Industry news

Private equity companies Apax Partners and Bain Capital, are reportedly looking at investing in a 41 percent stake in BPO giant Genpact.

If the deal is successful, it would rank as one of the largest in business process outsourcing history, with a potential value of $1.4 billion.

The 41 percent stake would come from Oak Hill Capital and General Atlantic Partners who are to sell their take according to the Times of India.

The government is considering creating a third framework to complement the existing G-Cloud and G-Hosting frameworks. Government CIO, Andy Nelson, revealed the potential for a new framework to help the public sector move to modern systems and software along with promoting the adoption of cloud based services.

The success of the G-Cloud framework in sourcing suppliers for public sector projects as well as promoting SMEs to offer competitive services has led to Whitehall contemplating a new framework to meet demand.

Andy Nelson said, “we could use more standard cloud services further down the track. Now is the time to think through how we do that, so we might end up with three different frameworks.”

Paul Boyns, head of IT Strategy and Policy at the BBC, warned businesses of the lack of development and maturity surrounding cloud contracts and services.

Paul speaking at the London Cloud Computing World Forum, warned of the problems facing cloud procurement due to the lack of best practice and standardisation surrounding the service, as well as the dangers of becoming locked into particular services.

Paul described how, “If you look at some of the key facets of cloud computing standards, they are not particularly mature. They are behind the times.”

Reports from KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) show that the IT job market continues to outperform against the overall jobs market.

The demand for staff in IT services has continued to rise in comparison to the difficulties facing the rest of the market.

Chief executive of REC, Kevin Green, commented that; “niche areas that are seeing much stronger growth than the national average. In every month this year the engineering and IT and computing sectors have seen solid increases in the number of workers.”

The new ICT curriculum due to begin in September 2014 will be innovative and flexible while being much shorter in order to focus core skills.

The new ICT curriculum will replace the defunct ICT programme which is to be discontinued from this September.

Dr Vanessa Pittard at the Department for Education said: “There will be a programme of study from September 2014. It will be much shorter to allow for innovation.”

Global outsourcing firm Wipro plans to extend infrastructure as a service (IaaS) capabilities as the firm looks to meet the specific requirements of enterprise-class clients.

The new global utility computing platform called Wipro iStructure will use the existing global Wipro data center and will offer infrastructure and application services.

Michael Wilczak, senior vice president of datacentre services, Wipro, commented: “Last year we began offering multi-tenant, virtual server hosting to our existing clients as part of large, integrated infrastructure management engagements. Clients have quickly adopted the service.”

The National Business Awards have given an extension to its deadline on application entries to Wednesday 27th June.

The Awards, partnered with Orange, are designed with showcasing the best in innovation, ethics and excellence within UK businesses both within the public and private sector.

Organisations from all regions across the UK, from SMEs to FTSE 100s, are invited to register for award categories ranging from the Orange Innovation Award, to the Sustainability Award, through to Entrepreneur of the Year and Online Business of the Year.

Viglen an ICT company which Alan Sugar holds majority shares in, have secured a contract with the Thetford Academy worth £1.6 million. The contract will see Viglen provide ICT equipment and services over the next 5 years.

The contract is designed to cover the Thetford Academy’s plan to embed ICT resources within teaching rather than the traditional model of dedicated ICT facilities.

Thetford Academy principal, Cathy Spillane, says, “We are delighted to have entered into this partnership with Viglen who have an excellent track record in delivery of ICT to the education sector.

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Can you define your business and your specialties?

everis is a multi-national consulting company offering business development and strategy, technological applications maintenance and outsourcing solutions. Our consulting firm works in the financial, energy and utilities, industrial, insurance, media, public administration, healthcare and telecommunications sectors. Currently, everis has operations in several European and Latin American countries, and the United States and a professional staff of more than 10,000 consultants.

everis began operations in Madrid in 1996, a handful of consultants with a single project. Over sixteen years, everis has seen continuous and tremendous growth, topping double digit CAGR every year over the last ten but one. In 2011, everis invoiced 565 M€, representing 12% growth over the previous year.

