Industry news

HP Enterprise Services UK and Yorkshire Building Society have entered a Shared Services Alliance to offer a range of applications including complete mortgages & saving solutions and business process outsourcing via a new private cloud platform hosted in HP’s data centre.

These services are aimed at other financial services companies to help them reduce their IT investment costs and enabling them to be more competitive in the ever changing market.

HP provides multiyear agreement for Procter & Gamble

The Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland have selected Accenture to develop and maintain the new operational policing system for Police Scotland. The system, called i6, will support new standardised national policing processes and daily policing operations and investigations.

Work will begin this autumn on the development of i6, which will replace over 120 existing IT-and paper-based systems. The new system will allow users to manage, analyse and share operational and case information across Scotland, giving Police Scotland the high levels of data integration and information sharing required for their officers to work swiftly and effectively.

The roll out of i6, expected in late 2015, will double the amount of time officers have to spend on important frontline activities while also serving as a crime-fighting tool rather than a records management system. The implementation of i6 is hoped to contribute significant savings for Police Scotland.

The ten-year deal – with a possible extension to a maximum of 12 years - is estimated to be worth £39m, with another £8m for costs such as new hardware.

Accenture secures five year outsourcing contract extension

G4S has raised £348 million through share placing. This, accompanied by the planned sale of business worth a total of £250 million, is hoped to both alleviate the company’s debt, which stands at 3.2 times its earnings before tax, depreciation and amortization, and help restore its public image after criticism for its handling of a government contract and the security contract fiasco for last year’s Olympics in London.

According to trusted sources, the company’s biggest shareholders are in agreement with the action which is considered to be the best option available to the company. The strategic move, alongside an annual cost-cutting programme of £35m is expected to raise more than £600m.

The funds that will be raised are anticipated to help the company reach an acceptable level of debt while also creating capacity in the balance sheet for future investment, Ashley Almana, New Chief Executive for the company said.

This announcement follows the appointment of Mr Himanshu Raja from Misys as CFO.

G4S hit by pay dispute at GCHQ

Governance is a vital part of the outsourcing lifecycle and as such six Merseyside councils are under-going a governance review in a bid to strengthen the local delivery of strategic economic development, regeneration and transport.

With the recommendation from Liverpool City Region Cabinet, one preferred option would be to create a "Combined Authority" to lead this work in the Liverpool region. Unlike the "Super-Council" concept, this option is all about formalising the existing positive informal arrangements and being able to deploy powers and resourced from Central Government for local use.

The six councils - Halton, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral - plus Merseytravel and the Local Enterprise Partnership - think that the current structure can be improved to accelerate economic growth and will help make services more cost effective. It aims to also bring clearer leadership and greater transparency while creating a legal entity which would be in a position to attract funding and devolved powers from government.

It is also worth noting that Wirral, Cheshire West and Chester Council are working together to drive savings by merging £69m of back office savings.

Lancashire Council and BT Consolidate Security with Mcafee

The issue of data security seems to be a regular feature in sourcingfocus news and today is no exception as Dell Services has signed a deal with Symantec to use its e-mail security platform as the security engine for its Email Management Services (EMS) portfolio of cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.

Dell has combined the individual strengths of Dell Services and Symantec Hosted Services to offer new e-mail security features and improved functionality to its EMS customers and channel partners. Together they want to offer existing customers heightened protection and expanded hosted offerings, plus to bring the benefits of SaaS to more organisations.

Cloud market revenue to reach nearly 20 billion by 2016

London higher-educational institutions represented by a procurement consortium have awarded contracts worth £310 for the delivery of IT hardware.

The IT hardware contract, which replaces an old framework established in 2009, is due to run for three years with the option to extend for a further year.

The London Universities Purchasing Consortium, which represents 64 higher-educational institutions, awarded contracts to eight suppliers as part of a framework contract, suppliers included Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Samsung and Acer.

The framework contact is separated into three parts with the provision of general services and desktop and laptop provision provided separately.

Scotland awards £100 million procurement framework

Welsh schools move forwards with digital learning

Tesco has entered into talks with partner China Resources Enterprise (CRE), regarding the acquisition of supermarket chain ParknShop, Hong Kong’s leading supermarket chain.

The ParknShop conglomerates are reportedly seeking between £1.9 billion and £2.56 billion for the supermarket chain.

Tesco this month moved to merge its Chinese business arm with CRE, which has Chinese state backing, with both companies looking to increase their market control in the former British colony, where ParknShop holds a 33 per cent market share.

Any bid from Tesco and CRE for ParknShop would face strong competition, with eight bids having already been made for the supermarket chain.

Tesco has sought to merger with larger partner CRE in order to increase growth in China, but the UK chain has so far moved slowly in the country having “adopted a more cautious stance in China" according to the chain, after failure of its Fresh & Easy venture in the U.S.

Tesco increases competitive operations against Amazon

Tesco prepares for mass dot.com store rollout

Research firm Gartner have estimated that it will be at least five years before big data fully matures and delivers on its full potential.

Gartner have revelled in its latest report on new technologies that the slow adoption of big data will mean that it will take between five and ten years before it reaches a “plateau of productivity”.

The report identified obstacles to adoption including a failure to optimise services and develop expertise ahead of tools and services.

Despite the delay in uptake Gartner still ranked the new technology as offering “transformational” potential.

CSC moves to extend data analytics capabilities with start-up acquisition

Study shows rapid uptake in big data usage

The UK economy is expected to grow throughout the rest of 2013 according to the economic thinktank Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The OECD predicted a continued strengthening of the UK economy after the composite index which records growth rates saw a rise to 110.8 in June from 100.6 in February, with 100 representing the expected growth rate.

The expectations on continued economic growth throughout the rest of 2013 and 2014 comes as the UK records a 39 month retail sales high in July, with the manufacturing sector also showing signs of increased workloads.

Royal birth heralds UK economic growth

Jaguar Land Rover (JLS) are rumoured to be in the process of planning for expansion at its Halewood factory in Merseyside.

An expansion, which follows the success of the Range Rover Evoque which is constructed at the site located in Merseyside, could create up to 1,000 new positions.

The Range Rover Evoque has sold 210,190 units between January and June, with increased demand coming from China.

JLS have so far said that such rumours are pure speculation, but chose not to confirm or deny the construction of new facilities at the Halewood site.

Jaguar Land Rover creates 800 jobs in Solihull

Jaguar Land Rover moves production to China