Industry news

Annual profits at Royal Mail rise to £324 million in the face of privatisation, as the UK government moves forward with the planned sell-off.

Annual pre-tax profits have risen by as much as 60 percent, from a total of £201 million the same time last year, as markets respond to the government’s privatisation plans for the postal service.

The government is looking to raise capital and modernise the UK’s postal infrastructure by looking to place the mail service on the London stock exchange within a year.

The government required the Royal Mail to show signs of growth and strong performance as part of the requisites for privatisation.

Royal Mail have undergone a programme of transformation including job redundancies and a focus on modernisation, as the mail service seeks to compete against private postal organisations and popularity of electronic mail services.

Royal Mail chief executive, Moya Greene, said of the profit increase: “Our strategy is delivering. The transformation of Royal Mail is well under way."

Royal Mail floatation begins

Royal Mail: profit & privatisation

Marks & Spencer has recorded the lowest sales in four years after reporting low clothing sales. Pre-tax profits for 2012-2013 came in at just over £665.2 million, a fall of 6 percent from results published the same time last year.

The results also were well below the Cities forecast at the start of the financial year, of £710 million.

Overall sales at M&S dropped by 1 percent with only food sales providing respite from the negative reports, with an increase of 1.7 percent.

The retailer has said that investments “building longer term foundations”, including the recent construction of a new distribution centre at Castle Donington designed to increase M&S’s focus on online sales, had increased short-term costs.

Despite the publication of the results, shares increased by nearly 2 percent, with markets expecting the sales reduction based on poor weather and reduced consumer spending.

M&S moves to develop online presence after recognising failures

M&S saves £185 million through sustainability plan

A compromise in security at two Indian based card-processing companies, ElectraCard Services and EnStage, has resulted in multi-million dollar financial thefts across continents.

A total of £29.5 million was stolen across multiple locations by a group of individuals who succeeded in raising withdrawal limits on cards based on information from the two Indian based card-processing companies.

The security breach has called into question the levels of security within large banking firms and the risks of offshoring sensitive processes and data to high-risk locations.

The risk of cyber security and banking processes in locations such as India is a major concern for financial institutions, with over three-quarters if global banks having a presence in the country.

Despite the risks of offshoring, cyber security and financial security breaches are still common in the U.S. and other western countries, despite a perceived higher standard of security.

Indian IT companies faced with rising U.S. costs

India and Germany boost links through language education program

RBS is to invest a further £450 million on IT this year, in addition to a annual IT budget of £2 billion. The move comes as the financial giant seeks to draw a line under past public IT failing.

One significant IT failing was the disruption to online banking services during the summer of 2012, which led to many RBS customers being left unable to access their accounts.

The disruption led to a cost of £175 million for customer reimbursement for any losses sustained. RBS have warned that losses incurred from the outage may still be forthcoming.

The bank has faced further outages since 2012, with application difficulties on mobile devices.

RBS Group chairman Philip Hampton said: “the IT incidents over the last year have shown, building and maintaining a top class infrastructure is fundamental".

Regulators move to investigate RBS IT failings

Hardware failure found to be responsible for NatWest outage

Yahoo has entered into the bidding for Tumblr, with an offer of $1.1 billion.

The bid received approval by board members on Sunday, with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday reporting that Tumblr would continue to be run as an independent organisation.

Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo, announced the successful acquisition on her own Tumblr account, saying: “We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently."

With over 217 million global users over the past month Tumblr represents an opportunity for Yahoo to recapture a youthful audience, with Yahoo being practically geriatric with its 1995 birth.

The purchase of Tumblr has the potential to increase traffic and advertising potential to the Yahoo brand, as well as adding a ‘cool’ factor that Tumblr brings with its young demographic.

Yahoo announces 2,000 layoffs

NS&I (National Savings & Investments) which specialises in providing savings services have awarded Atos a seven year contract to deliver both BPO and customer facing services in a bid to reduce costs and modernise services.

The contract begins on the 1st April 2014, with Atos delivering an improved communications framework and greater digital services under the contract.

Digital improvements including online payment facilities, mobile optimised websites and applications are designed to help move customers to a digital platform in order to create cost savings.

According to Sajid Javid MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury: “Taxpayers across the country will also benefit as the contract will deliver a saving of over £400 million by 2021 – building on the £530 million already saved under the current contract.”

Atos awarded leadership role by MOD

Thames Water has appointed IBM as Technology and Innovation Partner in a move that is designed to develop and improve the water company’s social interaction with customers alongside overall corporate transformation services.

As part of their role as a partner to Thames Water, IBM will analyse big data and social media sources to improve customer relationships.

Analytical data gathered by IBM will be used to develop and modify services and identify opportunities for future innovation, with a particular focus on customer services and supplier relationship management.

Lawrence Gosden, asset director, Thames Water, described how the partnership with IBM was designed to deliver: “the best possible chance of delivering the safest, most sustainable and most innovative solutions”.

Thames Water Strikes £2.5bn Procurement Outsourcing Deal

Thames Water call centre could relocate to India

The UK government have appointed Arqiva to deliver a mobile infrastructure project, valued at £150 million, as part of the government’s move to develop mobile coverage across the country.

The mobile infrastructure project is designed to bring increased mobile coverage to rural parts of the UK, in areas where investment from network operators is low due to limited markets.

The project will help to create infrastructure including mast construction in order to increase the attractiveness of rural telecommunications development.

The Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, said: "Arqiva's appointment today is great news for rural communities throughout the UK, who stand to benefit enormously from this £150 million project to improve mobile phone coverage".

BT reports falling profits

Ofcom clamps down on BT in a bid to increase competition

Oracle has opened a new data centre based in Thames Valley, as part of a move to support the UK governments G-Cloud.

The new data centre will be specifically focused on providing services to the government‘s G-Cloud procurement framework.

The new datacentre is the second Oracle site in the UK, with a general-purpose site located in Linlithgow, Scotland.

The Thames Valley based centre will be designed to support SMEs, a requirement of the government stipulations surrounding the operation of G-Cloud services.

Oracle president, Mark Hurd, said: “We are delighted to bring our technology, applications and experience to the initiative and to make significant investments in the new data centre and infrastructure that will be dedicated to the UK Government's G-Cloud initiative."

March sets records for public sector cloud adoption

Oracle sees reduced revenue from software and cloud services

IT giant Intel has lost ground as the world’s largest semiconductor company, as rivals see sales expand through mobile device uptake, while Intel’s PC market shrinks.

A study released at the start of the week by IC Insights, has revealed that the company is facing increased competition and threats to its position as the world’s top semiconductor company.

Rivals including Samsung and Qualcomm are catching up on sales in the semiconductor marketplace as tablet and mobile devices increase in popularity ahead of tradition PC formats.

Intel currently leads the market in terms of chip technology, operating advanced manufacturing factories and delivering chips a generation ahead of competitors, however a specification in a PC market has restricted growth.

Intel sales dropped 3 percent to $11.56 billion in the first quarter of 2013, compared to the same time last year. Samsung recorded a 13 percent rise based on the success of mobile device sales, with its own range of products and other devices, including Apple which uses Samsung based chips, while Qualcomm recorded a 28 percent rise.

Intel announces investments of $40 million

McAfee plans for $389 million purchase of network security provider