Industry news

Chris Chant, Executive Director in the Cabinet Office working as Programme Director for the G-Cloud has encouraged SMES to respond to the G-Cloud Tender

Chris said: "We have made the G-Cloud procurement a lot easier to understand and get through. G-Cloud has no massively complex set of requirements that you need a PhD to understand. Just use the

forms to tell us what services you have – all the documentation is online and we’ve written a simple guide if you have never worked with us before. In fact if you haven’t we really want you to apply.

"We can do more and we will do more. The GDS Innovation team is opening up new channels for suppliers to work with us, especially on small projects. We can and will make procurement even simpler for everyone. So, if you are an SME, any supplier that’s never worked with government, or an existing supplier that “gets” cloud – you are the type of people we need to work with the deliver the savings all of us need. Come on, talk to us."

Global airline British Airways aims to further reduce its digital printing, scanning and mailing costs by using Xerox U.K. to manage its mailroom and reprographics operations.

As part of the five-year Enterprise Print Services contract, Xerox will simplify the airline’s mail-handling operation by managing the delivery of thousands of pieces of internal and external mail and speeding up the production of critical in-flight printed materials. The Managed Print Services strategy is part of a wider British Airways document management plan to improve process efficiency.

“British Airways has a culture of consistently improving customer service, and we expect our providers to support us in keeping this level of commitment,” said Mark McCarthy, procurement executive at British Airways. “Xerox is more than a supplier – they have been a trusted partner for 16 years. With Xerox focused on printing and streamlining our document processes, we can use our energy and time to focus on bringing British Airways customers the best service in the sky.”

Capgemini, one of the global leaders in consulting, IT services and outsourcing, has announced the acquisition of the Order to Cash (OTC) business from US-based Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc. (and certain of its affiliates), a leader in the accounts receivable collections market worldwide.

This niche acquisition is in line with Capgemini’s strategy to complement its footprint with selected expertise.

Run under the brand ‘VWA’, the Order to Cash business delivers consistent financial performance in terms of both growth and profitability, and will be accretive to the BPO and Group margin. The acquisition – which fits in with Capgemini’s profitable growth strategy – will enable Capgemini to build on its Finance and Accounting BPO services through enhanced offerings in the Order to Cash (OTC) market worldwide. Capgemini gains onshore OTC capabilities, mainly in the United States, as well as process expertise.

arvato UK & Ireland’s partnership with Chesterfield Borough Council (CBC) has been recognised as the Public Sector Outsourcing Project of the Year at the 2011 National Outsourcing Association Awards.

The ten year partnership was commended for delivering outstanding results in the first twelve months of operation, including improving collection rates, modernising HR, payroll and ICT practices, and increasing the speed of resolving customer enquiries.

arvato’s partnership with CBC covers a wide range of services including ICT, customer services, human resources, revenues, benefits, payroll, accounts payable and invoice processing, as well as engineering and facilities maintenance and asset management through Kier. arvato aims to deliver more than £4 million in cost savings over the course of the agreement and invest £1.7 million to further develop technology and infrastructure for the authority.

"Our partnership with arvato is already benefitting our employees and citizens across Chesterfield, and we’re delighted that this has been highlighted as best practice by the National Outsourcing Association," said Cllr John Burrows, Leader, Chesterfield Borough Council. “We’re looking forward to continuing to develop best practice together with arvato, and our joint future success.”

“We were up against some tough competition in this category, so we’re particularly proud that arvato’s approach to public-private partnerships has been recognised on a national level,” said Rainer Majcen, Managing Director, Public Sector, arvato UK & Ireland. “This award is a real testament to our concept of a collaborative and flexible approach to client relationships, and our commitment to deliver results.”

As well as winning the top public sector award at the ceremony at the Park Plaza Riverbank in London (10th November 2011), arvato’s partnership with Microsoft was a finalist in the BPO Contract of the Year category, and arvato was shortlisted for Outsourcing Contact Centre Provider of the Year and Outsourcing Provider of the Year category.

arvato was also confirmed as a finalist at the National Business Awards earlier this week in the Business Enabler of the Year category.

The offshoring boom of the late nineties and its subsequent evolution has been instrumental in empowering global IT firms to expand with incredible speed. It has been responsible for the rapid economic growth of entire countries. It has seen millions employed and millions made unemployed, boosting economies to the point that they are no longer profitable as offshoring locations.

Two decades ago, offshoring was garnering a great deal of interest, concern and speculation. Promises of significant cost savings, agility, scalability and flexibility were being explored with cautious optimism, while questions over security, data protection and business continuity were raised by both press and potential customers, fearing a lack of control. Above all, fear over job security and replacement by counterparts overseas working at a fraction of the wage rocked the previously home-grown workforces of the major IT players.

