Industry news

Technology provider Systems in Motion (SIM) which has its headquarters based in San Francisco, has purchased Indiana based Zuna Infotech for an undisclosed amount.

The move is designed to increase SIM’s U.S. coverage by adding two additional delivery centres to SIMs supply chain, increase the company’s expansion and provide greater options for scalability.

Neeraj Gupta, CEO of Systems in Motion, said: “This acquisition directly aligns with our vision of building a highly scalable and effective US-based IT service delivery capability. SIM continues to lead the market in bringing together solution frameworks, agile software development models, and exceptional technology talent, giving our customers a real alternative to their global outsourcing initiatives".

CEO of Zuna Technologies, Anju Bajaj, said: “By joining forces with SIM, we can accelerate service delivery to customers and strengthen our ability to rapidly scale teams in response to growing market demand".

Active Operations Management International (AOMi), which specialises in back office workforce optimisation, has succeeded in acquiring £5 million of new capital.

The investment of £5 million was led led by private equity fund manager Calculus Capital.

AOMi is planning to use the investment to capitalise on global demand and move to promote its proprietary cloud-based software as the industry standard for back office workforce optimisation globally.

AOMi chief executive, Richard Jeffery, said: “Calculus’s investment will allow us to capitalise on the extensive global demand we are seeing for our cloud-based software. Since 2005 we have grown our business entirely through self-funding, but there has been an acceleration of interest in our products across the globe and we now need to grow the business rapidly to meet that demand. We selected Calculus as the right partner to help us achieve the company’s full potential.”

BPO reaches tipping point as client expectation outreach delivery

Strike action has been threatened by postal unions following the revelation of jobs cuts by the management of Royal Mail.

The announcement of cuts, which would affect 1,600 positions, comes shortly after the privatisation of the former state owned company by the government in a bid to increase the businesses profitability.

The job cuts will primarily impact mangers involved in back office operations according to the company, with 300 new positions resulting in a net loss of 1,300 Royal Mail positions.

Royal Mail chief executive, Moya Greene, said the planned cuts represented: “the best way to ensure the continued delivery of the universal service and the good quality jobs we provide for our people."

Royal Mail floatation imminent despite opposition

Details of Royal Mail privatisation expected to be revealed today

Indian based Tech Mahindra has partnered with telecom provider Nawras, a member of Ooredoo Group, to deliver a next generational billing system.

The new billing system has enabled is enabled the telecom company to operate a transparent billing system and generate better revenues.

The project also involved a hardware platform change from HP to IBM and migration of all data from the legacy system, enabling Nawras to improve customer experience as part of their drive to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

“We were delighted to have Tech Mahindra – our long term partner – to take on this critical project. This successful upgrade vindicates our decision to go with Tech Mahindra and they were able to handle all the technical challenges efficiently.” says Abdulaziz Jaafar, Director – Information Technology, Nawras.

“Nawras is one of our strategic accounts in the MEA and we are proud of the trust they have placed in us. The enablement of an upgrade in a record timeframe and ensuring customer delight makes us a partner of choice” says Girish Bhat, Head – Telecom, Middle East & Africa, Tech Mahindra.

Tech Mahindra partners with Microsoft to deliver support

Indian IT outsourcing exports predicted to grow by 13-15%

The Department for Transport (DfT) has announced that more than half of its suppliers delivering technology services for the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway project are are small or medium businesses.

The DfT was one of the first public sector departments to employ the G-Cloud in order to source SME services, as per government guidelines. The HS2 scheme itself has faced heavy criticism from the media and parliament regarding the cost, impact and practicality of the planned route.

James Findlay, CIO of HS2, said: “We took a bit of a leap of faith because there was no precedent for it. I think we’ve come a long way since then. We’re beginning to see quite an acceleration in the growth of G-Cloud”.

He added, "we’ve got a number of large contracts coming up for renewal. As a consequence, we’re using G-Cloud more, certainly within High Speed 2 [where we were using] 100 percent SMEs.”

SMEs join forces in outsourcing for growth

Chancellors budget continues government SME support

Multilingual and multicultural outsourcing services provider Conectys, has announced the opening of a site in the Philippines.

The new facility provides a 350 operational seats and offers additional capacity on demand for large-scale projects.

The new hub builds upon Conectys’ 24/7 international outsourcing services and delivers english services to the North American market as well as Asian languages including Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino Tagalog and Indonesian.

The new facility is designed to deliver business continuity, including power backup, real time automated failover and load balancing between sites and real-time replication of critical data.

“Having a regional presence in Asia Pacific is of key strategic importance to Conectys.” said Arnold Cobbaert, CEO of Conectys.

"Interest in this new facility with our existing and prospective customers is already exceeding our expectations".

arvato expands into Philippines

Wells Fargo looks to offshore jobs to India and Philippines

The Houses of Parliament have agreed to replace Parliamentary ICT (PICT) with a new Digital Office which would bring together all online services and ICT functions under one office.

The move comes after a review into ICT services, with the houses management boards recognising that despite the successes of PICT, Parliament was not placed to become a major digital player.

The Digital Office will be run by a new Head of Digital, who will be tasked with improving the satisfaction levels of users, including Parliament members and the public.

Once the Head of Digital has been selected the administration will then move forward with delivering a implementation plan designed to help Parliament become a digital leader and keep abreast of current innovations and digital services.

Old guard government IT suppliers attempt to compete against the G-Cloud

Nationwide Building Society has deployed a new website aimed at mobile uses aimed at providing increased functionality and remote accessibility.

The new site also provides custom features to the bank’s users designed to offer a personalised account with 24/7 support via Twitter.

Chris Hulse, head of e-commerce and digital marketing, said: “we went back to the drawing board to understand what our customers really want and to ensure it was quick and easy for them to find it, whether they are sitting at home or sitting on the bus”.

Nationwide Building Society – Scan on Demand

A new study has revealed that U.S. technology companies are reducing their offshoring operations in foreign markets due to rising costs.

Only 5 out of 100 technology CFOs said that they were planning to offshore services in the near future according to a survey from accounting firm BDO USA LLP, a rapid drop from 16 per cent in 2013 and 20 per cent in 2012.

The survey revealed that 29 per cent of companies that currently offshore services are now looking to in-shore services back state side in 2014.

A combination of rising cost, economic disruptions and environmental disasters have all contributed to the falloff in offshoring within the U.S. according to Aftab Jamil, a partner at BDO.

U.S have imposed a record visa fine on outsourcer

U.S. regulators warn banks over outsourced risks

Clothing retailer ASOS have revealed plans for an accelerated investment program designed to IT and warehouse funding to £68 million within the year.

The announcement follows a statement in October which detailed plans to invest £110 million in IT and logistics over the next two years.

The move to increase IT spending and logistics comes as ASOS reported increased revenues which the company attributed from technology investment.

The cloths retailer will now increase the speed of the investment programme focused in the UK and Germany, with the £68 million investment replacing original plans for £55 million in 2014.

Nick Robertson, CEO of ASOS, said in a trading statement: “this investment will increase our sales capacity to c£2.5 billion per annum, over £1 billion higher than previous guidance.”

Ocado moves to increase IT investment

JP Morgan increases IT investment by 27 per cent