Founded with the values of entrepreneurship, commitment and a positive attitude, everis remains convinced that these values have been central to its success. For this reason, everis continues to invest in talent, innovation and excellence.

everis delivers complex, business critical, end to end projects, from business strategy through to operations. We offer a full-range of flexible and proactive services organized around business and process consulting and service delivery. Our Outsourcing services are organized end to end to offer capabilities across the entire sourcing lifecycle.

How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

everis differentiates itself in three key areas: global integrated sourcing, a significant market position in Latin America, and our unique corporate model.

everis takes a globally integrated view of services. On-site, near-shore, off-shore, the everis approach is to understand the benefits, and risks, of each and to integrate the three into one seamless model that maximizes the benefits and, crucially, minimizes the risks for our clients. We can do this because our consultancy offices and delivery centers worldwide all share the same corporate culture, and deploy the same methodologies and tools.

everis has been established in Latin America since 1998. We currently have more than 3500 professionals located in the region. Our business relationships there offer unparalleled access for prospective clients in North America and Europe. Our local centers offer significant delivery power within the region, directed at clients locally within Latin America and directed outward to businesses in both the USA and Western Europe.

Since its inception, everis has consciously focused on maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit under which it was founded. Its flat organization which empowers leaders closest to its clients, and its recognized focus on acquiring and developing talent enables everis to deliver excellence and flexibility to its clients.

In your opinion, what are the top three outsourcing hot topics / trends at this moment?

Sourcing models and strategies will continue to diversify, providing organizations with a continuum of options. Sourcing strategies will vary from internally shared to fully outsourced services, using either single or multiple vendor approaches. Sourcing models will also diversify as businesses adopt off-shore, near-shore, or on-shore strategies, and often all three at once, depending on business needs and objectives.

Closely related to this tendency, organizations will seek providers that can help them to manage this complexity. Integrated, disciplined service management will be a key to strategically aligning all pieces of a complex sourcing model and driving true business benefits across the enterprise. As businesses adopt the cloud, the need for strategic oversight of a firm’s IT sourcing and solutions will grow.

Finally, whether investment in IT increases or remains static at current levels, businesses will look to significantly cut their spending in system maintenance. In many industries, technology portfolios are overly complex, a symptom of age and years of deferred investment decisions. This complexity drives the high maintenance costs that tax already strained IT budgets. Portfolio rationalization and tool based optimization initiatives will drive the significant cost savings in maintenance that usually can not be delivered by traditional productivity efforts.

Can you give some examples of best practice at everis?

In outsourcing, everis understands the importance of a well-run service transition. It has adopted a methodology to ensure the quality of transitions, and to anticipate and prevent problems in the delivery of service. The certification of a transition is based on a readiness assessment of architecture, software, documentation, hardware and a backlog analysis. Particular focus is given to a well prepared handover of delivery responsibility; it is at this point that continuous service improvement must begin so everis uses its certification process to ensure that its service teams are ready.

everis has experienced remarkable growth throughout its seventeen year history, even in years when the market has recessed. This is, in part, due to our best practice focus on client relationships. In recent years, everis has performed better than the overall European Outsourcing Market in client satisfaction surveys, especially in the areas of strategic and operational relationships and in flexibility.

In addition, everis has shown an elevated client retention index. everis attributes this success to its organization; we believe that an outsourcing organizational model that focuses on developing talent, facilitating collaboration and rewarding flexibility should be considered a best practice within relationship management.

What does the future hold for everis?

everis pursues a growth strategy built upon three pillars:

New Geographies: The USA and the UK represent the first and third largest IT Services markets in the world. Within those markets, Finance and Telecommunications, both sectors of strength for everis, are ranked first and second in terms of sector CAGR. everis is using its globally integrated sourcing value proposition to develop business within these markets.

