Industry news

Tech leaders have again claimed that immigration restrictions are restricting talent and growth in the UK tech industry.

Tech London Advocates a group which champions technology and business advancement in London said that 43 per cent of its members said that a lack of talent represented the biggest hurdle to London’s growth as a hub for technology businesses.

10 per cent of respondents said that immigration legislation represented the biggest hurdle to growth in the capital.

Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates, said: "A lack of skills and challenging immigration legislation is inhibiting growth in the capital and threatening London's position as a global technology hub".

Members of the group said that the current legislation surrounding work visas outside of the EU required reform if top talents was to be attracted to the city.

Public sector reforms seen as ineffective due to skill shortages

Skills gaps in outsourcing management

New government proposals set up councils for social service outsourcing opportunities.

Consultation papers between the Department for Education (DfE) and councils have revealed plans to allow councils “to harness third party expertise, and/or set up more agile delivery structures outside traditional hierarchies”.

The new proposals if implemented would allow for a wider range of services and functions that can be delegated by councils under the Children and Young Persons Act 2008.

The papers detailed that councils would still be responsible for the performance of the social services in 3rd party care and would be still required to meet statutory obligations.

The consultation process is set to close at the end of May but the planned privatisation of social services has been criticised by Unison for fragmenting services rather than promoting cohesion.

Wandsworth Council outsourced operation goes live

Councils receive shared service funding boost

60 per cent of UK SMEs have partly or have completely outsourced their IT Infrastructure in order to increase competitiveness.

The findings come as part of a new report by communications specialists Node4, with 18,600 UK SMEs believed to be now using outsourced IT services to drive business growth.

The report entitled ‘Facing up to the IT infrastructure challenge’ also found that one in ten SMEs had moved to take advantage of low-cost cloud IT infrastructure.

The report detailed that improvements in digital technology was allowing UK SMEs to employ cloud frameworks to flexibly outsource IT services at low costs.

Paul Bryce, Business Development Director, Node4, said: “there is much greater recognition of the value that IT can deliver to businesses amongst SMEs today”.

“IT has gone from being a static cost-centre to a dynamic business enabler that must support the organisation at every stage of the sales cycle, empowering the business to grow and succeed.”

SMEs join forces in outsourcing for growth

Chancellors budget continues government SME support

European Outsourcing Awards (EOAA) announces awards shortlist

The European Outsourcing Association (EOA) is delighted to announce the 2014 EOA Awards shortlist after a record number of entries. Winners will be announced at the upcoming ceremony in London (etc.venues - St Paul’s.) on the 10th July.

The EOA Awards now in its fifth year, recognises and celebrates the efforts of companies and indi-viduals who have demonstrated best-practice in outsourcing.

The Awards bring the best and brightest of Europe's outsourcing industry together, featuring a range of suppliers, end-users and support service providers and affiliate organisations from the UK, Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Spain, to reward European outsourcing successes.

The CEO of the NOA, Kerry Hallard, said: “Once again the EOA Awards has seen a record-breaking year for submissions, featuring a host of best-practice examples from across the European outsourcing industry. I am delighted to see such variety and detail within this year’s entries, which goes to show the level of talent and professionalism that exists within our industry. All shortlisted applicants should be incredibly proud to have reached this stage, with the winners to be announced in London on 10th of July truly representing the best of the best.”

The EOA Awards is taking place on the same day as the NOA Symposium, for details please click here.

The European Outsourcing Association Awards and Best Practice Shortlist:

European BPO Contract of the Year

Conectys

eClerx Services Ltd – Exchange Traded Derivatives Operations Support

Hays Talent Solutions & Honeywell

Mindpearl & Weight Watchers

European IT Outsourcing Project of the Year

Deloitte

Easynet & Campofrio Food Group

HCL & AstraZeneca

HCL & UKAR Outsourcing Project Engagement

HML & Irish Mortgage Lenders

Intetics Co & Desk-Net GmbH

European Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year

60K

Luxoft

Mindpearl

Sitel

Sofica Group

Teleperformance

European Outsourcing Advisory of the Year

Avasant

Bird & Bird LLP

CMS

DLA Piper LLP

eClerx Services Ltd

Eversheds LLP

Offshoring Destination of the Year

Belarus

Bulgaria

Fiji

Portugal

Serbia

South Africa

Sri Lanka

Award for Corporate Social Responsibility

60k - Animal Rescue Sofia

SPi Global - SPi fir Visayas

Teleperformance - Citizen of the World (COTW) in EMEA

Award for Innovation in Pan-European Outsourcing

eClerx Services Ltd – ISDA CSA Document Risk Review

Geoban S.A – Disputes Service Centre

GFT

Teleperformance - CX Lab

Outsourcing Works – Award for Delivering Business Value in European Outsourcing

Conectys

Elix-IRR

ITC Infotech & Danske Bank

Sofica Group & iGate

Sitel & Flybe

Wipro BPO

Ziggo & TechMahindra

European Outsourcing Professional of the Year

Juan Crosby, Partner, CMS

Paul McDonald, Director of Strategic Accounts, Sykes Global Services

Pedro Lozano, EMEA Managing Director, Sitel

William Pattison, Chief Executive Officer, Mindpearl BPO

Notes to Editor

The EOA is a pan-European collective of not-for-profit trade bodies with the express aim of promoting best practice in the outsourcing industry.

