Industry news

The UK government has moved to develop an applications framework covering a range of services.

The Government Procurement Service (GPS) is looking to develop a two year framework agreement for a range of enterprise level application services.

Support and maintenance services included in the framework will cover vendors including the likes of Oracle, SAP and IBM and will provide a third-party alternative to public sector services when existing application software contracts expire.

The tender for the framework specifies five suppliers covered by four different lots and will include the option for extension.

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The need for technical improvements has resulted in the Ministry of Justice’s Legal Aid Agency (LAA) delaying the live roll-out of its client and cost management system (CCMS).

The CCMS allows parties to apply for legal aid and submit claims electronically. The system represents the promotion of digital-by-default by the government in order to drive efficiencies and cost savings.

A LAA spokesperson said: “it is right to take some additional time now to deliver further technical improvements, identified during the system’s pilot phase, before we introduce the system to a much larger number of users.”

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SAP has announced plans to increase revenue to at least $30 billion by 2017, with its cloud businesses providing increasing profits for the software giant.

Cloud services alone are expected to generate around €2 billion by 2015 as uptake of the technology.

SAP has announced a 4 per cent revenue increase from 2012, with total revenue in 2013 of €16.8 billion.

Rapid growth in cloud services and expected increasing demand in support services will deliver ever increasing revenue growth towards 2017 according to SAP predictions.

Cloud market revenue to reach nearly $20 billion by 2016

HMRC has launched a new digital specialist recruitment scheme alongside Government Digital Services (GDS).

The scheme is open to both internal and external candidates, with successful applicants being employed at a new site in the North-East within a number of roles including design, research and software development.

The site will focus on providing digital services to HMRC and help in achieving the government’s aims in helping the department to be digital-by-default.

HMRC chief digital and information officer, Mark Dearnley, said: “GDS has been the catalyst and it will help us to train up these digital specialists so that we can learn to do this for ourselves. We have to get rid of paper. We currently send out 193 million letters and receive 73 million telephone calls every year.”

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Research from the Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by Wipro has revealed that 78% of retailers have seen a positive economic return from investment in data analysis.

The report based on a survey of C suite executives from the retail sector in North America and Europe examines how retailers are reacting to, and how leaders are benefiting from, increasing volumes of data.

Despite the positive impact of data analysis the research revealed that only 46 per cent of retailers polled were confident that their firm’s analytical abilities are keeping up with the huge volume of data being generated.

The research also revealed that data analysis helped to develop brand loyalty, with 64 per cent of respondents indicating that they had seen increased brand loyalty from the employment of analytics.

The research revealed that over half of respondents had been enabled to provide predictive sales suggestions to customers through data analysis capabilities.

Senior Vice President and Global Head of Retail, Consumer Goods, Transportation and Government at Wipro, Srini Pallia, said: “To get the full value from the data they are collecting, retailers need to explore new avenues to apply data analytics throughout the organization that will improve decision making, efficiency and interaction with customers.”

Wipro moves to acquire US mortgage consultants

A pressure group has claimed that of the 400 clinical contracts made available for bidding, around 70 per cent have gone to the private sector.

Since competition rulings came into force in April 2013, the NHS Support Federation has claimed that based on the tenders advertised on the official Journal of the EU and on the NHS website Supply2Health, the private sector took the vast majority of contracts available, worth around £5 billion collectively.

A Department of Health spokesman said the report only focused on a tiny sample: "These figures are highly selective and misleading. The percentage is based on a tiny sample of contracts. The reality is that private sector providers carry out around 6 per cent of NHS work.”

The Support Federation said: “the evidence in this report already points to a significant transfer of care out of the hands of the NHS towards a range of commercially driven providers. It also shows how commercial influence is also spreading to the management of NHS facilities and to the decisions around how the NHS budget is spent.”

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The Irish Government has published its Public Service Reform Plan which is designed to generate significant cost savings through procurement reform.

In total the reforms are designed to generate savings of over £410 million within a three year period, from a centralisation of services and a move to increasingly professionalise the procurement sector.

The report details a move to develop skills, employ procurement specialists and: “up-skill public service managers in the execution of end-to-end outsourcing”.

The Republic of Ireland minister of state for public service reform, Brendan Howlin, said: “The new Reform Plan will set the basis for a new public service, one that is focused on delivering better outcomes for citizens and business customers; one that is efficient and responsive; and one in which public servants are empowered to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future.”

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Northern Ireland increase private healthcare usage

The move to close tax-loopholes by many G20 countries including the UK is facing last-minute attempts by lobbyists from tech firms.

The Digital Economy Group, which lobbies for many leading U.S. based digital firms, has written to the think-tank tasked with drafting loophole reforms, in a bid to argue that tech firms do not employ tax avoidance practices and that legislation should not target tech firms specifically.

The group said: "Enterprises that employ digital communications models do not organise their business operations differently as a legal or tax matter."

The reforms follow companies such as Google paying small amounts of tax compared to billion dollar profits.

Google on collision course with European data regulation

Accenture has extended a seven-year contract with learning provider Hemsley Fraser, to deliver leadership and management training for a global consumer goods client.

The global outsourced HR initiative will see Hemsley Fraser provide services for a further four years, as part of an extension of an original contract signed in 2007.

Services covered in the training include management skills, coaching, communication, business planning and strategy formation.

Zsofia Kolontai, Category Manager for BPO Procurement Services at Accenture, said: “Hemsley Fraser's objective will be to create integrated learning paths, to ensure that individual managers and the business can achieve maximum returns”.

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The European Parliament has confirmed the creation of new procurement rules for the European Union, designed to reduce red tape, blacklist poor performing suppliers and encourage SME participation.

The announcement of new rulings comes after the UK government pressed for procurement reforms within the EU, following substantial savings within the UK from national procurement reform.

The new rules simplify existing legislation with the creation of standard procurement documentation, designed to reduce administration and increase the participation of SMEs in European procurement programs.

In addition the new EU procurement rulings encourage governments to break large contracts into small lots with public sector mutuals being given exemption from EU competition for a period of three-years.

Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, said: “My officials and I have been lobbying on this directive in Brussels and with other member states. The changes will help encourage more public sector mutuals to spin out by protecting the newest from full EU competition rules.”

Government plans £1 billion management framework

European SMEs buoyant about growth