in central government, and across the public and third sectors.

With inflation surging, and ever growing financial pressures on many organisations, there has arguably never been a tougher time to be charged with making budgets go further – particularly across the public sector. This is especially the case for public sector organisations considering their IT spend, with so many looking to digitally transform in the light of changing work patterns and consumer behaviour post pandemic.

Read more on CIPS Supply Management here.

There’s been quite a bit of hype about the metaverse — it’s the next big thing, it will transform how companies engage with customers and it will alter the way we do business. The metaverse simply integrates the physical and digital worlds, enhancing both through virtual worlds or simple contextual overlays. While companies currently interact with customers via multiple channels — mobile devices, desktop computers, email, social media and chatbots — leveraging the metaverse helps companies create immersive and interactive retail experiences for customers.

What those advanced interactive features will look like is still under development. What we do know, according to IDC analyst Ramon Llamas, is that they’ll be available across devices. “That includes via VR/AR glasses, smartphones, tablets and PCs, chat rooms with video, but also probably via up-and-coming things like holograms, digital signage, digital assets and digital content.”

Read more on Retail Touchpoints here.

Teleperformance (Paris:TEP), the global leader in outsourced customer and citizen experience management and related digital services, announced that it assisted more than 60,000 children in situations of vulnerability across 50 countries last year through its Citizen of the World (COTW) program.

Founded in 2006, COTW is part of the Teleperformance Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy to meet today’s major global challenges. The company is committed to developing in a sustainable manner, creating meaningful connections to bring people together and create value for all stakeholders while ensuring that future generations can meet their own needs. This includes helping the world's most vulnerable infants and children meet basic survival needs and ultimately reach their individual potential.

Read more on BusinessWire here.

Six per cent of the workforce to go as search and ad tech giant latest to announce layoffs, wants to refocus on AI.

Google is to lay off approximately 6% of its workforce and refocus on its priorities, including AI, according to an email sent to staff on Friday by CEO Sundar Pichai. The email was followed up by a blog post.

"We've decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles. We've already sent a separate email to employees in the US who are affected. In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices," Pichai wrote.

Pichai said the company will be reviewing its current operations in order to make the most of its early investments in AI.

"To fully capture it, we'll need to make tough choices. So, we've undertaken a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company."

Read more on Computing here.

TechMarketView has released its updated outlook for the UK Software and IT Services market. In this new forecast cycle, we update the data published in Summer last year to reflect current economic conditions and market activity in Q3 and Q4 of 2022.

As we tracked quarterly supplier results and buyer sentiment/action through the second half of 2022, it became obvious that - despite some more recent reports of a slowdown in decision making - the market has continued to expand at an extremely brisk, in part inflation, fuelled pace.

Read more on TechMarketView here.

TechMarketView is delighted to be partnering with the Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI, part of the University of Surrey, to produce a programme of research. The alliance will see TechMarketView Research Directors collaborate with the institute to bridge the gap between academia and industry and enable the cross-fertilisation of research into the way AI can be applied to improve the way we live our lives (see TechMarketView partners with Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI | TechMarketView).

The first report, entitled Building AI-aided workforce resilience, is available now for TechMarketView clients to delve into. It includes analysis of the role of AI/ML in workforce resilience and advice for suppliers operating in the market.

Read more on TechMarketView here.

Every year our theme is designed to sum up in a few words the key trends that we think will impact the tech market in the year ahead, and this year it is Pursuing Productivity.

The UK has had a productivity crisis for the last decade. Over that time, successive Prime Ministers have sought to understand the reason why and to implement policies to ‘get the country moving’.

In other words, productivity is not a new issue. And you’d be well within your rights to question why we think the pursuit of productivity will be such a defining feature of the next 12 months.

Read more on TechMarketView here.

Organisations are too trusting of Managed Service Providers, according to new research. Just four-in-ten believe they need to make sure Managed Service Providers are certified in providing cyber security essentials, while one-third agreed personnel of providers should undergo security checks before taking on such work.

Managed services is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions, ostensibly for the purpose of improved operations and reduced budgetary expenditures through the reduction of directly-employed staff. To that end, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) can help business stay flexible when it comes to resources, and can accommodate swift changes which an in-house team might not be able to respond to efficiently.

But as with any outsourcing practice, MSPs also come with a host of risks, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic. As the Covid-19 outbreak opened even more avenues for fraudsters to commit financial crimes, 64% of UK companies admitted they had experienced fraud or economic crime since 2020 – and when pointing to external sources of such incidents, 20% said they had been hit by outsourced suppliers, such as MSPs

Read more on Consultancy UK here.

Companies are more active than ever in pursuing sustainability to align with values and engage stakeholders, a new survey shows. To see financial returns, though, integrating sustainability into core functions is key.

s environmental, social, and governance issues have become ever more important influencers of customer and employee expectations, organizations have tightened their embrace of the sustainability programs that address those issues. According to the latest McKinsey Global Survey on the topic,1 companies are increasingly formalizing the way they govern sustainability programs, as well as elevating the importance of diversity and inclusion.2 And a larger share of respondents than ever before say the top reason for implementing a sustainability agenda is better alignment between an organization’s practices and its goals, missions, or values.

Read more on McKinsey here.