Industry news

ICICI Prudential, a leading insurance company, is automating IT and business processes with BMC Software’s Control-M Workload Automation solution.

BMC is expanding its footprint in the Indian insurance sector, and its new relationship with ICICI Prudential Life is an example of how companies in the region are deriving benefits from BMC solutions, which help reduce costs and optimize availability – ultimately enabling clients to efficiently deliver their business services.

BT today announced the signature with the European Parliament of two framework contracts, together worth up to 120 million euros.

The five year contracts cover a wide range of networked IT services, including the supply of network equipment and applications as well as all associated professional services for the European Parliament's telecommunications infrastructure and systems. Service delivery will take place at the European Parliament’s three main sites in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.

A representative for the European Parliament said: “BT put together a competitive and strong offering which really stood out. Their highly-skilled integration experts and a vendor agnostic approach should enable us to implement all communication infrastructures and services according to our Call for Tender specifications. This makes me confident that we have chosen the right partner, who will help our organisation to become more efficient and reduce costs.”

Samsung Electronics has filed new claims in its patent war with Apple Inc over alleged patent infringements in Germany.

The tech giant added four patents to its ongoing infringement case related to the telecommunications standard technology WCDMA for 3G mobile handsets, which was filed in April, the spokesman said.

The four new complaints, including use of emoticons, come as the worldwide patent battle between Apple and smartphone rival Samsung continues to escalate.

An innovative public-private partnership is set to improve transactional services for Slough Borough Council, delivering £26.5m savings over the next ten years and bringing new business into the town.

The partnership with global business process outsourcing group arvato will see £3.8m being invested into transforming services such as revenues and benefits, payroll, finance services, HR and logistics services. The partnership will go live on 2nd April 2012.

Under the agreement, staff from four service areas within Slough Borough Council will transfer to arvato on their current terms. The services will be delivered through the creation of the Thames Valley Transactional Service Centre – a shared service hub, which will not only support the council’s services, but will also offer transactional solutions to a wider range of private and public sector organisations, creating employment opportunities for Slough.

IBM has announced an agreement to acquire Emptoris for an undisclosed amount.

Emptoris makes software that works to add intelligence to procurement and supply-chain operations with spend, supplier and contract management. The acquisition is the latest addition to IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative the company launched earlier this year. The initiative aims to help companies respond to shifting customer buying patterns.

"Procurement officers need to manage the full engagement, integrating suppliers with key internal systems, and have the capability and visibility to manage compliance and mitigate supply risk," said Patrick Quirk, CEO of Emptoris. "That is the value we bring to the procurement organization."

Camwood Limited, the UK-based specialists in application logistics, has announced the award of a three-year managed service contract from BAE Systems, to provide managed application certification services across the company’s UK desktop environment. The new contract builds on work done by Camwood over the past year where it provided expertise to BAE Systems and its partners in deploying applications to support the development of a ‘software as a service’ initiative.

Virtualising applications is seen by BAE Systems as a major step towards delivering more efficient IT services. Instead of applications being hosted on each of 37,500+ individual desktops across the UK organisation, they will be stored centrally and as many as possible delivered using Microsoft’s App-V technology.

Allan Leggetter, Director of Enterprise IT Services for BAE Systems: “We recognise that undertaking a “software as a service” transformation will enable the business to be more agile in the deployment and management of applications across the enterprise. Camwood, as a recognised provider of expert services in this field, has been pivotal in progressing this initiative and is crucial to its on-going success.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) awarded CSC a task order to continue to operate and maintain USCIS’ Verification Information System (VIS).

The task order, which was awarded during CSC’s fiscal 2012 second quarter, has a one-year base period, a one-year option and two six-month options, bringing the estimated total three-year value to $67 million. This task order was awarded under the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions (EAGLE) contract that CSC won in 2006.

“For nearly 10 years, CSC has applied the right mix of proven experience, technology expertise and thought leadership to help USCIS attain a highly secure and efficient user experience for its programs,” said Mike Gaffney, president of CSC’s North American Public Sector Civil Group. “Our large-scale civilian identification and entitlement management programs leverage subject matter knowledge and industry best practices gained from numerous engagements with U.S. and international clients.”

Rochdale council is revoking its 15-year outsourcing deal with Mouchel after only five years.

The consultant confirmed in a city trading statement today that: “We are in discussions with Rochdale Council to mutually agree an amicable exit from our Partnership.

“If achieved, the order book will decrease by circa £130M, with negligible impact to operating profit and cash.”

Mouchel is lead partner in the Impact Partnership which signed a 15-year deal in 2006 to take over services including highways and property maintenance across Rochdale.

CEO, Mark Lyttle, explains how a combined onshore/offshore approach is helping to keep standards high and costs down at his specialist service management and IT operations organisation, Fusion Business Solutions.

With cost optimisation at the top of the current agenda and organisations demanding ever-more competitive rates from service providers, utilising offshore resource can provide a highly effective means of cutting operational overheads.

At our own service management and IT operations firm, establishing a new overseas base has helped achieve valuable savings that we have been able to pass on to our customers, allowing us to offer even more competitive prices. Crucially, it has also given us access to highly-skilled and enthusiastic new staff.

Offshoring is not without risks, and a purely offshore model can fail when all operations are taken overseas or lack of communication results in services not meeting client expectations. To prevent this, we believe that it is crucial to establish good communication channels at the outset and we work very closely with the offshore team to build a lot of understanding and make sure the work is delivered effectively.

Our model sees the onshore and offshore teams receiving the same level of training and also using the same systems and reporting methods. Although we are one of the few firms in our specialist area to adopt this blended approach, we have been transparent about the fact that we are doing it and it has not affected the quality of service we offer our clients in any way.

In our case, all the initial consultation and workshops are still conducted by the onshore team and clients always have access to dedicated UK-based project manager. Rather than being conducted remotely by the onshore team, however, some of the subsequent non-customer facing work such as analysis, configuration or software testing and installation is now passed to the offshore team.

The work done by our Bulgarian operation, for example, is incorporated in our service desk operation as well as some of our off-site technical consulting work, which is also carried out by remote workers. In the next year, we plan to apply the same onshore/offshore approach to expanding our operations to include India, as well as Bulgaria.

In reality, it makes little difference to the customer where the technical team are dialling in from, but it does enable us to reflect the savings we make in the prices we offer our customers. The bottom line is that, in these tough times of fiscal uncertainty, this creative onshore/offshore approach is undoubtedly helping our business to deliver the same demonstrable improvement in IT operations for our clients - whilst also remaining competitive.

Members of Unite, employed by IT services company Steria UK Ltd working on a Capita account, will take industrial action today in protest against the company's refusal to offer a pay rise for 2010 (payable from April 2011).

Unite members, who are system developers and analysts, voted an overwhelming 82 per cent in favour of strike action. Industrial action will take place at various Steria sites in Bristol, Coventry and High Wycombe (see notes) and staff will take part in the 24 hour strike from midnight tonight.

Unite regional officer, Jerry Pickford, said: “This is the first time that this group of workers have ever taken these steps as they feel that they have no option other than to withdraw their labour in protest at the refusal of Steria to make any kind off pay offer whatsoever."

"Steria has carried out a comprehensive pay review awarding pay rises to our lower paid employees this year. We cannot add any further costs to our pay bill," reads Steria's statement.

"At this time of increasing economic uncertainty our priority is to protect the job security of our employees. Steria does not believe encouraging individuals to take strike action, where they will lose pay, is in anybody's interest."