Industry news

Birmingham city council’s use of public funds to create a broadband network is set to face legal action from BT and Virgin Media.

The two communications giants are to launch legal action against the creation of a competitive broadband infrastructure funded from the public purse.

The issue was raised last week and is expected to be introduced in the House of Lords debate today by Lord Howarth.

James McKay from Birmingham city council commented: "Birmingham is extremely disappointed in Virgin Media's decision to appeal this landmark ruling. The city has worked in a very positive and collaborative way with them over the last few years to help inform and develop our business case and we are surprised that they have now chosen to appeal at such a late stage."

Dutch firm Royal Philips Electronics have reported earnings of more than double during the third quarter.

Net profit increased by €74 million from year on year records with a total of €169 million.

Increases came from cutting loss-making enterprises including the company’s television arm and moderate growth in all business lines.

The announcement comes despite the emergence of slowing sales in Europe and China as markets slow from the global economic crisis.

A £8 million travel information hub which would collect all transport data has been proposed by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM).

The £8 million project would allow users to access detailed travel information and assess their travel plans.

The implementation of the system would also be used to reduce travel delays and prevent passenger build-ups through disruption alerts.

The procurement process for the provision of the system is expected to be underway by the end of the year.

With the PwC inquiry into G4S’s performance at the Olympics published, there are many learnings for the outsourcing community. This was an unprecedented operation with unique challenges. The report specifically mentioned that the monitoring and tracking of the security workforce was not suited for scale of the project and this is something many outsourcing clients and suppliers should be taking note of. G4S has suffered the loss of two senior executives which starkly illustrates that while you may outsource a job, you cannot outsource all the risk.

G4S is continuing to enter into new public sector tendering processes and it will take some time to restore its reputation, but its Olympics experience is a salutary lesson for both clients and suppliers in outsourcing. I believe that cases like this highlight that having a mechanism in place to performance manage contracts is crucial for the successful delivery of services. Clients should insist on evidence of this at tender stage, and suppliers must provide reporting that monitors and flags up potential issues far in advance of the problem actually happening.

Only when both sides have full visibility based on timely data can the supplier be sure they are doing a good job, and the client that they are managing the risk, both to the contract, and their job.

With the competition for government outsourcing growing, and the government trying to open up their tendering processes to SMEs rather than just the giants, it is more important than ever for suppliers to be able to point to clear performance management in the tender document. With the government pushing for better terms, it is also important for suppliers to have absolute confidence in their service. The move towards payment for results means that suppliers really have to put their money where their mouth is.

But both sides have responsibility when it comes to running a successful outsourcing contract. Where many contracts run into trouble is when assumptions are made on either side on who is responsible for what. The interplay between dependencies in a contract has huge implications for the success, or failure, of the project. These dependencies need to be clearly defined at the beginning of the relationship. For example, with security staff, the supplier needs to know (among other things) how many staff are required, the skill level they need, what accreditation and security clearance they need and who is responsible for gaining this clearance. In some cases the supplier can run these background checks, but for top-level security a government check is necessary. All of these dependencies need to be factored into a job with clear agreements as to who is doing what.

With this joint understanding the supplier and client can clearly see whether something is running to plan, whether there is a slight deviation from the plan which is allowable, or whether the deviation is so great that immediate action much be taken to rectify the problem. The client and supplier should be sitting down at regular intervals and reviewing the project against the scorecard which was agreed at the outset of the project.

Organisations involved in outsourcing, whether client or supplier, must learn from G4S’s experience so they do not run into the same problems. If you’re not measuring it, you’re not managing it - an old management saying that is truer than ever in outsourcing today.

John Turner, Director, independent IT and business change professional services firm Xceed Group, explains why an investment in training can help organisations to get the most out of their outsourcing deals.

As the double-dip recession continues, and the uncertainty caused by financial crisis in Europe takes hold, there’s no doubt that UK organisations will be looking to outsource more and more over the coming months. The promise of increased efficiency, lower costs and working with subject matter experts mean that, for some businesses wanting to streamline their operations, outsourcing seems to be the only answer. But how many know what it takes to turn the promises into the reality of a successful outsourcing relationship?

After all, with the number of outsourcing deals on the increase across Britain and mainland Europe, it’s also noticeable that the number of failed outsourcing relationships has risen sharply. One of the principal reasons for this is that very few businesses seem to grasp that fact that all relationships – whether it’s a friendship, a marriage or an IT outsourcing engagement – need careful attention. Why do organisations think that good managers of internal departments will be good at managing complex outsourcing arrangements and relationships with third parties? The chances of achieving outsourcing success can increase exponentially with the support of a dedicated training programme.

There are a number of benefits that training can provide when it comes to managing an outsourcing engagement, but perhaps the most important of these is that it can help end-user organisations to identify the right service partner for them. Like any business, IT outsourcing suppliers come in all shapes and sizes, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll all be a good fit for any organisation with an IT outsourcing need. Also organisations need to be realistic about the promises being made and what they think will be achievable. A key failure in all outsourcing deals is the one of over promising and under delivering. By training decision makers to look for a supplier that is a good fit, both in terms of culture and relevant expertise, organisations will be able to encourage a more collaborative and successful relationship. This will allow them to discuss problems openly and identify practical solutions before the issue gets out of hand.

Of course, another way of ensuring that the vendor/supplier relationship is a success is to train those in charge of agreeing service level agreements (SLAs). This will ensure that they are not only realistic, but that they also provide an accurate picture of what success looks like. Too many outsourcing deals fail because the lines of communication have been blurred, with neither side gaining a clear understanding of what is needed on their part. By ensuring that end-users define success in their SLAs from the outset, both parties should be in a better position to achieve results and flag any problems at an early stage.

