Industry news

The Initiative Outsourcing Malaysia set up by the National ICT Association have announced the country’s overseas outsourcing revenue jumped 27% in 3013. The substantial growth shows great significance in a sector which is relatively small in comparison to other countries in the region. David Wong Chairman of Outsourcing Malaysia said the largest Malaysian outsourcing company employs only 5,000 staff whilst larger outsourcing providers in china have more than 100,000 employees making it impossible compete on large scale projects.

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Teleperformance buy Aegis USA (AUI)

The Financial Conduct Authority have produced a new non-exhaustive checklist to be used when banks are considering to use third party technology to deliver critical services. City regulators have said before choosing to outsource banks should assess whether the outsourcing of IT services can achieve necessary data security and think about how they will retrieve their data when outsourcing contract ends. The FCA outlined what it hopes banks will achieve from the IT outsourcing checklist, stating that banks must be able to “provide reasonable assurance” that each outsource provider “will deliver its services effectively, resiliently and securely” they must manage any “associated risk such that the firm meets all its regulatory requirements”.

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Bankers promise “to do my best and do my duty to …..the end customer”

U.S. companies who move facilities overseas can currently deduct the expense from corporate taxes. Senate Republicans have blocked the bill which would end tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas.

On Wednesday, the Senate voted on the “Bring Jobs Home Act” which failed to gain the votes needed to advance the measure. The bill was introduced by Debbie Stabenow and Sens. John Walsh which would give companies incentives to re-shore jobs back to the U.S. which included a tax write-off for the relocation costs and an additional 20 per cent credit.

Harry Reid Senate Majority Leader said ahead of the vote “We Democrats are lined up against outsourcing… A vote against this bill is a vote against American jobs.”

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United Airlines outsource 630 jobs across US Airports

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.”

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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