Industry news

German regulators have given Telecity the green light to proceed with the all-share merger it has in the works with Interxion Holding.

Both companies specialise in colocation data centre services. The new entity created as a result of the merger is expected to have the combined value of $4.5 billion (£3.07 billion).

Shareholders in Telecity will be given a 55 per cent stake in the combined company, with Interxion shareholders received the remaining 45 per cent. The new firm will be listed on the London Stock Exchange.

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Rio Tinto, the global mining company, are moving core IT Systems to an Accenture-managed cloud platform.

The programme works around the “as-a-service” model and will involve the upgrade of enterprise resource planning and information management.

Rio Tinto expects to see “significant” cost savings and transformation of services as a result.

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Digital technology is at the heart of Labour’s 2015 manifesto and, if elected in May, the party plans to make digital government more transparent and accountable.

An interim document released last month suggested that, if just 25 per cent of councils migrated their websites to the gov.uk platform, it would incur savings of £8.6 million.

Labour also plans to create a Small Business Administration, designed to help small companies achieve more success with procurement.

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A recent Datamation report argues that, with the increasing importance of Big Data, companies should look to outsource the management of their databases.

As companies continue to collect huge volumes of data to glean insights on business decisions, some executives are struggling to manage the increasingly unwieldy operations on their own. As a result, the report suggests that Data Centre Outsourcing (DCO) is a valuable tool for businesses to utilise.

Datamation suggest the factors that will spur the uptake of third-party database management will include when in-house data management is too costly, when companies lack in-house expertise, when resources need to be freed up, when increased agility is needed and when regulatory compliance in required.

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Airbus has disclosed plans to raise its outsourcing spend in India to $2 billion, shortly after Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi visited its offices as part of an international trip to France.

Modi’s trip was, in part, motivated by his desire to promote his country’s new ‘Make in India’ initiative. Airbus SAS, an aircraft manufacturing division of Airbus Group, is based in Blagnac, a suburb of Toulouse in France.

‘We are honoured to host Prime Minister Modi in Toulouse and convey to him our desire to forge a stronger industrial bond with India. India already takes a centre-stage role in our international activities and we want to even increase its contribution to our products,’ commented Tom Enders, Airbus Group CEO.

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has suggested a number of outsourcing regulations for the country’s non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), in order to safeguard them from the ‘inherent’ risks of outsourcing.

The regulations include the proposal that NBFCs should not outsource core management and decision-making functions, along with a strict set of guidelines for how outsourcing should be carried out.

All of the proposals are documented in a draft report released by the RBI. ‘The outsourcing activities are to be brought within regulatory purview to protect the interest of the customers and to ensure that RBI has access to all books, records and information available with service providers,’ the report said.

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Northamptonshire Council is to reduce its core staff to 150 people, by transferring 4,000 employees to four new service providers. Under the plans, the council will remain the majority shareholder in each service provider.

Whilst the council already outsources services such as street lighting and road services to Balfour Beatty and Kier, the new plans mean that the council will be reduced to a commissioning role, purchasing services from external bodies.

A report by the Local Government Association last year suggested that of the 27 county councils in England, Northamptonshire was the ‘least able to fund itself’, in part because it charges the lowest council tax of any shire authority.

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The Southwest One (SWO) contract between IBM, Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and Avon & Somerset Police is due to end in 2017, and reports have identified that savings have not been as great as originally expected.

Savings of £10m were originally targeted; this has now been downgraded to £5m, with savings of just £3m having been identified to date.

The Councils involved are now reviewing their ICT options in order to make a decision next year that can support a transition.

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Gartner research has found that the use of Indian IT service providers in Nordic countries is growing by 20 per cent per year, while the growth in the traditional supplier market has only been 2-3 per cent annually.

Nokia, DNB and ABB all favour Indian providers. HCL Technologies and Wipro have both announced that they will be investing further in the region, which covers Finland, Iceland and Scandinavia.

Mika Rajamäki, a research analyst with Gartner, commented: ‘Sweden has the largest market, but Indian companies seem to have the highest market share in Finland, around 4 per cent.

‘In Denmark, Sweden and Norway, their market share is around 1 per cent, but these figures are from 2013 and there were some major deals last year, so the figures have definitely grown. Average market share for Indian companies in the Nordics is probably around 4-5 per cent, closer to 5 per cent, and in Finland it will grow to 6-7 per cent this year.’

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Health and safety training company Survivex has secured a contract with Hercules Offshore to provide an outsourced training management service (TMS).

Hercules Offshore, which provides a range of services to oil and gas providers ranging from drilling to decommissioning services, has signed a long-term contract worth more than £500,000 yearly.

The TMS team will be responsible for producing a comprehensive training matrix, identifying skills gaps and creating individual training plans for Hercules employees.

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