Industry news

BT will save Surrey County Council £750,000 on a yearly basis as it consolidates the council’s public services onto one network.

Up to 40 LAN and WAN networks currently employed by council departments will be replaced with one PSN network.

The seven year contract, according to Denise Le Gal, the cabinet member for change and efficiency at Surrey County Council will, “save the county council alone up to £5.25m over the seven-year contract.”

The Northern Grid for learning has suffered from severe broadband service disruption.

Issues became apparent over the last few days as children returned to schools, BT had took on a £8.3 million contract in July to provide broadband services to the non-for-profit group.

The cause of the disruption has yet to be identified with BT having individually checked both the core network and individual networks, with no faults found.

A statement released by Northern Grid said that: “Despite these tests and intense scrutiny, we know that the experience of internet browsing for most schools has been poor, although a number of sites reported improvements from early afternoon”.

Chinese computer giant has bought Brazilian based CCE in stock and cash worth $148 million.

The acquisition will allow Lenovo to expand into Brazil which represents a developing digital marketplace.

Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang, said that the move will more than double the companies PC market share in Brazil: “CCE's management, who will become an essential part of our Brazilian operations, know the Brazilian consumer and will immediately help us establish a strong retail presence."

A survey of a 100 heads of IT and UK businesses including global leaders has found that only 5 percent of respondents regarded Google as a credible enterprise market supplier.

David Roberts, executive director of The Corporate IT Forum which carried out the survey, said: “If Google is to make serious headway in the corporate market, it will need to change its approach".

Roberts continued by saying that: "The Forum’s research highlights speed, collaboration and development of new products as the key benefits of using Google's products and services. However, there are several issues, or perceived issues, holding back corporate users – mainly Google’s ‘missing features’ when compared with mainstream offerings such as Microsoft.”

China are set to invest a trillion yuan on a series of infrastructure projects in a bid to reinvigorate the economy.

The news has seen Asian stock markets soar as industries react to the investment.

Projects announced so far include transport systems, water treatment plants and waterways. The main Chinese share index reacted to the news with a rise of 3.7 percent.

Amazon will create 2,000 new jobs buy opening three new distribution centers in the UK.

New roles will be created in management, HR, and IT services, and 3,000 temporary jobs will be created over the Christmas period.

Christopher North, managing director at Amazon said: "We have created thousands of jobs in the UK over the last few years and are delighted to announce that we plan to create thousands more in the next 24 months.

Sainsbury’s have moved to enhance their communications services in order to modernise supply chain services and technology.

The new system has been procured from Wesupply and IBM and allows suppliers to have internet access to the supply chain.

The new system is expected to increase invoicing accuracy and provide increased control to users.

National Outsourcing Association Awards Shortlist Announced

The National Outsourcing Association Awards (NOAAs) - in association with Wipro Technologies - shortlist has been announced. The NOAAs are growing in stature: this year there is a record number of entries in every single category. The all-new categories have proved popular: Outsourcing Rising Star, Shared Services Centre of the Year, Skills Development Programme of the Year, Outsourcing Works Award for Delivering Business Value in Outsourcing and In-house Outsourcing Professional of the Year (sponsored by Olswang) have proved that they reflect the needs of an evolving industry and competition will be fierce.

The NOAAs is the only award ceremony dedicated to the UK outsourcing sector and takes place on Thursday 25th October 2012 at the Park Plaza Riverbank in London.

National Outsourcing Association Chairman, Martyn Hart said: “Not only is this a record breaking year for quantity, all of the award submissions are of outstanding quality. We always look forward to this time a year, as it brings a unique opportunity to compare best practice and reward the companies who are pushing the industry forward. The effort and detail that has gone in to the submissions makes me proud to be a part of our rapidly maturing industry, and also proud that so many companies see the value of competing to win a NOAA. Shortlisting has been difficult – choosing a winner will be even harder.”

