Industry news

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has revealed plans to create a blacklist of suppliers, who fail in delivering contracts.

The list would potentially see repeatedly poor suppliers banned from receiving future public sector contracts.

In writing to colleagues, Francis Maude said “When awarding new contracts to large suppliers, government has not always taken existing performance into account. Too often this has resulted in suppliers winning new business, even when they were materially under performing on critical work elsewhere in government".

Compass Group, the world's biggest caterer, posted a 5.7% rise in third quarter organic revenue. New contracts have helped outside the tough European business environment and Compass has said its expectations for the full year were positive.

The group, which provides meals for office workers, soldiers and school children around the world, has said that business in its core North American market was particularly strong thanks to growing outsourcing trends.Growth flagged in recession-hit Europe, though, with southern Europe particularly tough. Revenue for the Europe and Japan region fell 0.9% in the quarter, with Japan partly mitigating the weak Europe performance.

1,100 jobs will be created in the UK by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) as it sets out to build new model series.

The jobs will be created around JLR’s Castle Bromwich plant, with new projects including the construction of the new Jaguar XF Sportbrake estate car alongside other projects.

JLR has carried out expansion in recent years as it sees a rise in global sales. The company has focused much of the new development in the UK with 8,000 new workers hired in the last two years.

The government welcomed the move, with Business Secretary, Vince Cable saying “This expansion is a clear demonstration of Jaguar Land Rover's continuing commitment and investment in the UK".

Cognizant has won a contract from Royal Philips Electronics to manage the business transformation of IT services, as the company seeks to increase efficiency.

The contracts will see IT delivered as a pay-per-use service, intended to allow Philips to impose cost-savings while increasing efficiency. The transformation service will be supported by Wipro and comes as Cognizant seeks to grow expansion in Europe.

Jeroen Tas, CIO at Philips, said: “Our relationship with Cognizant will allow us to leverage its extensive consulting, domain and technology capabilities for the business transformation programme that forms the cornerstone of our endeavour to drive agility”.

Cisco systems have announced that it is to cut 1,300 jobs as part of a streamlining and cost cutting initiative.

The cut totals 2 percent of the organisations workforce and comes after the company cut 6,500 jobs in 2011. The cost cutting measures have been employed as the networking firm responds to the global economic downturn.

In a statement regarding the losses, Cisco said: “we continue to evaluate our organisational structure as part of our plan to drive simplicity, speed of decisions and agility across Cisco."

The Metropolitan Police Service have adopted the National Police Procurement Hub (NPPH), which allows staff to place contracts for tender for a range of services including IT services and service equipment.

The Hub is designed to increase the speed of service delivery while improving cost savings through greater completion and visibility.

The NPPH service has been promoted by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), with the expectation of savings of £69 million from the service.

Ian Currie, NPIA head of commercial, said: “it is absolutely vital that those charged with buying goods and services have fast and direct access to this simple online purchasing system to access best value products and services."

BT has reported profits down by $4.48 billion for the first quarter of 2012.

While profits were down further than expected, cost cutting measures had allowed the telecommunications giant to raise profit before tax by 8 percent.

The cost savings included an increased dividend combined with a solid yearly performance despite widespread economic concerns in the marketplace.

Chief Executive Ian Livingston said: "BT Global Services was impacted by the tough conditions in Europe and the financial services sector."

Wipro has been named ‘Leader’ in a report carried out by Forrester.

The Forrester Research report evaluated and scored Wipro Consulting Services, Wipro’s consulting practice, on the basis of a comprehensive methodology across 18 criteria relating to current offering, strategy, and market presence.

The report recognised Wipro Consulting Services as “the most advanced in terms of its approach and its vision for transformational consulting, of all the pure-play Indian vendors.”

Kirk Strawser, Managing Partner, Wipro Consulting Services, said: “We believe that this report and the client references demonstrate that as an integrated firm, we are making our customers happy with the business value we deliver”.

With ‘the Games’ fast approaching, businesses in London are being encouraged to look at flexible working initiatives to ensure they remain operative during the upcoming summer months.

The government has joined the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) in its Preparing Your Business for the Games document, recommending organisations to think seriously about allowing staff to work from home. Although this may seem daunting, a flexible working solution will enable companies and their employees to become mobile at a time when transport disruptions and travel delays will be paramount.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the business benefits of mobile working:

• Reduce office space, accommodation and travel costs

• Lower staff turnover levels, resulting in lower recruitment costs and increased staff morale

• Cut car parking

• Reduce office footprint

• Enable flexible working, helping to achieve the work/life balance

• Increase productivity

• Win talented employees

• Reduce absence levels

• Achieve smarter commuting, reducing the dead time between office locations and meetings

• Increase job satisfaction

Another parameter to take into account should be the increase of BYOD use (or Bring Your Own Device), meaning employees can access corporate networks through their personally-owned laptops, smartphones and tablets. However, the more companies allow employees to access company data through personal devices, the higher the risk of data loss and theft.

Providers can help businesses push security policies onto their employees’ personal devices, making sure the data remains protected. Cloud providers can also take security measures to fully secure the platform on which the data exists, with encrypted channels and authentication protocols. Some providers may even offer the ability to wipe a device should an employee terminate their position at the company.

A cloud solution has the added benefit to potentially reduce the risk of company data being lost or stolen by employees, as the data resides in a secure data centre and accessed over the Internet, instead of being stored locally on employees’ personal devices.

Flexible and remote working might be scary for managers and business owners, but granting staff this benefit can produce surprising results. Fewer office distractions and a more comfortable environment makes for more efficient work.

The London Olympics have presented a challenge for local businesses. When the Games open on the 27th of July, we'll see how they cope with the pressure. Those who have planned, tested and implemented flexible and remote working practices are likely to have fewer challenges than those who have buried their heads in the sand.

Amazon has announced the creation of a London based hub from development and design.

The hub will be focused on the creation of new digital media products and will be located close to Silicon Roundabout.

Key areas include the development of TV digital services, games devices, smartphones and computers, as well as programming int5erfaces for new devices.

Paula Byrne, the new managing director of the development centre, said that: “Innovation is part of the Amazon DNA, and we are creating a British centre of excellence to design and develop the next generation of TV and film services for a wide range of digital devices,”