Clearly, any investment in training programmes aimed at improving management of external parties should be carefully scrutinised at a corporate level. However, it’s also important to remember that the potential savings provided by a successful outsourcing engagement could mean that that not only is ROI is achieved relatively quickly, but that overall costs are lowered as a direct result. Conversely a badly managed engagement will lead to inefficiencies, higher costs and a very acrimonious relationship!

A report released today by IBM and the Saïd School of Business at the University of Oxford has found almost two thirds (63%) of UK and Ireland businesses recognise the competitive advantage associated with Big Data. This marks a significant increase with just over a third (34%) recognising its value back in 2010.

Despite this increased appreciation however, there are still key areas which UKI companies are failing to exploit Big Data potential. Less than half of companies (39%) currently analyse data from social media (39%), whilst similar volumes neglect external feeds (39%) and geospatial data (37%). Investigating the reasons behind the lack of uptake, the study found a ‘lack of understanding of how to use Big Data to impact business’ as the key primary obstacle, with 41% of UKI respondents agreeing.

Commenting on the report, Matin Jouzdani, Strategy Consultant at IBM Global Business Services, said: “One key reason for companies not collecting and analysing wider varieties of data lies in the veracity – or truthfulness – of insights generated from sources such as real-time data and social media. Striving for high data quality is an important Big Data requirement, and the survey respondents questioned the ability to trust rapidly growing forms of unstructured data, such as those generated from on-line consumer comments, reviews, Tweets and other forms of freely offered opinions.

“Another reason that such forms of data are being underutilised is due to the skills gap. Having the more advanced analytical capabilities for managing unstructured data – including geospatial location data, voice and video – as well as streaming data remains a top challenge for most organisations. Less than 25 per cent of the survey respondents say they have the required capabilities to analyse highly unstructured data – a major inhibitor to getting the most value from Big Data.”

BT iNet has announced that it is to recruit more than 50 people into its Converged Infrastructure Practice over the next 18 months, in order to help customers take the first steps towards cloud adoption.

The programme, which is being led by BT iNet’s director of converged infrastructure, James Wolf, will expand the company’s existing advanced data centre skills and capabilities, and will form a core part of the BT Compute product family.

As a result, BT iNet is launching its biggest ever recruitment drive to increase its team by more than 17 per cent in order to expand its converged-infrastructure-focused practice. The new roles will cover both sales and engineering, as well a dedicated team to accelerate the adoption of new products and develop new services that complement the ‘BT Private Compute’ portfolio.

BT iNet’s Private Compute solutions also provide a pathway into other parts of BT’s portfolio that address the later stages of the cloud journey, including its Managed Compute and Cloud Compute platforms.

Neil Pemberton, managing director, BT iNet, said: “Understanding the cloud journey can be complex for customers, so it’s important to break it down into clear and simple steps that help simplify adoption. That’s exactly what we’re doing with this programme, which has been designed to provide the solutions and capabilities that customers need now and help them move towards the cost-predictability, cost-effectiveness and efficiencies offered by cloud services.”

Google, which earlier this month surpassed Microsoft in terms of value, saw its third-quarter profits slide because of spiralling costs and a decline in advertising prices.

It delivered revenues of $11.3bn in the third quarter, but these fell short of analyst estimates of $11.8bn, whilst profits tumbled to $2.18bn, down a fifth on the $2.73bn it made in the third quarter last year.

The results has been scheduled for publication after markets closed in New York, but they were accidentally released early, still with a gap for a quote from Google’s chief executive, Larry Page.

HP Helps Serco ASP Deliver High Quality Shared Services

HP has announced that Serco’s Anglia Support Partnership (Serco ASP), one of the UK's leading shared services providers, has selected HP to help improve the quality and efficiency of its healthcare services.

A robust, high-performance HP Converged Cloud solution based on HP CloudSystem and HP Storage will help Serco ASP improve essential services by managing people, processes, technology and assets more effectively.

Serco ASP provides a wide range of shared services to the NHS and other health-oriented organisations in the East of England, including recruitment, payroll, pensions, purchasing and financial services. The company currently produces 42,000 payslips per month on behalf of its customers from its integrated service centre in Huntingdon, and operates four primary care support centres in Cambridge, Ipswich, Witham and Norwich.

“Serco ASP needed a high performance, future-proof IT platform to support business growth, both geographically and into other market sectors,” said Mark Smith, Head of IT at Serco ASP.

HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL), a leading global IT services provider, has announced results for the quarter ended September 30 2012. HCL’s quarterly revenues increased by 3.2% QoQ to US$ 1,114 mn.

HCL’s European business posted a revenue increase of 16.4% YoY in Q1 FY2013 and 2.8% QoQ in the first quarter of FY 2013. This geography contributed 28% to HCL Technologies’ revenues.

Commenting on the results, Stuart Drew, Executive Vice President – Europe, HCL Technologies said “Europe remains key for HCL’s success with a sound growth of 16.4% YoY. The new financial year has begun with key engagements across industries.”

Europe highlights for the quarter:

• HCL has established a Centre of Excellence for SAP Visual Enterprise (VE) in the UK, to serve its European customers.

• HCL has been chosen by a Top 5 global pharmaceutical company for a multi-year, multi-service managed services engagement encompassing end-to-end application support.

• HCL has won an engagement with a leading media & publishing company to provide enhancement support for its Salesforce.com applications.

• HCL has entered into a global partnership with SuccessFactors, a SAP company, and a global market leader in cloud-based software designed for Human Capital Management. Under the alliance agreement, HCL will provide implementation services, license referrals, and a general operating program for the SuccessFactors Business Execution (BizX) suite to customers in North America, Europe, Latin & South America, Asia Pacific and India.