Industry news

Sunderland City Council and IBM has announced that they will provide a city-wide Cloud computing platform that will not only meet the Council's own needs, but that will stimulate economic growth for the benefit of the whole city by reducing the technological investment barriers experienced by start-ups and local companies wishing to expand operations..

Sunderland's Cloud is expected to reduce its own operational costs by £1.4m annually over the next five years, in the delivery of IT services through a reduction in hardware, software, maintenance and improved IT management. The Cloud will also provide a low cost, accessible and secure platform for use across Sunderland.

IBM will provide the planning, design, provision and implementation of the Cloud for server and end-user computing. The Cloud has been designed to incorporate existing hardware and software in order to be as cost-effective as possible, whilst at the same time providing the council's requirements in terms of: facilitating an agile workforce, improving the experience of 4,000 end-users, simplifying systems management and reducing carbon emissions.

Councillor Paul Watson, Leader of Sunderland City Council, said: “'The Cloud is a cornerstone of our Economic Masterplan. The new Cloud infrastructure will lay the foundations of an even Smarter Sunderland, one that ensures the city is internationally recognised as a model for its operations and a prime location for inward investment.”

The Prime Minister has used a key address to highlight a major new digital innovation project based at Greenwich Council’s Digital Enterprise Greenwich.

The council-run centre is playing host to a first UK ‘hub’ of Cisco Systems new “National Virtual Incubator” aimed at driving innovation and helping new businesses flourish.

It means Cisco – one of the world’s leading technology firms - is heavily investing in technology and IT at a number of ‘hubs’ or ‘nodes’ to make it easier for start-up businesses to communicate electronically and share data with each other.

Cisco officially launched the NVI this week along with Greenwich Council and other founding partners Ravensbourne, JANET (UK) and Birmingham Science Park Aston, home to the other first ‘hub’ alongside Digital Enterprise Greenwich.

In economic uncertainty, organisations do everything in their power to keep hold of their top talent. With that said, it is still important to ensure that the needs of the wider workforce, which may contain the top talent of tomorrow, are engaged.

A skilled and involved workforce is a critical differentiator for organisations in today's challenging business environment and requires a strong level of commitment from an organisation. Learning & Development (L&D) supports employee engagement by nurturing talent and assisting employees to develop. Outsourcing an organisation’s L&D needs can be a great way to continue that investment and also experience strategic benefits such as economies of scale around brokerage and supplier purchasing power.

Often there is a misconception that SMB’s L&D budgets are too small to take advantage of these benefits; however, this is not the case. We recently conducted a study at the World of Learning conferece and exhibition which found that medium-sized businesses are leading the way in providing a proactive L&D strategy; it is actually the larger enterprises that are lagging behind. They are missing a trick by not having a measurement strategy in place for L&D interventions. In a time of economic pressure it’s more important than ever to be able to demonstrate a return on your investment (ROI).

A well-planned and well-executed L&D programme can go a long way towards organisations improving their overall productivity, competitiveness and ultimately their profitability. Training can often be regarded by organisations as little more than a ‘nice to have’, a programme that has immediate impact on the performance of employees but not an immediate impact on the bottom line. On the opposite side of the coin, many businesses see L&D as a strategic investment and outsource L&D because external providers can often deliver more expert and varied training than can be offered in-house. There are many good reasons for an organisation to outsource their L&D needs and it is not just about making efficiency savings, the majority of companies who outsource do so because they feel they can ‘buy in’ better training expertise from outside the organisation.

Indeed, buying in better skills seems likely to increase in 2012. Our study showed that around 36% of small businesses forecast an increase in spending on outsourcing of L&D, citing changes in budgets or the business structure for their change in strategy. At the enterprise level, 8% expected an increase in L&D outsourcing as opposed to the 25% of respondents who intend to reduce spending in this area, all of whom said that budget changes were the major reason for their decision. For mid-sized businesses the picture was more balanced, with equal proportions expecting increases or decreases.

Large enterprises may need to rethink their strategy when it comes to their training. In an unpredictable economic climate, those organisations who do outsource their L&D activities are taking advantage of a whole host of benefits. This will fast become the preferred approach by organisations looking to focus on their core competencies as well as reduce risk, decrease costs and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of all training activities.

Many companies focus of course on price when measuring training spend, but they often fail to recognise that the majority of their training cost is swallowed up by the management, co-ordination and administration involved in delivering L&D activities which is where outsourcing training becomes important and cost effective. Learning Management Systems are one of many examples of ancillary costs that often have a negative impact on training budgets and training schedules. Inefficient training and management processes are a sure-fire recipe for wasting money. Outsourcing L&D not only secures a more engaged workforce, it takes the administration costs out of internal HR procedures and demonstrates a beneficial ROI to the business as a whole.