The Shortlist in Full

BPO Contract of the Year

• Infosys BPO Ltd - Everything Everywhere

• iQor - BBC

• Logica, now part of CGI and ELEXON

• Source - The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)

• Sykes Global Services – Link Network

IT Outsourcing Project of the Year

• Capgemini - Smith Group plc

• CSC

• HM Revenue & Customs

• RR Donnelley - Barclays

• Wipro Technologies - BT

Financial Services Outsourcing Project of the Year

• Accounting Consultancy & Solutions (Pvt) Ltd - Sri Lanka

• ELIX-IRR - Standard Bank

• Friends Life - Diligenta

• Sykes Global Services – Link Network

• TLT - Exigent

Public Sector Outsourcing Project of the Year

• arvato - Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council

• BBC

• HM Revenue & Customs

• iQor - BBC

• Xceed

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

• CSC

• Firstsource Solutions - O2

• Firstsource Solutions - Sky

• Infosys BPO Ltd - Everything Everywhere

In-house Outsourcing Professional of the Year

• Amanda Wright - Standard Life Plc

• Jim Hemmington - BBC

• Stephen Dyke - CSC

Rising Star of the Year

• Amanda Wright - Standard Life Plc

• Jodi Singfield - BBC

• Nik Mellor - Source

• Paul Thomas - CSC

• Przemek Berendt - Luxoft

Offshoring Project of the Year

• Aegis

• Centrica

• Intetics - eFinancialCareers

• Wipro Technologies - BT Lean Engagement: MBN Dwell Time Reduction

• Wipro Technologies - BT Lean Engagement: Task Closure Rate Improvement

Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year

• 60k - Thomas Cook

• Aegis

• arvato

• HCL Technologies

• Luxoft

Outsourcing Contact Centre Provider of the Year

• 60k - Thomas Cook

• Aegis

• arvato

• Firstsource Solutions

• OpenContact - Go Ape

Outsourcing Advisory of the Year

• DLA Piper

• ELIX-IRR

• Herbert Smith

• Olswang

• Source

Outsourcing Works: Award for Delivering Business Value in Outsourcing

• arvato - Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council

• de Poel - Care UK

• HM Revenue & Customs

• Mahindra IT & Business Services

• RESPONSE - Hiscox

Offshoring Destination of the Year

• South Africa

• Spain

• Sri Lanka

Outsourcing End-User of the Year

• BBC

• HM Revenue & Customs

• National Rail Enquiries

Award for Innovation in Outsourcing

• Aquira - Vodafone

• bss digital – 3SC

• Firstsource Solutions - giffgaff

• Liberata - CapacityGRID

• Liberata - Focused Liability Order Workflow (FLOW)

Award for Academic Achievement

• Dr Albert Plugge - Delft University of Technology

• John Strachan – Baker Hughes

• Kevin Willans – The Co-operative Banking Group

• Lorna Baker – Land Registry

• Richard Smith – HML

Award for Corporate Social Responsibility

• Avasant - The Rockefeller Foundation

• Centrica

• SPi Global

Skills Development Programme of the Year

• IBM

• Infosys BPO Ltd

• ITIDA

• Luxoft

• SQS Group Limited

Shared Service Centre of Year

• Logica, now part of CGI

• Plan-Net

• Specsavers

• Teleperformance and Response – Student Loans Company

• UBS Poland

A couple of weeks ago I looked at the importance of taking into account generational differences and individual user requirements before SMEs embark upon a BYOD policy. Here, I'm taking a deeper look into the costs of allowing employees to bring their own personal devices into the workplace.

The cost of BYOD – more than just money

It's fair to say that, for CIOs, there can be significant advantages found in implementing a BYOD policy. Tablets are fairly durable – an aspect which IT managers particularly favour – and when ordered in bulk, can have a relatively low corporate cost per unit, compared to laptops.

Whilst a BYOD policy does increase choice for every generation of employee – companies often feel they lose control over what happens to the device, and corporate control is relaxed, with concerns over physical security, as tablets are easy to steal outside the workplace. This, together with the risk of loss of data with staff moves, additions and changes and increased risk of malwares and viruses, must all be weighed up before companies opt for a full BYOD policy.

Varies by industry

In some industry sectors where security and data loss is a key issue, such as Defence and Finance, companies are focusing on a strategy around applications on the chosen devices in order to enhance productivity of their users, rather than allowing them to choose any device of their choice.

