Industry news

The European Outsourcing Awards (EOAA) announce the shortlist

The shortlist for the 2013 European Outsourcing Awards has been announced with the shortlisted companies re now positioned to win at the upcoming ceremony in Amsterdam on April 25th at the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky.

The European Outsourcing Association Awards and Best Practice Showcase Shortlist:

BPO Contract of the Year

• CBRE Global Corporate Services

• Centrica - WNS, EXL & Genpact

• DLA Piper UK LLP

• eClerx Services Ltd

• Infosys BPO and Orange Business Services

IT Outsourcing Project of the Year

• Aletea SPA

• DLA Piper UK LLP

• EPAM System Inc

Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year

• 60k Ltd

• CBRE Global Corporate Services - Corporate Outsourcing Ltd

• HCL

• Luxoft

• Sitel

Outsourcing Advisory of the Year

• Bird & Bird LLP

• CMS

• eClerx Services Ltd - Reviewing Captive Operations

• Elix-IRR

• Olswang

Offshoring Destination of the Year

• Russia (Luxoft)

• Serbia (Sitel)

• South Africa (BPeSA Western Cape)

Outsourcing End-user of the Year

• Momentive

• National Rail Enquiries

• Smiths Medical

Award for Innovation in Outsourcing

• Capgemini BPO

• eClerx Services Ltd - Zero Budget Outsourcing

• HML

• Software Improvement Group

• SPi Global

• Sykes Global Services and Genworth

Award for Corporate Social Responsibility

• Avasant

• Capgemini BPO

• Centrica

• Teleperformance EMEA

Award for Best Multi-sourcing Project of the Year

• 60k Ltd

• Centrica - WNS, EXL & Genpact

• National Rail Enquiries

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

• Aletea SPA

• Capgemini BPO and Coca-Cola Enterprises

• eClerx Services Ltd - Global Parts Selector Launch and Expansion

• eClerx Services Ltd - Streamlining Billing

• Genpact

• Infosys BPO and Orange Business Services

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

• Aletea SPA

• eClerx Services Ltd - 4P Exploratory Analysis and Forecasting Simulator

• Sitel and John Lewis

• VFS

• Wipro Technologies - BPO

Analysts from Gartner & IDC will debate the future of sourcing in Europe. Presentations will come from The Dutch Chamber of Commerce, Alcatel, Centrica and more.

The European Outsourcing Association is the centre of excellence for outsourcing in Europe. It’s focus is on communicating strategic lessons of outsourcing, whilst highlighting the successes it can bring.

Further information can be found here.

A report by the Defence Science Board has highlighted vulnerabilities within the U.S. military to cyber-attacks and portrayed a poor picture of the countries capabilities and resilience to respond to a full scale cyber-war.

The report based on an 18-month study of U.S. military systems success in defending against cyber-attacks, found that service would be lacking in the face of a protracted attack by an organised force.

The report highlighted that military infrastructure design information had already been compromised, revealing weaknesses and undermining the stability of core systems, due to the use of components and software in the public eye or from foreign suppliers.

The report said: “Military Commanders may rapidly lose trust in the information and ability to control U.S. systems and forces".

Solutions by the U.S. military were also found to be inadequate, being numerous in number but failing to cohesively developing security. The report recommended that the U.S. military needed to move to develop offensive capabilities in order to deter coordinated foreign-state initiated attacks.

China may seek to ‘control the internet’, US report on web hijack warns

G4S is moving to sell its US government solutions business as the global security service provider seeks to offload the business in the face of budget cuts.

Despite a turnover of near £400 million in revenue from the business in 2012, G4S has placed the business on the market, with analysts placing an expected sail price of £80 to £120 million.

The government solution business, which includes services including, weapons training, emergency services and mine detection, has been impacted by U.S. defence cuts.

G4S has also citing its position as a non-U.S. company as being detrimental to its business interests and preventing the company from having access to secure information which inhibits the services it can deliver. The company will move instead to concentrate its U.S. focus on low level security clearance business.

G4S looks to draw line after failed contract with compensation settlement

Services giant Serco has posted further profit growth after securing a record £5.6 billion worth of new contracts in 2012.

The company which will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2013, secured multi-million pound contracts including the deconstruction of a US Army base situated in Afghanistan and major transport contracts in India and Scotland.

Serco has also seen profit from the UK, where government spending cuts and a shift to outsource services to reduce cost have increased business for the company, operating services ranging from prisons to nuclear weapon maintenance.

Serco has also acted to increase the size of shareholder dividends in response to increased profits with further increases over the coming next three years, a shift away from the traditional model that the company had operated in the past.

Serco re-selected for environmental services contract in Canterbury

In research released by the National Business Awards, UK employees and bosses were found to view strong leadership as the most important influence on business success.

90 percent of individuals surveyed said that the most important influence on the success of an organisation was good leadership.

