Industry news

Lex Autolease has been awarded a five-year contract worth more than £100 million to manage the UK company car and light commercial vehicle fleet for Balfour Beatty, the global infrastructure services group.

Whilst the decision to outsource was largely due to the expected cost savings, the provider also believes it could be the start of a trend for “complex fleets” to be outsourced.

Lex Autolease will have responsibility for 3,328 company cars and 2,502 light commercial vehicles and will also provide a comprehensive range of fleet management services, including service and maintenance, accident management and core vehicle hire.

Virgin Trains continue to run west coast mainline till 2018

Trinity Mirror, one of the largest multimedia publishers in the UK, has reportedly saved £6million in the first half of the year by outsourcing IT support and services functions.

Back in January the newspaper confirmed it was planning to outsource to service desk provider Endava from March, moving the function from Glasgow to Romania.

“Operating costs fell by £5.7 million reflecting the benefit of structural cost savings of £6 million and ongoing cost mitigation actions which have more than offset increased investment in digital of £3 million and inflationary price increases,” Trinity Mirror said in its results today.

“Structural cost savings in the first half have been delivered through the outsourcing of IT support and services functions, the restructure of editorial and advertising functions, the closure of the Reading print plant and a number of smaller offices and continued restructuring of all operating functions.”

For more information please click here.

Agilisys wins £5.7m contract with Legal Aid Agency

Civil servants at the Newport shared service centre for the MoJ have voted to extend one day strike action to two days. The staff who are represented by the Public and Commercial Service Union are taking this strike action in protest to proposals made to outsource the MoJ’s back office services to outsourcing provider Shared Services Connected Limited.

Agilisys wins £5.7m contract with Legal Aid Agency

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has signed a three year contract with Agilisys for £5.7m where they will provide Civil Legal Advice (CLA) contact centre services via telephone and digital channels. Services will be run from Agilisys contact centre in North Somerset where they will also develop an online function to help the Legal Aid Agency bring its operations in line with the government digital agenda. The services are to help individuals in England and Wales to understand if they are eligible for legal aid.

Hammersmith and Fulham Council deploys new virtual desktop system

Truth behind data lakes

In a recent article, Gartner warns that providers are using data lakes with no alignment with what it actually means to a business and feel this new term is causing confusion.

According to Nick Heudecker, research director at Gartner, he states in an article in Information Age that "In broad terms, data lakes are marketed as enterprise-wide data management platforms for analysing disparate sources of data in its native format". He goes on to say “The idea is simple: instead of placing data in a purpose-built data store, you move it into a data lake in its original format…This eliminates the upfront costs of data ingestion, like transformation. Once data is placed into the lake, it's available for analysis by everyone in the organisation."

However, Gartner warns that data lakes run the risk of becoming a dumping ground that are left unmanaged and ungoverned. For further information on data lakes, please click here

Big data usage causes 8-10% growth in productivity.

Dairy Crest who deliver milk to 750,000 homes and own brands such as Cathedral city Cheddar cheese, Clover, Country Life and FRjj have chosen outsourcing partner Proxima. Proxima the procurement services provider will manage £250 million spend to improve fleet logistics, corporate services and supply chain. Proxima will also implement initiatives to enhance commercial value through supplier relationship management.

Proxima creates jobs in Cwmbran

Think-tank ResPublica has launched a report “Virtuous banking: Placing ethos and purpose at the head of finance” and is calling on the industry to swear an oath to serve customers ethically, in a move similar to the Doctors’ Hippocratic Oath. The Banking Standards’ Review Council has rejected the idea of an oath in favour of a body to police bankers’ conduct.

The NOA is reviewing Ethics Guidelines for the Outsourcing industry. Please lend your voice to this industry hot potato by participating in the NOA survey here.

NOA Calls for United Industry Response on the Ethics Question

Strong IT Outsourcing activity drives growth in UK, Germany and France

LONDON, July 29 2014 ― Information Services Group (ISG) (NASDAQ:III), a leading technology insights, market intelligence and advisory services company, today reported that outsourcing activity in the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region hit a record high in the first half based on the volume of contract awards, and achieved its strongest first-half performance by contract value since 2008.