Run by members for members, each European chapter is committed to delivering information, education and collaboration on a national and international basis.

Further information on the EOA Awards can be found here.

Contact details:

National Outsourcing Association

44 Wardour Street London

W1D 6QZ

Email Editorial & Marketing Communications: Ruperth@noa.co.uk

Phone: 020 7292 8696

Two of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies have joined together, with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Novartis announcing a shared services partnership.

The two companies will share asserts under the agreement which will see GSK and Novartis combine their consumer healthcare units. The companies have announced that the partnership will allow for the two businesses to focus on key areas.

Under the deal GSK will sell its drug cancer business to Novartis for $16 billion, while GSK will receive Novartis’ vaccine business for $7.1 billion.

GSK has revealed that the company expects to see significantly increased revenues from the deal, with a projected increase of £1.3 billion to £26.9 billion, according to the company.

Andrew Witty, chief executive, of GSK, said: "With this transaction, we will substantially strengthen two of our core businesses and create significant new options to increase value for shareholders."

Pharmaceutical giant urges public sector to invest in innovation

GSK releases opens innovation platform

Chinese Life insurance, one of the largest corporate investors in China has moved to outsource management services.

The company has undertaken a three-day search for asset management companies for the outsourcing operation, which is expected to be worth around $3.2 billion.

The outsourcing tender terms offered by Chinese Life are viewed to be very favourable, with assets management companies being offered a 5 per cent management fee and 20 per cent in operational earnings according to the Economic Observer.

The asset management companies will be responsible for multiple Chinese investment projects, with the outsourced program representing a landmark move within the investment market.

China enters talks to acquire Airbus fleet worth £12 billion

UK Prime Minister looks to strengthen trade links with China

Following the recent Russo-Ukrainian turmoil, Ukraine has moved to enact a strategic initiative designed to boost the economy.

The Ukrainian Embassy to the United States will unveil an outsourcing initiative entitled: “Increase Profits. Support Democracy. Cloudsource to Ukraine.”, which will seek to encourage investment in the countries outsourcing services market.

The initiative is designed to link Ukrainian outsourcing service businesses with U.S. companies and agencies.

"I am quite sure that the IT industry in the Ukraine provides excellent opportunities to do a good business," said Pavlo Sheremeta, the Minister of Economic Development of the Ukraine. "This is one of the booming sectors in Ukraine due to strong education and the long standing culture of innovation and inventions that we have in the Ukraine."

The programme is set to be officially announced in Washington on April 29th.

Ukrainian CEO’s open letter on the future of the country’s outsourcing industry

Crimean crisis likely to hit outsourcing

The Home Office has placed tender for a new communications emergency services network (ESN), valued at between £666 million and £1.46 billion.

The tender for the communications network requests suppliers to be able to provide mobile, broadband and integrated voice communication services, to around 250,000 emergency services personal across England, Wales and Scotland.

The delivery of the ESN has been divided into four lots including integration, management, infrastructure and operating services.

The new ESN is designed to be more efficient with greater operational cost savings and will replace the current Airwave service contract which is set to expire between 2016 and 2020.

Emergency services bid for shared services funding

Fire and rescue authorities are urged to collaborate

An out-of-hours help desk service employed by Wandsworth London Borough Council has gone live.

The outsourced service provided by The Help Desk, was part of the Councils move to provide support for increasing numbers of staff who are working irregular hours.

The new service is designed to improve the council’s organisational structure and create a proactive rather than reactionary approach to system upkeep.

The council selected the vendor based on The Help Desk’s work with supporting retail brands with the out-of-hours support helping the council to provide 24 hour support services to the community.

David Tidey, Head of IT & Business Communications for the Council said: “Working practices have evolved over the past few years. When we looked at the situation more closely, we realised a growing number of staff were working longer hours than just those spent in the office and therefore needed to access the systems they rely upon to do their job at any time and from any location. To facilitate this change, we looked at the resourcing of our help desk services.”

London Councils Tender for £1b Back-Office Deal

Indian based IT outsourcing provider HCL Technologies has posted greater than expected profits for the third quarter period.

The financial and marketing sectors were the main service users, with Europe and U.S. markets being the most profitable for the IT company.

HCL posted a 59 per cent profit rise over the March quarter period, with revenues up by 29.8 per cent over the July-June period, beating market expectations.

The company has now revised its growth predictions, with the IT services markets gearing up for growth from increased demand, as the improving economic recovery prompts companies to renew focus on new technology investments.

Shiv Nadar, Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer at HCL Technologies, said: "Our leadership has been driven by our commitment towards sustainability, diversity and trust through transparency. With an emergence of an increasingly positive macro environment these values will continue to be HCL's key differentiators and provide an impetus to our future growth".

The announcement follows similar strong reports from fellow Indian based IT firm Tata which also posted prediction beating results.

Infosys raises forecast after outsourcing contract wins

IBM awarded major contract with Indian group