Over 80% of employees agree that having a good leader will have an impact on their own career progression, and they also believe that having a good boss inspires greater loyalty and motivation in them.

The research also revealed that bosses views of their leadership qualities varied from that of employees, with 86 percent of bosses thinking they display good leadership, compared to only a third of workers viewing their leader as being good.

National Business Awards Chair of Judges, Dame Helen Alexander, said: “Leadership is important for every business. Good leadership can inspire a team and therefore the whole organisation.”

“The research shows the importance of strong leadership to employees, with leaders themselves also appreciating how vital it is to success. It’s interesting to see that individual employees are motivated by their own success, but bosses see that success as a way of gaining for the whole business.”

The full white paper can be found at www.nationalbusinessawards.co.uk

The National Business Awards (NBA) has teamed up with the NOA (National Outsourcing Association) to support the 2013 campaign to find and celebrate the UK’s best Business Enablers at the twelfth annual NBA ceremony to take place in November.

The Award is open to any organisation in the public, private or third sector whose primary aim is to help other enterprises become more profitable or more cost-efficient; to transform or restructure; or to improve delivery or impact.

Alex Evans, Programme Director of the National Business Awards commented: “This partnership will help us find the organisations that are not only delivering effective service through outsourcing but enabling their clients to improve. This alliance will support us in identifying the UK’s most exemplary business enablers, celebrating their achievements, and demonstrating the unique value they deliver to UK plc.”

Martyn Hart, CEO of the NOA commented: “This award will raise the profile and celebrate the importance of outsourcing to the British economy.”

Members of the NOA are able to receive a 30 percent discount on entries with the use of a code when submitting: NOA30.

To submit an entry for the BlackBerry Business Enabler of the Year award, visit www.nationalbusinessawards.co.uk.

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has gathered a selection of businesses, industry leaders and academics to create a plan for ‘Smart London’, aimed at promoting technological innovation within the capital and strengthen London’s economy.

A board headed by the head of innovation and entrepreneurship at Imperial College Business School, Professor David Gann, will look at where London should make investments in new technologies and infrastructures in order to develop efficiencies and remain at the cutting edge of innovation.

The plan will be based on supporting SMEs, increasing investment in London and allow users to seize marketing opportunities gained from new technological innovation.

Professor Glenn said that the ‘Smart London’ plan would look to, “new technology to create jobs and growth for the capital, and an even better London experience.”

Mr Johnson said “London has been at the forefront of technological wizardry for generations, but in a rapidly changing world we will need to work harder than ever to stay ahead of the game.”

He added:“I’m delighted to welcome on board a fantastic line up of experts to help spur the kind of innovation and entrepreneurship that will secure London’s future as the best big city on earth.”

Government offers £24 million for ‘smart city’ proposals

The UK has reportedly topped the EU5 countries in its use of the internet, with rates of usage exceeding France, Germany, Spain and Italy, according to a new report by Ofcom.

In a report analysing the market coverage, use, and cost of broadband services across the EU, 81 percent of UK citizens were found to regularly go online.

The report which was created in order to monitor the UK’s progress in achieving the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015, shows that the UK is on track to meet the Government’s target.

While overall broadband uptake along with cost and market competition rated strongly compared to the other EU5 countries, the UK failed to top the league in superfast broadband uptake, coming behind Germany and Spain, with much of the rural roll-out still on-going.

New EU rules give the go-ahead for urban broadband funding

Airlines are on track to become the biggest industry investor in mobile technologies by 2015, aimed at service development and customer engagement, as new technologies are rolled out across fleets.

According to new research commissioned by Tata Consultancy Services by ResearchNow, Airlines are currently spending an average of $27.2 million annually and are ranked the third biggest investor in mobile services, behind energy companies and telecommunication businesses.

Investments in the use of mobile devices on flights including in-flight mobile services are expected to account for a large percentage of new investment, with airlines such as UA equipping aircraft with Wi-Fi.

Vice-president and global head of mobility at Tata, Satya Ramaswamy, said: “The criticality of attuning products, content and services to a mobile consumption model is now business-critical. We perceive that the firms which best adapt to this increasingly prevalent and influential audience segment are likely to reap significant dividends.

Samsung overtakes Apple as leading manufacturer of ‘smart devices’

In order to retain agility and rapidly deliver new products, enterprises need to have a start-up approach to software product development or else risk being overtaken by competitors, according to Amazon CTO Werner Vogels.

The comments came as client and customer expectations of rapid delivery times become increasingly prevalent as newer technologies reduce times between software generations.

Mr Vogels speaking at the London Economist's Tech Frontiers conference said: “Enterprises can take a lot of lessons from how young businesses move really fast in delivering services that consumers really want”.

He added: “They do this by bringing a minimal viable product into the market and experiment, then working closely with customers.”

“The people who have grown up with that way of thinking about software and services, they become the new leaders in the industry.”

Supply chain management: outsourcers do it better