Industry news

Thales has been awarded a new £3.8m contract from the Home Office for providing a fully managed Public key Infrastructure Shared Service (PKISS). The contract includes software application development, event and incident management, change and release management ad continual service improvement. This two year contract extends the work Thales has already done on PKISS since 2008, however this contract did go out to full competition.

Home Office removes barriers for SME IT suppliers

The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) are establishing an “innovation team” to review the total cost of ownership around common goods and services. The Director of Commercial Delivery at CCS Matt Denham said the team is being set up to look at the “big picture” and create larger savings. Denham went on to say it’s about “how do we do a better job of understanding the total life cycle cost?”. Denham said that he had identified skill gaps around market engagement which are a result of legacy frame-work based approach from predecessor Government Procurement Service.

For more information please click here.

Cabinet Office to replace current PHRF

Wakefield Council has cancelled their tender for a parking and environmental back office management system due to lack of response and poor quality of respondents. The procurement which was announced in May was for a contract estimated to be worth between £350,000 and £1.4m was to include hardware, support and maintenance. The four year contract with options to extend may be republished in the future.

Wakefield Council Looks to Slash Costs through Flexible Working

Transport for London (TfL) has awarded a ten year contract worth £660m to Cubic Transportation Systems. Cubic fought off competition from Sheidt & Bachmann and LG CNC to continue their work with TfL on the Electra contract. The contract will cover maintenance and availability of ticketing and fare collection including on 8,500 London buses and 1,900 ticket gates on the underground and over ground stations as well as data management and system integration. The new contract is due to start in August 2015.

Midlands places tender for £4.2 million smartcard system

Serco have paid the price for its series of outsourcing scandals as operating profits drop 59% in the first half of the year. The Serco scandal found the outsourcing giant to have overcharged the UK government on contracts providing electronic monitoring of offenders and escorting prisoners to court. Serco shares which have almost halved there value in the last year, were 6.7 per cent higher in early London trading.

Serco write down value of loss-making contracts

Public sector organisations in Surrey, including Surrey County Council, Surrey Police and University of Surrey, are launching a shared online portal to advertise contracts. The Supply to Surrey website is due to launch in autumn with an aim to increase the number of contracts being awarded to local companies, as the council has a pledge that 60% of spending is to go to the local community. This site is similar to BuildSurrey, a website set up to encourage suppliers in the construction industry to bid for contracts which has now been used for £10 million worth of deals.

Surrey council achieves savings of £83 million through contract renegotiating

Sitel today announces their latest contract win with TDC, Denmark’s largest telecommunications company, in what TDC say is its most comprehensive outsourcing action following internal analysis and part of a major initiative that will significantly improve customer service at TDC Group in the years ahead.

From October, Sitel will provide future customer support including other customer service functions for TDC. A number of employees from TDC's customer support will transfer to Sitel who will partner with TDC Group's own customer service function that, combined with more digital self-service options, is designed to create 'Denmark's best customer experiences'.

Sitel is one of the world’s largest providers of customer service and support. The company has 56,000 employees in 23 countries, and manages support functions for a number of global and local brands with the UK managing a number of support functions for many of today’s companies in the Nordic market.

Bert Quintana, Sitel’s President, CEO & Chairman of the Board, comments; “Our core strength is providing high quality service and support that helps to retain and increase our clients’ customer base. We are delighted to be chosen to work with TDC Group.”

Jens Aaløse, Senior Executive Vice President at TDC Group, says; “"I am very pleased that Sitel is undertaking to provide our customers with excellent support as this will also release resources that over time will enable us to significantly improve our customer service. Our goal is to set a new standard for the industry.”

The changes in TDC Group's customer service result from an internal survey implemented at the beginning of the year. The survey identified where and how TDC Group can hand over existing operating functions to external partners as changing market conditions increasingly prompt the telecommunications, content and entertainment industries to merge.

Outsourcing provider Cognizant posted disappointing Q2 results causing the company to reduce its growth predictions from 16.5% to 14% at year end. As a result investors were left concerned at the prospect of an outsourcing slowdown which saw Infosys and TCS share prices plunge. Although the second quarter results were less than expected revenues were up 17% year on year at $2.52 billion.

Cognizant lands FAO deal from ISS in Nordics

Middlesbrough FC plans to save £30,000 by outsourcing their food and beverage procurement at their Riverside Stadium and Rockcliffe Park training ground. Pelican Procurement Services will oversee supplier tendering, sourcing and pricing negotiations for them. The plan is not only to reduce costs but also reduce the amount of time chefs spend on purchasing and administration.

Liverpool FC employs public cloud

Flipkart the Bangalore based ecommerce firm currently runs its customer service call centre inhouse but are looking to move to a hybrid model of a combination of insourcing and outsourcing to deal with their growing customer needs. Flipkart are currently in the process of signing call centre outsourcing deal with Aegis, the contract is expected to last 3 years and be worth over rs 75 crore. The deal comes as good news after Aegis recently sold it BPO operations in the Philippines, Costa Rica and U.S. to Teleperformance for $610 million.

Teleperformance buy Aegis USA (AUI)