New Initiatives: At everis, we pay close attention to market trends in which to invest and launch new businesses that expand the everis brand. We are taking to market new service products in traditional sectors such as healthcare and tourism, and in emerging sectors such as environmental solutions. In addition, we are packaging rational strategies in cloud and mobile technologies for mid-market clients.

Global focus and leadership in our current markets: In addition to the new markets, everis is also raising the bar on its own performance within its current markets. Exceptional growth rate and high client retention speak to the best practices that we currently deliver. Nonetheless, everis wants to achieve ‘top of mind’ recognition for innovation, quality, productivity, and talent. To do this, everis has launched initiatives to strengthen process, measure and better integrate our services.

As a software analysis company, the Dutch Software Improvement Group (SIG) specialises in assessing the quality of software. But whilst its software analysis technology can offer up a detailed quality assessment of a program’s source code, the effectiveness of the teams that produce such code is not so easily measurable.

And when work is outsourced, the picture is even more complex. In search of answers, SIG recently held an intriguing round-table in London to discuss the question, “What makes a successful software development team?”

The session featured SIG’s own Head of Research, Joost Visser and Business Development Manager Michiel Cuijpers alongside Kevan Hall, CEO of training consultancy Global Integration (experts in team work) and Andrew de la Haye of RIPE NCC, the European, Regional Internet Registry whose software has earned a five star quality classification.

Commitment

Whilst the table found a degree of common ground on issues such as team-size, the value of tight teamwork, short development iterations and employee empowerment, one issue seemed particularly contentious: whether outsourcing has a place in a successful software development team.

Andrew de la Haye was sceptical. “I used to sell a lot outsourcing, but I haven’t seen it really working (teamwise).”

Earlier in the discussion, he had noted how employees are periodically given two weeks out of their projects, to learn about anything that interests them, and to later report back their findings to the team. “Hopefully it’s innovative and hopefully people learn from it” said Mr de la Haye. For him, the primary benefit is increased employee happiness and thus, commitment.

Concerns about commitment are a common issue for businesses looking into outsourcing. However, software development at RIPE NCC and other organizations often follow a programme of Agile software development, wherein teams have to be highly adaptive and willing to reiterate recently completed work. Coupled with an intensive approach to employee loyalty, Mr de la Haye is especially wary of introducing outside help into his development process: “You hope that they are committed to the organisation they’re working for, but they’re certainly not committed to you.”

Management

Kevan Hall was keen to defend outsourced work, however. “Remote teams can work well. Working at distance isn’t really the problem: it’s bad management that’s at fault.” He elaborated on this by noting problems in “the balance of trust and control.” In his eyes, the lack of trust that some managers have for outsource teams makes them quick to impose needlessly restrictive controls.

“And so we go out to India and we have these incredibly heavy processes which we [...] make sure they follow without any sense of initiative or change, and then we start complaining that the Indians don’t have any initiative and don’t innovate”.

One of Global Integration’s specialist areas is Cross Cultural Training . They’re acutely aware of the issues that do exist when working across time-zones, distance and less tangible boundaries. According to Mr Hall, one of the simplest oversights on outsourced projects is the lack of a travel budget. He observed that it’s unsurprising that developers fail to establish a working relationship with their outsource teams when they “don’t even go and meet the people who are doing a service for them”.

Conclusion

Perhaps there’s no arguing with results: RIPE NCC’s 5-star software speaks for the value of bringing development into tight-knit, single building teams. However, Global Integration’s experiences with managing outsourcing teams seem to suggest that outsourcing can certainly have a role to play in software development. The conclusion is quite simply that there is more than one way to build a successful development team, but that the difference between these structures is quite significant.

Perhaps this is best illustrated by Mr Hall’s opinion on teamwork: “It may be shocking, but I actually spend quite a bit of my time trying to discourage teamwork”. He continues; “If we have the mentality that everything we do is as a team, then we can’t make a decision until the next meeting”. And whilst there are undoubtedly legitimate worries about the outsourcing, it could actually be argued that a finer balance of trust and control could lead to more innovative products in those companies that use it.