Outsourcing business IT operations to the cloud is a hot topic for companies at present. Many voices are extolling its virtues, with key benefits from cost reduction and increased business flexibility highlighted alongside the improved technological reliability associated with virtualised environments.

Michel Robert, managing director, Claranet, states: “There is also, however, a current of concern coursing through IT departments, as questions are raised about the service levels, security and increased reliance on networks that an outsourced IT infrastructure will necessitate. So what practical steps should you take if you are considering outsourcing parts of your IT infrastructure from in-house physical servers to a remote, cloud environment? There are five key steps that a business should consider when putting together a business plan for moving to an outsourced cloud.”

Step 1: Discover what your IT infrastructure consists of, and what it’s doing:

Michel continued: “The first step in determining if outsourcing your IT infrastructure is right for your business is to conduct a thorough assessment of your existing infrastructure and applications. As with all stages of this five-step process, this procedure is most effective when conducted with the help of a qualified service provider. It is crucial that they have proven expertise in identifying what IT components and functions are suited to cloud provision and which are not, and that they can execute a successful migration strategy.”

The fact is that some applications - such as network file sharing and phone switches - are not always ideally suited to a cloud or virtualised environment because they require either very high bandwidth or very low latency, or both. Compliance issues can also complicate, or negate the possibility, of moving some parts of a business’s IT infrastructure to an outsourced cloud environment. For example, the customer database of a financial institution, or an online retailer’s credit card transaction processing, are subject to regulations from the FSA and the credit card industry’s PCI-DSS rules, and as such the method of outsourcing these types of applications or functions needs careful consideration.

Step 2: Weigh up current costs vs. future benefits

“The next step is to compare the current state of your IT resources with what you would need to support the business’s plans, reduce maintenance costs, improve business process efficiency, and so on. We’ve found that, in almost all cases of outsourcing to the cloud, businesses that reduce their IT estate and centralise servers in a third-party data centre still have ample processing power and storage to realise these kinds of ambitions,” continued Michel.

“You then need to determine what your current spend on IT is. This is essential to building a business case for outsourcing your migration to the cloud. Unfortunately this is not always a straightforward process; it requires a comprehensive picture of your IT infrastructure, which takes into account costs for managing the entire IT estate. This should include costs for power consumption by servers, time spent on maintenance, hardware upkeep and refreshes, hardware disposal in accordance with WEEE and multiple data protection regulations, plus the additional expenditure of licensing operating systems,” he added.

It often takes people by surprise when they learn that the total power cost for fifteen servers, for example, can be around £6,000-£7,000 per year - largely because this spend is usually hidden in the facilities budget. This means that your project team will need to work closely with finance and facilities, as well as other areas of the business, to get an accurate picture of current costs.

Step 3: Look beyond the numbers

“It’s important to note here that the benefits of cloud are not limited to cost reduction alone. There may also be an opportunity to improve your business’s continuity strategy and disaster recovery plan. For instance, an added benefit of a managed cloud environment is that it can also make your IT services remotely accessible. Additionally, internal servers may not be housed in areas with appropriate cooling and power redundancy. Such qualitative benefits should also be considered in the project’s business case for migration.”

Step 4: Optimise your network for cloud

Michel added: “It goes without saying that without a network there is no cloud service, and yet the network is often an afterthought in outsourcing projects. If the network isn’t optimised for cloud services, then application performance will be marred and in some cases organisations may have to contend with disruptive downtime,”

“In general, network optimisation and moving to the cloud will almost always involve increasing bandwidth and introducing Quality of Service, which will necessitate an increase in a business’s spend on connectivity. This usually isn’t a deal-breaker thanks to huge reductions in the price of connectivity and improvement to service quality. Overall, the importance of the network to the outsourced cloud means that a cloud service provider with equal expertise in networking can help keep costs down and can offer added value to a project.

Step 5: Know your provider

If after consideration of the above steps you are committed to outsourcing to a cloud service, you must choose your provider carefully.

“There are several methods of identifying the right partner. Firstly, check out their references: what calibre of clients do they service, and have these cloud deployments proved successful? Speak to their references and find out first-hand if the vendor is living up to its promises,”

“Secondly, check the certifications: Microsoft Partner – Gold Hosting and a VM Enterprise or Premier Status are key; these are the highest industry accolades and are indicative of theknowledge, skills and commitment levels a vendor offers to help you implement technology solutions. It is also advisable to go in and see the vendor’s data centre in action. Not only will this enable you to assess the professionalism and security of the environment, but crucially it gives you a chance to talk to the engineers who would be running your platform, and establish whether you can foster a trusting relationship with the vendor who can, if suitable, assist your business’s move to the cloud,” continued Michel.

