Industry news

Offical figures have revealed a drop in output in the UK’s manufacturing sector of 0.8 percent in May, as the industry struggles to perform despite high expectations.

Compared to the same time last year, industry output fell by 2.9 percent in the manufacturing sector.

The reduction in output has cast doubt on predictions made by economists of a return to economic strength. Analysts had placed predictions for strong overall economic growth in all sectors in the second quarter, with June reportedly showing output in the manufacturing sector growing at the fastest rate in two years.

The poor figures casts doubt on overall economic recovery, with the manufacturing industry being a key part in George Osborne’s recovery strategy to develop the export market and move away from a reliance on service and domestic markets.

UK service sector activity reaches eight month high despite Eurozone recession

UK expected to avoid triple dip recession

Plans for the privatisation of the Royal Mail are expected to be unveiled this afternoon, with an estimated valuation of £2.5 billion.

Details of the privatisation are expected to be revealed by Business Secretary Vince Cable in the Commons this afternoon.

The move will represent one of the largest privatisations in the UK for decades.

The move to privatisation is expected to face fierce opposition from trade unions, with the government offering shares worth £2,000 each to 150,000 royal mail staff as an incentive.

The privatisation is expected to increase postal service costs, with the need for cost savings and efficiencies threatening jobs.

Royal Mail floatation begins

Royal Mail profit rise in face of privatisation

G4S is set to face civil action from the family of Jimmy Mubenga, who was unlawfully killed in 2010 when G4S staff forcibly restrained him.

A verdict of the use of unlawful force was passed down by Isleworth crown court, which stated that the three guards: “were using unreasonable force and acting in an unlawful manner”, is likely to have wide repercussions for the governments management of outsourced security contracts in relation to immigration.

G4S no longer holds the contract with the Home Office, with Capita owned Tascor now running the contract.

The three security staff are no longer employed with the security giant, however the training of security staff still involved in deportations has been called into question.

Current security guards involved with the current contract have expressed concerns with current training practices according to the Guardian.

Leaked letter reveals the struggle of G4S partners with asylum seeker contract

Capita looks to increase UK justice system contracts with legal specialist acquisition

The NOA’s Outsourcing Professional Awards took place last night in London. Hosted in the Radisson Blu Portman Hotel, the inaugural Awards saw recognition of individual key professionals within outsourcing, who have demonstrated best practice, exceptional business acumen and have gone above and beyond in demonstrating that outsourcing works.

NOA Chairman Martyn Hart said, “The inaugural NOA Professional Awards were designed to recognise the importance of individuals to the development and success of outsourcing within the UK. Tonight we’ve seen from the award winners and shortlisted entries, how outsourcing is well served by a host of talent, who are helping to continually drive the industry forwards, and show that outsourcing works. A huge thank you to everyone who entered including the highly commendable shortlisted applicants, and of course, huge congratulations to the winners.”

The winners were:

Outsourcing Rising Star of the Year

End user = David Lewis - Marks and Spencer

Supplier = Victoria Kane – Conduit

Outsourcing Supplier Professional of the Year

Mark Cleary – Conduit

Best Advisor of the Year

Juan Crosby – CMS

Award for Academic Achievement

Christopher Day – The Phoenix Group

Best Procurement Team

West Sussex County Council

Best Relationship Management Team

Zurich Insurance Group

Best IT Outsourcing Team

Xchanging

Best Finance & Accounts Outsourcing Team

SKS Business Services

Best Outsourced Customer Service Team

60k – Thomas Cook

Best Business Process Outsourcing Team

SPi Global

Best Offshored Outsourcing Team

Aegis

Award for Skills Development Programme of the Year

arvato UK & Ireland

European Outsourcing Association Awards Winners

Based on a recent report on competition within the broadband market, Ofcom has proposed new plans to reduce the cost of broadband supplier migration for customers.

The wholesale cost reduction is expected to reduce the overall amount by 80 percent, while reducing the minimum contract length from a year to one month.