The level of multi-level security and device management required depends on business and user needs. For example, a school or university has relatively low management costs, no integrity check is needed and the data is the responsibility of the user, compared to a financial company where a full integrity check with web based authentication is needed for each individual user.

Companies also need to take into consideration the legal issues in the adoption of BYOD. Can employers legally monitor employee owned devices for data or policy infringement, improper time and resources utilisation, device usage policies etc? All of these policies assume that the device is owned by the employer. But this needs to be updated as well in line with the new trend, for at least limited monitoring.

What does this mean for SMEs?

At the end of the day, it is applications that are driving BYOD adoption, and the value they bring to an employee in the workplace.

Security is undoubtedly an issue as companies have already found with the introduction of mobile devices. SMEs must implement robust endpoint security to protect the sensitive data on an employee's device.

But for SMEs as for large corporations, there is cost effective technology out there to manage and provide secure access and management in a BYOD environment. There are powerful network infrastructures that provide secure collaborative conversation applications on employees' device of choice – the same infrastructure that can integrate voice and data platforms and provide video.

This means that SMEs can adopt a BYOD strategy with confidence. But as I said earlier, it is applications that should drive BYOD adoption.

This is the second of three blogs on the topic of BYOD from Manish. The next one will discuss the shift to the personal cloud.

3) Management need to be kept aware and take responsibility:

‘Buck passing’ is a frequent past-time in many organisations, especially if someone isn’t willing to stand up and take responsibility – or feel that they can. All too often the security team does not feel empowered to bring information to the management’s attention, or no mechanism exists to inform the CIO of risks that might affect the business. On the other hand CIOs are frequently more concerned about not spending money, and keeping the board happy, than giving their “troops” the support and resources they need. If this sounds familiar then perhaps it’s time it didn’t.

4) Pay Attention and Act on New Clues – Regardless of the Source:

In the IT industry there is not a day that goes by when we are not being alerted about yet another risk. However it is questionable how seriously organisations take alerts that may relate to Iranian nuclear facilities, or breaches of databases in Japan, etc.

Just because you may not have used Diginotar certificates, or Digicert Malaysia was not on your list of preferred suppliers, does not mean that you’re not the next victim. Every single Windows device has been affected by Flame and no one saw that coming!

5) Denial and Retribution:

Bottom line is somebody has to pay, and when your business’ reputation and earnings are affected by severe failure in your IT infrastructure, then someone will pay. Corporate senior management expect that those who are paid to fulfil a specialist role can do so effectively. There are not many CSOs or IT Security Directors who can expect to survive a digital certificate compromise or a certificate authority (CA) compromise on the basis of “there were no warning signs”!

6) You Never Know When It will Hit You:

Just like a boy scout – you need to be prepared. If you wake up tomorrow and discover that your internal and/or external CA had been completely compromised, would you have a clear action plan. Likely not, and I’m sure that should you get the opportunity to be in a similar position in your next organisation that you’d be better prepared the next time around!

7) Get Serious About The Risk:

Your infrastructure security is under attack, and your keys, certificates and CAs are a primary target. Those attacking you understand that you have ignored this area, and that enterprise key and certificate management has generally been forgotten about. Your enemy is exploiting your ignorance, and unless you get control of your CAs, they will get you.

What many organisations are still ignoring is that keys and certificates are the very foundation of secure systems — therefore a CA compromise will have dramatic effects. The reason these dramatic effects have taken place is because hackers have woken up to how they can use compromise certificates, from badly run CAs, to carry out major data breaches. The litany of recent attacks such as Flame, Stuxnet and Duqu have surely displayed that CA compromises are now a strategic tool in the hackers swag bag. There is no point securing the perimeter of your defences if the hacker can use a stolen certificate to swoop through them, gaining access to all of your organisation's secrets — you need to understand the risks, put processes in place and educate all of your staff to be prepared for and how to respond to a CA compromise. Otherwise the only noise you will hear is the closing of the door behind you and your organisation decides it cannot risk employing you for any longer.