Lastly, pay special attention to the provider’s service level agreement(s) (SLA). It should guarantee things that are meaningful to overall business objectives, not just technical requirements. The cloud has huge potential, but there are varying levels of service. Outsourcing to a managed cloud isn’t a panacea for all IT ills; it is simply a means to help businesses get more of what they need from their IT function.

“Ultimately, by selecting an experienced vendor able to manage your IT infrastructure effectively, you will be able to focus clearly on your business whilst the service provider manages, supports and monitors your virtualised infrastructure to ensure system availability and efficiency. And, as stated, a cloud provider that has networking expertise as well, will help to ensure the network element of the cloud service is optimised,” concluded Michel.

An insight into history of loyalty

In the early eighties, loyalty programmes underwent a gradual metamorphosis to emerge in its more sophisticated form. Compared to its pre-historic coupon & cut-out avatars, the new models perhaps presented possibilities like never before. Adoption of these programmes by large airlines like American Airlines gave them legitimacy and made them practically fashionable. There is no denying that the ‘novelty’ of accumulating and redeeming points might have given a momentum to its journey.

Even during its teething period, loyalty programmes had to be a deliberate, objective-driven initiative that ensured adequate ROI to the company. The investments weren’t low and thus organisations that could afford and leverage the scope that a loyalty program presented were few. Perhaps it was this scarcity that made such programs novel and attractive. There seems to have been a paradigm shift in this very characteristic with the effects of globalisation slowly creeping-in with resultant hyper-competition shaking even established organisations by their roots.

Though the pickings were lucrative, there were too many pluckers for the swelling customer base. One of the easiest ways for aggressive new comers in the business world to advance their revenues was to poach customers from dominant, more established players. In their desperate efforts to retain their ‘valuable’ customers, organisations found refuge in loyalty programmes. Contemporary times are marked by ubiquity of loyalty programmes - they are almost everywhere. Most customers are members of many loyalty programmes thereby resulting in a paradox.

A shift in Loyalty

The worldwide glut of loyalty programmes has thrown a challenge to loyalty marketers. They have the tough task of reinvigorating the market with new strategies & tactics backed by imagination, innovation, data & of course advancing technology. Be it smart cards, RFID technology, real time point-of-sale (POS) terminals, wireless, the worldwide web or new generation of loyalty ‘rules engines’, technology has been in the forefront; producing new program designs that enable creative and imaginative ways of reaching out and engaging valuable customers.

Today the fundamental loyalty processes like enrolment, accrual, redemption, recognition, promotion can be executed with relative ease as well as larger reach. Contemporary smart technologies enable an organisation to capture member transactional data, filtering the data via a ‘rules engine’ which assigns both points and interventions, and the storage, reporting, retrieval of all member and program information from a centralised database. Ironically, sophisticated technologies have removed the cloak of anonymity from customers and brought them to the centre stage. Perhaps the bartering of privacy for rewards-tangible or intangibles like popularity and profligacy seems to be the emerging trend of the times.

Mid-Tier companies and Loyalty

In every business, a small number of customers contribute disproportionately to the bottom line. Identifying and focussing on them presents obvious economic advantages. The omnipresence and proven utility of powerful loyalty programs have tempted even mid-size companies to seek loyalty nirvana. It is again technology that is playing the role of a hero in this quest and in overcoming economic disadvantages of such companies via outsourcing that has repeatedly created business value. Outsourcing technology & program functions has proven to be convenient and cost-efficient strategy.

Loyalty programs today can bring around benefits such as a low capital expenditure, with no set up cost as well as being able to use a staggered payment for services used. Due to an initial cost fixture, there are likely to be no budget over runs. Companies can benefit from scalability on fluctuations, less lead time, tax savings, free updates and the opportunity to use tested and deployed technology. Many of these advantages are why loyalty programs are now so accessible for mid-tier companies and why these companies are able to look at the opportunities that loyalty programs bring aggressively.

Taking advantage of loyalty solutions in everyday business

The potential offered by new technology has to be exploited with practical imagination tied to diligent financial planning, sound program strategy and a return-on-investment analysis. Sophisticated, creative application of loyalty processes will result in successful program design; the technology platform will support it. Bottom line, technology enables, but loyalty hands-on knowledge wins.

