Industry news

All 24 ministerial departments have now completed their migration to the new central website domain at GOV.UK, with the migration of services being initiated back in October 2012.

The migration undertake with the support of the Government Digital Service (GDS), now sees all of the departmental sites gathered under one domain.

The transitional program comes as an bid to make the online service easily accessible to the general public, alongside increasing cost savings by developing efficiencies.

With the ministerial departments now operating under the new domain, the GDS will now focus on transitioning public bodies and non-ministerial public sector departments to GOV.UK.

Government reveals plans for centralised procurement registration service

Sita UK are poised as leaders of a consortium, to take over the running of waste disposal for six west London councils, in a scheme valued at £900 million.

The consortium, including Lloyds Banking Group and the Itochu Corporation, along with Sita UK and its partners, has been selected as preferred bidders by the six councils (West London Waste Authority).

The new contract will see 300,000 tonnes of waste, from around 600,000 homes, transferred from a landfill disposal scheme to a new process in which waste would be transported to an electricity plant to be burnt.

The consortium must now be given final approval in order to secure the contract, which would see £900 million paid over the 25 year lifetime of the service delivery.

Chairman of West London Waste Authority, Bassam Mahfouz, said: “For too long we in west London have been sending the waste we didn’t recycle to pile up in landfills. This new contract means that virtually nothing will be sent to landfill.”

Supplier sourcing leader at Google for EMEA and LATAM, Gabháin Neary, has described how the internet giant relies on outsourcing core essential services that do not directly deliver value, in order to drive efficiencies.

The move to outsource essential services in the supplier sourcing process has allowed Google to deliver greater efficiencies, allowing buyers to focus on value creation.

Mr Neary said during the ProcureCon Indirect conference that Google looked to: “Eliminate, automate or outsource any of the non-value transactional work- it has really freed up ourselves, and it is a never-ending exercise to constantly refine that”.

He added that by employing external parties to “support us in supplier sourcing now- my team are now just focused on doing stakeholder engagement.”

Google on collision course with European data regulation

Google acquires new London site

Union leaders are set to meet with major pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, regarding the movement of a large R&D site.

The company is seeking to move the site from its current Cheshire location to Cambridge including the migration of nearly 2,000 jobs, by 2016.

The move comes as AstraZeneca seeks to reduce costs as the company faces the expiry of several drugs patients and a lack of new drugs in its product pipeline.

The proposed Cambridge location is designed to place the company on a level setting with global competitors.

Unions have expressed concern regarding the impact of such a move to the economy in the North-West, with union Unite's regional officer, Gary Owen, saying how: “The company is creating a skills crisis for the local economy”.

Sales fall at AstraZeneca as competition and price rises take their toll

AstraZeneca enters into partnership with Chinese Pharmaron to increase development speeds

The new Italian prime minster Enrico Letta has warned that the country faces a “serious economic situation" at the opening of talks designed to resolve economic difficulties.

With the expectation of an increasing number of bad debts across the country during 2013, Italy is struggling to take measures to halt its shrinking economy.

The conference meeting today is designed to stimulate economic recovery with plans to reduce tax on workers and young people.

The prime minister said that: “We will die of fiscal consolidation alone, growth policies cannot wait any longer.” He is expected to travel to various EU capitals including Paris and Berlin during this week as the country seeks to encourage development aid from the EU.

Markets in Italy have reacted positively to the day’s meetings, with a 1.4 percent rise in the Italian FTSE MIB, as the new government raises market confidence from renewed stability.

PMI reports show German industry contraction

UK prepares for 2013 budget

O2 has entered into a ten year contract with BT, in a deal which will see BT provide network services in support of the rollout of 4G services by O2.

The contract will see the delivery of increased backhaul capacity, which will support O2 in migrating services to high speed Ethernet based services.

Along with increased speeds, BT will construct a new high capacity transmission network to deal with increased volumes of data through 4G services.

In addition to supporting the delivery of new 4G service, the long-term contract with BT is also being used to launch a range of applications and services, while reducing overall traffic costs, from the expected increase in 4G traffic in coming years.