The Q2 2014 EMEA ISG Outsourcing Index, which measures commercial outsourcing contracts with an annual contract value (ACV) of €4 million or more, found that first half ACV across EMEA totaled €5 billion, an increase of 32 percent year-on-year. The number of contracts signed was up 25 percent for the same period.

With more than half of all global outsourcing value awarded in EMEA, the region continues to dominate the global outsourcing market.

Commenting on the latest findings, David Howie, partner, ISG, said, “EMEA continues to maintain its leading position in the global outsourcing market. The region’s increased contract volume and value in the first half was driven by a rise in demand from continental Europe, most notably France and Germany. Looking ahead, we’re seeing a great deal of transaction activity in the market that should come to fruition in the second half of 2014. Taking the year as a whole we would expect ACV in the region to comfortably exceed 2013 levels.”

The United Kingdom market maintained its steady performance, with ACV of €1.4 billion, an increase of 6 percent compared with the first half of last year. This occurred despite a slight drop in contract counts to 83, from 92 the previous year.

Germany saw year-on-year ACV growth in the first half of 2014, with around €740 million in contract awards compared to €530 million in 2013. This growth was driven by a return to strong contracting activity with almost twice as many contracts awarded: 59 compared with 30 in the first half of 2013.

France had it best-ever half year performance by both contract value and volume. The €930 million of ACV awarded was boosted by a number of mega-relationships signed in the first half and resulted in France becoming EMEA’s second-largest outsourcing market for the period, behind only the UK. Although the presence of large deals can temporarily boost market values, France also saw a corresponding increase in the number of contract signings. The 40 contracts awarded in the first half was the highest ever, and more than three times the number recorded in the first half of 2013. This has been driven in part by increased innovation as French businesses embrace new sourcing options such as Software as a Service (SAAS) and cloud-based solutions.

For the quarter, EMEA ACV remained flat compared with the strong first quarter of 2014 but finished 50 percent ahead year-on-year. The region benefitted from a steady IT Outsourcing (ITO) performance. Though modestly down sequentially, this was the strongest second quarter ever for ITO award value (€2 billion) and counts (111) in EMEA. Meanwhile, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO¬) continued its lackluster performance across the region, with values continuing to hover around the €500 million mark for the quarter.

“Overall, we’ve seen a good performance across EMEA this quarter – and not just because last year’s weak second quarter makes this year’s results shine. The market is moving in the right direction, and the first-half year-on-year comparison is testament to the market’s strength,” said Howie. “Solid performances in volume and value across most industry sectors give us confidence that this is not simply a blip.”

ISG presented the Q2 2014 EMEA ISG Outsourcing Index during a conference call for media and analysts. To listen to an audio replay of the call and view presentation slides, please click here.

CSC has signed a contract with North Bristol NHS Trust to implement their patient records. The Lorenzo electronic patient record system has been chosen to replace the existing National Programme for IT (NPfIT). Staff will be trained on the new system over the next year ready for it to go live in summer 2015. Over the last year a number of trusts have collaborated with suppliers and other hospital bodies to share best practice on managing systems after their respective NPfIT contracts.

DWP award contract to CSC

Piers Linney, BBC Dragon and co-chief executive at the cloud IT consultancy Outsourcery, has taken on a mission to get the Government to help small businesses win outsourcing contracts.

The Dragon has been asked to advise on how small, innovative IT businesses can be helped to win work in Whitehall and to ensure contracts are not just split between the biggest providers. Piers Linney has been asked to join the Government’s SME panel as there are concerns that smaller businesses are shut out of state contracts because of excessive red tape and outdated procurement practices.

With a set a target of 25 per cent of central government spending to go to SMEs by 2015, against 6.5 per cent when the Coalition took power four years ago, The Cabinet Office clearly has a lot to do and engaging with small business owners will hopefully give them insight into what needs to change.

Outsourcery, one of the UK's leading providers of cloud-based IT and business communications solutions, is looking to turn around its recent poor share performance and to win more business. However, it was announced recently that it had won a deal with a 5 year term with the contract due to deliver £840,000 in annual revenues when fully deployed.

Home Office removes barriers for SME IT suppliers