The role of technology becomes critical with the good old coalition model proving to be a norm rather than an exception among loyalty programmes today. Multi-partner loyalty coalition offers strong economic reasons to program sponsors and higher accrual velocity for program members. The classic model characterises shared loyalty processes, branding, operational, marketing costs as also ownership of a common currency as well as a database. While the success of a coalition model is a given, its practical administration on a daily basis presents an operational nightmare. Even here, it is technology that enables the easing of such complexities. The success of technology in enabling large coalitions has resulted in the programs themselves turning into profit rather than cost centres. Organisations like Groupe Aeroplan (rebranded as AIMIA recently) that have been spun-off as separate loyalty companies stand testimony to the power of today’s technology.

Outsourcing is changing the loyalty program landscape due to its obvious cost advantages. The loyalty battlefield is expanding with more players in the fray-all fighting for the attention of valuable customers. I personally believe that technology will remain the game changer by unleashing more miracles especially in the loyalty program domain!

I’d like to celebrate the end of this series of cloud articles by summarising some of the issues we’ve covered previously, and by answering a few questions that are impossible to answer. Or at least, questions that fall into the “how long is a piece of string” category.

Given the nebulous perception most people have of the cloud, one common question is just how much kit do you need to get started?

If you outsource, of course, you don’t need infrastructure at all, which is a large part of the attraction of the cloud in the first place. Get rid of all that pesky hardware, and let your cloud provider worry about the nuts and bolts, the maintenance, replacement schedules, downtime, amortization and so on. You’ll still need end user devices, and the chances are you won’t be able abandon everything in your server room... but you’ll certainly be able to make an appreciable difference to the balance sheet in terms of infrastructure capex and running costs.

And if you’re building it yourself? That’s a string length question. It depends how big you build it, and to some extent on which platform you use. A typical ‘bare minimum’ cloud will usually have some kind of controller server; at least two hypervisors to host virtual machines (you could probably get away with one, but then you wouldn’t have the ability to failover, and wouldn’t really have a cloud); and of course, some storage and backup.

Storage is usually the single biggest hardware cost. High-end enterprise storage is eye-wateringly expensive. You can keep costs down by using commodity storage products, software SANs and the like, and there are a few cloud products on the horizon that promise to provide high performance cloud storage at low cost. Shop around!

Let’s assume you’re going down the outsourcing route. What sourcing options do you have, and how much does it cost? That also depends. We’ve already discussed the differences between building your own cloud, using the public cloud, or using a third party to provide you with your own private cloud. That should be governed by what you’re trying to do in the cloud and the associated benefit/risk assessment.

We have also considered some of the issues you should consider when choosing a cloud provider – their skills, knowledge of your business, SLAs, platform and application support, and so on. That just leaves the cost question. If you go with a third party provider, what can you expect to spend?

Back to the string, I’m afraid. There can be material differences between providers that explain why there are cloud services priced at $30 or $300 a month. These things can be determined by the power of the hardware, the speed of the storage and the quality of the datacenter, for example.

Overall, though, the trend (indeed the whole point) of something-as-a-service in the cloud is towards commoditisation of IT resources, especially at the infrastructure level. In the end, you’re just buying compute cycles and disk space, and that stuff is basically the same wherever you buy it.

What that means is the real differences between cloud providers are to be found in the value-added services they provide – the apps on offer, the support included, the response time for fixes and compensation for outages. Once you’re satisfied from a technology standpoint, these things should drive your decision-making process.

I suppose all this talk of string might feel like a cop-out, so as kind of compensation I’d like to finish with a string metaphor that may actually be of some use.

While there are people who still foam at the mouth at the prospect of being ‘in the cloud’, the reality for most businesses is, well, reality: IT costs and ROI. Uptime and maintenance. Ease of use and the customer experience.

So if the cloud really were a piece of string, you’d just want make sure it’s elastic enough to go round the app, process, department or company you want to cloud-enable. You’d make sure it’s the right kind of string for your end users – not too rough around the edges, or too inflexible for the things your IT department needs it to do. You’d make sure it’s the kind of string that fits with your budget, billing, compliance and security requirements.

Above all, you’d make sure it’s strong enough not to break, and that if it does break, your provider would be obliged to fix it PDQ. Good luck!

Andrew Burns, joint managing director at office design, fit-out and furnishing specialist TSK, discusses how well-designed workplaces can increase productivity and help win clients.

The role of any outsourcing business is, essentially, to take a process peripheral to its client’s operation and perform it to a higher standard and more cost-effectively than the customer could do in-house.

At the heart of this is attracting and retaining good employees, providing efficient systems and processes and the right level of support to create a sustainable culture of excellent performance.

Crucial to this is providing employees with a working environment that is designed for the tasks they are doing and supportive of a culture of teamwork between individuals and collaboration across the organisation.

