Industry news

More than 450 suppliers have been added to the second version of the G-Cloud, including Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, IBM and Capgemini.

The introduction of Salesforce to the G-Cloud will allow public sector departments to deploy the cloud platform services.

Salesforce EMEA chairman Steve Garnett, said: “Now, with salesforce.com joining the G-Cloud framework, the UK public sector can harness the power of social and mobile cloud computing to innovate and transform.”

Currently more than £2.2 million has been spent through the G-Cloud on IT services alone.

The National Outsourcing Association Awards (NOAAs) took place at the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel in London. Now in its 9th year, the NOAAs aims to celebrate best practice in outsourcing projects, and reward end-users, suppliers, advisors and destinations.

The winners of the outsourcing awards are listed below.

Award for Academic Achievement

Lorna Baker - Land Registry

Richard Smith - HML

Outsourcing Rising Star of the Year

Amanda Wright - Standard Life Plc

In-house Outsourcing Professional of the Year

Jim Hemmington - BBC

Award for Skills Development Programme of the Year

Luxoft

Award for Corporate Social Responsibility

SPi Global

Offshoring Project of the Year

Wipro Technologies - BT Lean Engagement: Task Closure Rate Improvement

Offshoring Destination of the Year

South Africa

Telecommunications, Utilities and High-Tech Outsourcing Project of the Year

Firstsource Solutions - O2

Public Sector Outsourcing Project of the Year

BBC

Financial Services Outsourcing Project of the Year

ELIX-IRR - Standard Bank

BPO Contract of the Year

Logica, now part of CGI, and ELEXON

IT Outsourcing Project of the Year

HM Revenue & Customs

Award for Innovation in Outsourcing

Firstsource Solutions - giffgaff

Shared Service Centre of the Year

Teleperformance and Response - Student Loans Company

Outsourcing Advisory of the Year

Herbert Smith

Outsourcing Contact Centre Provider of the Year

Firstsource Solutions

Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year

HCL Technologies

Outsourcing End User of the Year

National Rail Enquiries

Outsourcing Works - Award for Delivering Business Value in Outsourcing

arvato - Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council

Chairman's Award for Outsourcing Contribution to the Outsourcing Industry

Ian Roberts - CSC

Phil Pavitt - HMRC

Cognizant have revealed plans to expand data centres in North America and Europe, including the opening of a new centre in Slough.

Cognizant have invested $25 million in expansion and development of data centres and increased functionality of cloud services.

The new cloud services are designed to help customers move existing applications to the cloud, deploy new mobile, software-as-a-service, and social networking services to their end users, and support other business-critical processes.

Plans have been revealed by Scottish ministers for the creation of a national public services network, worth £325 million.

The new network has been named SWAN and will provide services to all public bodies and organisations within Scotland, including telecommunication and infrastructure services, while reducing cost and increasing delivery performance.

The plans for the new network come after the successful implementation of the UK’s own PSN which expects to have 80 percent of PC-based staff based on the platform within three years.

Two of the largest publishers in the world Penguin and Random house have entered into talks in a response to the rise of new technology, including e-books, which could see a merger which would create the world’s largest publisher. Such a deal would first need to be given the go-ahead by competition authorities.

The creation of a publication company on such a large scale would create an industry leader, bolstering the two companies from rising digital companies such as Google and Amazon.

A statement issues by Penguin owners Pearson commented: “The two companies have not reached agreement and there is no certainty that the discussions will lead to a transaction. A further announcement will be made if and when appropriate."

BT Global Services have revealed a new range of cloud based management services.

The new release of services included within BT Trace, which acts as package of services to support businesses management of their global supply chains, are designed to collect and analyse data, goods details, shares and supply chain information.

The new cloud service provides information in real time through the online services, allowing for rapid reaction to analysed data.

Luis Alvarez, CEO for BT Global Services, said: “With BT Trace, we are pioneers in providing those customers with the ability to identify inefficiencies, streamline their processes and be more successful in their market place.”

An expansion drive by Debenhams is expected to create 1,700 new jobs as the department store looks to open 17 UK stores over the next five years.

The UK expansion comes after a move to expand in overseas markets and increase online service capabilities to a further 30 countries.

The expansion announcement comes after a 4.2 percent rise in pre-tax profits during this year.

The implementation of a far reaching restructuring programme by Ford, which has already resulted in the closure of a Belgium plant yesterday, is expected to see the closure of Ford’s Southampton factory.

A meeting called today at the car manufactures headquarters is expected to foreshadow an announcement. The closure of the factory could result in the loss of over 500 jobs.

Caroline Nokes, MP for Romsey and Southampton North, said: “I've always had concerns about the factory and it now looks like there will be an announcement tomorrow indicating that it's going to close".

Recommendations put forward by the House of Lords Communications Committee have not been implemented by the government.

The report recommended action to change the broadband procurement process which the committee identified as being anti-competitive.

The programme to create Europe’s best broadband network by 2015 has currently seen BT win every contract offered so far.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has revealed that UK manufacturing has dropped to a three year low.

Just 25 percent of surveyed manufactures said that production had increased over the last three months while 28 percent said that production had fallen.

The announcement reflects similar results from manufacturing throughout Europe including even normally stalwart Germany.