Ofcom is currently facing the Catch 22 situation in trying to avoid limiting the investment in the nationwide rollout of superfast broadband while preventing the main distributor BT from damaging competition within the UK broadband market.

"The proposals are designed to promote competition in the superfast broadband market at the wholesale level. These would be expected to flow through to consumer benefits in the form of lower retail prices and easier switching between superfast broadband providers" said Ofcom.

NAO to investigate BT’s monopoly on rural broadband contracts

Ofcom clamps down on BT in a bid to increase competition

Thames Water has invested £4 million in a new analytics systems designed to provide real-time data in a bid to improve customer services and identifying potential problems.

The new service named the AORTA (Asset Operations Real Time Analytics) project, is designed to drive efficiencies in analytics as well as updating and modernising systems, through the migration of data from old systems allowing for the increased visibility of current and past information.

The core service platform is being delivered by Wipro and is based on employing a real-time approach to water supply predictions in order to increase overall accuracy.

IBM appointed as innovation partner for Thames Water

Severn Trent looks to renegotiated offer

Outsourcing firm Accenture have posted increased profits in the third quarter for overall global sales, with total revenues of $7.2 billion.

Despite increased revenue streams, Accenture failed to meet the company’s target of $7.5 billion, and saw a reduction in sales in the EMEA region.

Sales for the EMEA region were down 4 percent in the third quarter to $2.78 billion, compared with $2.91 billion for the last quarter.

The company has seen increased business in outsourcing, with bookings and revenues being higher than expected compared to low levels seen with consulting.

“Our third-quarter results were solid overall, although consulting revenues were below our expectations. We delivered very good profitability, with operating margin expansion and EPS growth reflecting the disciplined management of our business," said Pierre Nanterme, Accenture CEO.

Accenture deploys cloud platform for NHS radiology centres

Accenture see sales growth from increased outsourcing demand

A report from analyst firm TechMarketView, the UK software and IT services industry is predicted to decline by 5 percent in real terms from 2011 to 2016.

While the software and IT services (SITS) markets are expected to grow 8 percent by 2016, the increase of £44.3 billion in the UK market will represent an overall decline.

While expectations rest on an overall decrease in growth over the coming years, TechMarketView reported increased for opportunities for SMEs, identifying a: "golden opportunity for SMEs to snatch business from larger players."

TechMarketView chairman Richard Holway said: "The baggage of established businesses makes it a lot harder for them to be agile in today’s market, which presents an enormous opportunity for SMEs and start-ups.”

UK outsourcing sales plummets 80% for Logica

UK outsourcing is expected to grow rapidly in the second half of 2012

The creation of a shared public services centre has generated significant costs savings for South West Wales police forces.

The new centre is able to process emergency and non-emergency calls, a feature that separates the centre from other emergency call centres.

The contact centre services itself is operated on a scalable platform allowing for staff to handle calls during peak periods.

The centre itself, which employs technology and infrastructure services from Siemens and OpenSpace Voice, allows staff access to real time information while handling calls, providing users with improved information for assessing the need for emergency dispatch. The quality of intelligence from real time data has succeeded in increasing first call resolution rates.

Time to be open-minded about open source contact centres?

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service Invests in Network to Handle Emergency Calls

Tech Mahindra Limited and Mahindra Satyam have announced the completion of their joint merger, four years after Tech Mahindra acquired Satyam in 2009.

The purchase of Satyam came after a high profile account corruption scandal which resulted in significant reputational damage.

The completion of the merger will result in the creation of the fifth largest Indian IT outsourcing company and will see the sharing of back office infrastructure including HR services, marketing and overall financial processes.

The creation of Tech Mahindra according to a released statement, has created a company with revenues of USD 2.7 Billion, a team of 84,000 professionals servicing 540 customers across 46 countries.

Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam and CA Technologies enter into Global Partnership

Merger of Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam announced