Fact, fiction and false starts

Now there’s a new delivery model changing much about how IT is done – cloud. Its similarities with offshoring are significant – all of the above hopes and fears can and have been expressed in regard to how cloud will change the IT industry. What then – after all that has happened with offshoring – can CIOs learn to ensure that the same mistakes and failures are not replicated? Is it possible to predict the evolution of cloud services based on that of offshoring?

In spite of several set-backs with offshore in which clients have decided to move work back in-house or on-site, the overall trend with offshore remains on the rise. This is because IT vendors are addressing the blockers and clients are getting smarter in when they use offshore. This education has not come quickly – the offshore model took nearly fifteen years to hit the mainstream. Cloud is going through a phase of correction as it settles down into a mature model. However, given the fact that innovation cycles are rapidly compressing, cloud services could mature within five years - it is therefore imperative that potential issues are identified and resolved sooner rather than later.

As there was with offshore, there is already a lot of myth and noise surrounding cloud. These rumours will need to be segregated from genuine concerns and clients provided with the awareness to help them make the right decisions. This will require a level of investment from the IT vendors and will require cloud site visits and workshops to reassure potential clients that lessons have been learned. One such lesson learnt during the offshore evolution is the importance of setting the right expectations. Promising too much in the way of cost savings without taking into account overheads and other constraints will result in businesses being disappointed.

Offshore is a niche delivery model and requires experience and expertise to sell and deliver. Cloud will need a similar approach and set-up to be successful. Both the IT vendors and their clients will need to invest in building such teams alongside mature models for assessing what can and cannot go into cloud. This is what offshore pure-plays had to do to be able to convince their clientele that it was worth considering.

Developing the support structure

As IT vendors facilitated the acceptance of offshore, so they will play their part in cloud. This will involve building infrastructure and developing standards and tools that will support growth of cloud services in the marketplace. Cloud-related processes, skills and risk mitigation will evolve with time and help in the process of general business acceptance.

Similarly, businesses will need to change and adapt to the new world of cloud in the same way that they did with offshoring. Changing employee roles, introducing new areas of management and up- and cross-skilling of staff, will all play their part in the journey towards Cloud acceptance.

No one size fits all

The fact that not all activities are conducive to offshore applies to cloud as well. Clients should be under no illusion that everything can go into the cloud - a balanced hybrid model will always be necessary in the real world. It is therefore important to be able to deal with integration and migration issues between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ worlds. Whether or not a company decides to go with the cloud, offshore outsourcing or a hybrid of the two will depend completely on specific needs and the tasks at hand.

Finally, it is worth noting that the offshore IT industry is now a $100 billion industry and it is still growing. We predict that cloud services will go the same way but probably in half the time. For CIOs, the current economic climate will only hasten any decision towards cloud. As they did with offshoring, organisations will eventually lower their barriers and work around the areas of resistance to reap the benefits of a new delivery model.

The way in which the charity sector delivers its services needs to change in order to reflect shifting consumer habits and the way in which the public wants to access support and information.

At the same time as the media habits and access preferences of service users are changing, so the perspectives and priorities of commissioners and funders have also shifted significantly. Many charities face the challenge of sudden and often drastic cuts to funding, while having to provide services to, in many cases, more people than before.

And these evolving trends provide a unique opportunity for the outsourcing sector to provide added value, both to charities and the public whom they serve. Research recently undertaken by ICM on behalf of my organisation Connect Assist shows that previously held concerns regarding loss of personal interaction attributed to outsourcing are largely misguided, because consumer priorities have altered in favour of speed and ease of access.

Some of the main deterrents for charities outsourcing their services in the past have fears relating to the loss of personal interaction, expertise and the integrity of the organisation. Yet our research shows that the public consider speed and availability to be the most important priorities when contacting a charity (58% of those surveyed) compared with only 17% who felt that personal interaction was crucial. The overarching priority for respondents was that they received sympathetic advice from an expert source.

Broader social trends were also reflected in the findings. A quarter of those surveyed said that they wanted to access support and advice through Social Media such as Twitter and Facebook. Perhaps unsurprisingly this figure rises to 58% amongst the 18-24 year old demographic and 45% amongst the 25-34 year old group.

And herein lies the opportunity for charities to access the expertise already held within the outsourcing sector; with its strong track record of service delivery through traditional call centres and more recently multi-channel contact centres.

