Industry news

Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust has adopted a new laboratory system provided by CSC.

The contract will see the provision of a laboratory solution over three years. The service will allow doctors to request and obtain pathology test online.

The new system is designed to be easy to use and customise. Alex Singer, Lewisham’s pathology manager, said “It also allows us to develop and test new interfaces without impacting the core system or existing users and migrate gradually to CSC’s next-generation solution”.

London 2012 website has come out as the worst performer in online Olympics tests.

An analysis carried out by Compuware found that the official London 2012 Olympics website could poentially struggle with that traffic that will be generated over the next couple of months.

Other sites tested include londonolympics2012.com, visitlondon.com/london2012, timeout.com/London/Olympics-2012, tfl.gov.uk and lastminute.com.

Compuware Corporation launched SpeedoftheWeb.org a month ago. It is a free online cloud service that helps web application and site owners measure the speed of their web properties. This cloud service enables organizations to compare the speed of their website’s performance against leading competitor sites.

According to Compuware's announcement, SpeedoftheWeb offers 15 key performance indicators (web performance optimization KPIs), in-line expert recommendations, and immediate action paths to easily improve web performance.

The charity Reprieve has asked CSC customers not to give the supplier their business.

CSC has been linked in court documents to the rendition of German citizen Khaled El-Masri. The case is pending at the European Court of Human Rights. El-Masri, a greengrocer from Neu-Ulm, was abducted in Macedonia on 31 December 2003 after being mistaken for a known terrorist by the CIA.

Further details can be found here.

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."