BT secures a further two superfast broadband projects

O2 in discussions with Ofcom to speed up 4G auction

The European Outsourcing Association Awards took place last night in Amsterdam. The ballroom of the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky was filled with the cream of the European sourcing industry, who watched on earnestly waiting to see if it would be them who claimed a prestigious best practice award.

Best practice insights from the award-winning projects (and other selected entries) will be available soon in the sourcingfocus.com EOA Awards commemorative supplement.

And the winners were:

BPO Contract of the Year

• CBRE

IT Outsourcing Project of the Year

• EPAM Systems Inc

Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year

• 60k Ltd

Outsourcing Advisory of the Year

Overall Winner

• Olswang

Highly Commended

• Juan Crosby, CMS

Offshoring Destination of the Year

• South Africa (BPeSA)

Outsourcing End-user of the Year

• Momentive

Award for Innovation in Outsourcing

• Sykes Global Services and Genworth

Award for Corporate Social Responsibility

Joint winners:

• Capgemini BPO

• Teleperformance EMEA

Award for Best Multi-sourcing Project of the Year

• National Rail Enquiries

Outsourcing Works - Award for Delivering Business Value in a Pan-European Outsourcing Project

• eClerx Services Ltd - Global Parts Selector Launch and Expansion

Outsourcing Works - Award for Delivering Business Value in a Single European Outsourcing Project

• Aletea SPA (for Italy)

• Sitel and John Lewis (for the UK)

EOA Chairman Martyn Hart said “The EOA Awards provide a much-needed platform to champion the companies and projects that are driving the European outsourcing industry forward. Innovation and added value are right to the fore of the awards entries – many of these outsourcing projects are providing true business transformation, changing the way things are done across Europe. A huge thank you to everyone who entered, and of course, huge congratulations to the winners.”

Sitel UK, experts in outsourced customer contact solutions, today announced that consumers do not want to wait when seeking information or advice, meaning that they do not want to be left on hold on the phone or to wait for an email response. These are just some of the findings of the new “Customer Relations Trends to watch in 2013” report.

“Email as a primary channel of support has passed its pinnacle and no longer meets the expectation of customers for immediate resolution”, says Sitel’s Marketing Director, Joe Doyle. “We are working with a number of clients implementing strategies that engage customers on-line, replacing services such as the email channel with proactive chat, mobile and social engagement solutions.”

IDC forecasts that over the next two to three years that email will decrease by 4-5%, while self-service, chat and social channels will all show growth of double-digit percentages.

The report looks at the changing behaviour of consumers and where 2013 is taking the contact centre and customer service industries. It particularly addresses how the customer service industry is responding to continued pressure on cost, the expectation for higher quality, increasingly complex requirements integrating with social media channels, the omni-channel approach, and the mixed shore strategies that are on the rise.

For a free copy of the report please New Sitel Report

The release of Purchasing Managers Index reports from across the Eurozone have shown contraction within the German manufacturing sector.

The report of a slowdown in both the countries services and manufacturing sectors is a surprise in a country that is renowned for its strong industry performance and stability, despite the impact of the recession on Europe.

The German private sector as a whole is shrinking for the first time since last November, with Europe’s largest economy struggling to maintain growth.

The release of poor PMI results has led to expectations of poor GDP performance from second quarter reports.

The results are likely to shake confidence in European industry as even Germany is unable to remain exempt from the European economic crisis.

India and Germany boost links through language education program

BAE-EADS merger faces German opposition

The UK government has begun to see results from its austerity programme with public sector borrowing falling from 120.9 billion in the 2012 finical year to 120.6 billion in 2013.

The slight reduction comes as the government seeks to eliminate the budget deficit by 2017-2018.

The savings come under the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast, which expected borrowing to be at the same level.

SMES to receive lending boost

The change of £0.3 billion in borrowing comes as the IMF warns of the dangers of the UK government’s austerity measures in restricting economic recovery, with another major credit agency downgrading the UK’s status from AAA in February.

Further cuts are expected to have a much greater impact on savings and services as they come into effect over the coming years.

UK prepares for 2013 budget

Government increases business innovation fund to £60 million