While online fundraising has become relatively mainstream, far fewer charities are delivering life-changing services to the people, families and communities they work for via a digital platform. Yet the digital medium offers immensely rich potential for service delivery, from providing information, advice and assessments to sustaining relationships with service users.

Most consumers are now familiar with accessing services online, whether from a PC, phone, tablet, kiosk or TV. A host of data illustrates the extraordinarily pervasive adoption of digital channels and an exploding preference for digital access, for example: 58% of the UK population now shop online, while charitable donations made online or via mobile phones have grown from 8% in 2004 to 18% in 2010.

Within the digital space, new applications of mobile technology are showing the fastest growth. Five billion applications were downloaded to mobile phones in 2010, compared with 300 million the previous year, and a large proportion of them are associated with social media. Indeed, by some accounting, social media is the predominant activity on the Web. In the UK, where mobile phone penetration is over 100%, half of the mobile Internet traffic is for Facebook.

As in any organisation, digital service delivery is a part of the mix of overall charity service delivery. In the same way that you can choose to walk into a bank, call them, write to them or interact online, charities still need to keep their services available across as many channels as possible. But the advent of digital services allows users to receive the same high-quality experience whether they engage online or offline, as well as enjoying the ability to switch from one channel to another at will.

At a time where undoubtedly more people will need the services of charities right across the UK, it is now urgent that charities meet the challenges that these survey results highlight. The outsourcing sector has the expertise and ability to enable charities of all sizes to embrace the digital revolution and expand the range of channels they use to provide services. Not only will this result in their ability to support more people in need, for many it will also result in a reduction in costs – surely a ‘win win’ situation for everyone?

Outsourcing. A route to retail growth.

At the moment, cost is a key driver in outsourcing, and, as such, clients consistently trying to cut their costs or losses, means innovation is one of the first elements to be cut by suppliers. Innovation is labour intensive, and therefore, can be expensive.

But, if we are to achieve better growth in 2012 and beyond, companies must not only outsource to cut costs, but make money too. Grabbing some market share is a good as cutting costs; combine the two, you’ve got growth on your hands. It’s an old adage that marketing budgets shouldn’t be cut in periods of recession – not that we’re in a recession. I don’t want to contribute to talking us into a double dip – and, in a way, outsourcing is a marketing strategy when it affects your customers’ experience of your brand.

We are seeing huge growth in the retail sector - EMEA retail outsourcing has risen 600% on last quarter, and 75% year-on-year. (see: TPI EMEA Index 3Q11). Major retail players are looking to streamline their processes, seeking competitive advantage by adopting hi-tech IT solutions and infrastructure upgrades. They are turning to outsourcing providers as a low- risk route to superior technology. Tesco, Argos, Homebase and Poundland all recently made major investments in outsourced technology solutions. This will help them run retail and warehouse operations to maximum efficiency, and improve customer experience. In today’s retail environment, outsourcing is becoming essential. Take up is skyrocketing due to cost-saving drives, and also, as seen in the cases of Argos and Homebase, as a way of delivering targeted marketing campaigns to boost sales. M-commerce or, employing mobile phone technology as channel to sell your wares, will become more and more prominent as the human race evolves to be evermore addicted to smartphones.

So, if you want to grow, and help the economy grow, look to innovate. And to keep the risks minimal? Outsource, of course.

Cisco Connected Stadium Wi-Fi solution, Real Madrid C.F. is poised to make the Santiago Bernabéu one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the world.

Once the new high density Wi-Fi network is deployed, fans will be able to easily utilise their mobile devices and smart phones to quickly and reliably access several applications specifically designed to engage with the Stadium, as well as accessing Internet and social media during the game. Encouraging fans to use the Connected Stadium Wi-Fi network for Internet connectivity will also help to free up cellular networks, allowing spectators to text and call throughout the games, something that can be challenging nowadays.

Google has offered businesses the chance to use its servers to crunch huge amounts of their raw information.

The firm's BigQuery service is designed to help organisations identify and analyse trends from their datasets. Google said small businesses struggled to access such tools in the past.

Esure, a leading provider of insurance in the UK, has chosen dynaTrace as its platform for application performance management. Selling car, home and travel insurance on the phone and over the internet, esure will use dynaTrace to gain visibility across its online applications and inside its systems to ensure optimal business and technical performance of critical IT services.

esure’s business infrastructure relies on specialised Java applications, and operates in a sophisticated environment. Using dynaTrace PurePath Technology®, esure will benefit from a continuous, end-toend view of all processed transactions from the web servers through the company’s application and web tiers back to the database.

Dashboards that show data as it is collected in real-time will allow for smart prioritisation of actions and give a business-savvy perspective on application performance.