Industry news

Gloucester City Council have extended their relationship with Civica to agree on a six year deal to reform and manage IT operations. Although the total cost of the agreement has not been revealed the six year deal has targeted cost savings of £100,000 per annum.

Civica win £17 million outsourcing contract to support academy schools

Desmond Tutu is leading a protest today campaigning against G4S’s involvement in maintaining prisons in Israel over their alleged role in “Israel’s brutal occupation and abhorrent prison system” at G4S’s annual general meeting in London.

G4S help run prisons in Israel and the West Bank that hold prisoners from occupied Palestinian territory. Protesters claim that it has been documented that there has been ill treatment of Palestinian prisoners including systematic torture and children held in solitary confinement.

G4S loses another UK boss

According to a thank-tank report produced by Policy Exchange, the UK government could save as much as £24billion a year by 2020 if they used technology more efficiently.

The report recognised the recent progress in the use of IT to transform government services and process, such as the replacement of more than 300 departmental and agency websites plus the launch of G-Cloud. It also recommended that 150 highest-volume government transactions to be converted to the digital-by-default standard by the end of 2015, plus for the creation of an information marketplace. It went on to recommend several other activities the government should undertake and to encourage politicians and policymakers to put technology at the forefront of their thinking for the 2015 general election.

The manifesto set out three principal goals: to build the world’s most connected and digitally skilled society; to make Britain the most attractive place outside of Silicon Valley for technology entrepreneurs to start and grow a business; and to make government the smartest in the world.

G-Cloud procurement spend now over £175m

Grant Thornton’s International Business Report has revealed that South African businesses outsource more than the global average. They surveyed 150 businesses in South Africa with the results showing that 48% outsource back office services, with that figure being only 40% globally. Of those that do outsource only 3% offshore to another country, while 82% wouldn’t even consider offshoring there processes. The main reason from those that do not currently outsource is not wanting to lose control over a key process.

Grant Thornton research finds 2 in 5 companies are open to outsourcing

Frost & Sullivan have revealed that the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Contact Centre outsourcing services market in Brazil has dipped to $5.19 billion.

In its report, whilst it dipped in 2013 the market is expected to grow to $7.34 billion in 2018. The decrease in growth was due to the exit of Tellus and Vidax including a reduced performance in some important companies.

Frost & Sullivan went on to report that the revenue share of inbound services is expected to decline to make way for BPO and back-office services. However the Brazilian BPO market faces the issue of a lack of workforce and high competitiveness among outsourcing companies.

Telefonica moves ahead with joint offer for TIM Brasil

In a bid to help establish Nottingham Trent University in the UK ‘s top forty universities in the annual student satisfaction survey, they knew they had to change their software strategy. The software asset management (SAM) team at Nottingham Trent University were having a hard time keeping a close eye on their legacy management system and knowledge of their infrastructure, so NTU implemented a Snow SAM system hosted in the cloud, which created cost savings and improved student satisfaction. NTU aims to save a ¼ of a million through the new SAM.

Southampton University undertakes major infrastructure transformation programme

Liverpool have confirmed they will take complete ownership of their joint venture with BT, LDL. LDL started in 2001 and provides services including HR & Payroll, IT and web services and customer access. The decision for this transformation was due to a reduction in public spending and therefore left Liverpool looking for savings from existing suppliers such as BT, their aim is to save £156m over three years.

Liverpool Council ends BT joint venture

IBM have maintained its Health outsourcing deal since 1999, winning numerous contract renewals. However the Department of Health have now asked competing outsource providers to tender for the contract. IBM currently supply primary IT outsourced services. The Department of Health are said to be looking for a new approach to ICT infrastructure and support services. The new five year outsourcing contract is due to begin on the 31st of March 2015, with an option to extend up to 10 years.

IBM awarded major contract with Indian group

As troubles in Ukraine continue Western customers raise concerns and fuel job relocations. Luxoft the large Russian-founded IT service provider have announced the relocation of 500 jobs from Ukraine and Russia to the West. Luxoft have expanded operations in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania to minimalize exposure in Russia and Ukraine. There are fears that the civil unrest in Crimea will hinder Ukraine’s promising IT outsourcing sector.

Ukraine launches outsourcing initiative to counter recent economic instability

Lockheed Martin have been awarded a two year contract from the Highways Agency to manage their applications, worth approximately £4m. This is part of the Highways Agency moving away from a sole IT supplier to a service integration and management (SIAM) model. This is the latest ‘tower’ that has been awarded, so far SCC have won the hosting ‘tower’ while Thales have connectivity, their end user consulting ‘tower’ is expected to go out to tender over the next few months with the SIAM element yet to be awarded.

Highways agency award £10 million contract to Thales