Complex processes

The range of operations commonly delivered by outsourcers has diversified significantly in the past 10 or 15 years and it is no longer just routine business functions that are commonly managed by an external partner.

In many cases an organisation’s employees are transferred into the outsourced operation so it is essential that the new protocols deliver the efficiencies from day one.

The workplace plays an important role in enabling the change in culture to happen quickly and efficiently.

By creating a workplace that supports activity base working the cost per work output is reduced, employees are motivated and empowered and a high performance culture can be established.

Operations such as customer contact, IT support or HR services will never be performed as well as they could be if teams are treated like process-driven factory workers.

Employees need quiet spaces to take difficult or private calls, break-out spaces for team meetings and training sessions and comfortable areas to take a break from often very demanding working patterns.

Many outsourcing centres – particularly those working internationally – operate long hours, often outside the traditional 9-5 working day and it is therefore paramount that employees feel comfortable in their surroundings.

Even simple things like ensuring the right levels of light and temperature can have a significant positive effect on performance.

Teamwork and collaboration

The importance of break-out areas and communal spaces in any organisation cannot be underestimated.

Spaces where teams can get together away from distractions is essential in fostering teamwork, while providing communal facilities – be it a water cooler, a kitchen or a permanent cafe – brings together individuals from across an organisation creating a sense of community.

A focus on training is a critical element of staff retention, and this needs to be able to happen in an environment where participants are free from distractions and where it won’t disrupt others’ work.

Break-out spaces are also important from a motivation perspective, as they can help shift the overriding feeling of the workspace away from that of a high-pressure battery operation.

Delivering a flagship for Ceridian

A good example of the importance leading outsourcers attach to getting workplace design right is Ceridian’s new 50,000 sq ft flagship office in Glasgow, launched earlier in June 2011.

The purpose-built property accommodates 500 workers supporting some of the biggest and most well-known businesses in the country.

The two sides to the operation – HR and payroll services – each have different key attributes, and the design needed to reflect this.

On the HR side, wellness support and employee counselling for larger organisations is a key part of the service. This is a stressful and emotionally demanding role for employees, and it was important for their workspace to provide private spaces where highly personal subjects could be discussed over the phone. It also needed to be calming, with generous rest areas for taking breaks.

For payroll services, confidentiality and data security are the foremost considerations. This meant thinking carefully about the layout of secure areas within the building, to ensure that social areas could be accesses by all but that workstations containing sensitive information were behind controlled access doors.

Civic pride

A key strategy for maintaining the commitment and motivation was to ensure that the benefits being delivered to customers were always clear to every employee in order to demonstrate the big difference they make as a business and to instill a sense of pride in the operation.

The centre delivers impressive KPIs, servicing more than 1.5 million employees per month working for 110,000 different organizations across 50 countries world-wide. These performance figures, updating in real time, were incorporated into the design in key places where they would be seen by both employees and visitors.

Commercial advantages

Securing new outsourcing agreements often involves the transfer of workers from a client’s business.

The working environment that will be provided for these employees – both in terms of physical surroundings and working culture – plays a vital role in securing their buy-in and this can make the difference between winning or losing a contract.

This concern was also forefront in Ceridian’s mind when developing the brief for its Glasgow office as the management team knew it would send an important message to new business prospects.

The goal was that any potential new partners visiting the site would leave without any doubt that delivering HR and payroll services in-house was an inefficient approach.

Workplace design played a fundamental role in this by making it obvious that Ceridian’s people were supported by the best possible processes and the right technology right across the organisation.

High performance

Outsourcing has become a standard strategy for businesses of all sizes – from small SMEs to multinational organisations – and the range of services commonly outsourced has also become enormously diverse.

The outsourcing businesses that succeed in this new landscape will be those that recognise the critical importance of providing their employees with the tools and surroundings they need to deliver optimum performance.

It is nearly four years since the banking crisis precipitated the recession and the majority of global businesses have cut costs to the bone. But as these organisations face up to the fact that the era of austerity is set to stay for several years to come, it is clear that business models need to be reviewed.

Following systemic under investment, internal resources are simply no longer good enough. Consolidation is rife; companies are looking at international expansion and building global business networks. Research carried out by TPI* in the third quarter of this year shows that there are many different models of outsourcing used throughout businesses around the world. However, with times tough and business competitive, it is key that each organisation chooses the best model of outsourcing to work for their business.

As Joanna Sedley-Burke, Business Development Director, Sovereign explains, in tough times, companies across the globe need to do far more with less and become far more savvy about leveraging external outsourced expertise to derive additional value.

One size fit all?

As Gartner describes**, the offshore IT outsourcing market is “big, and there's no turning back. Everybody is either doing it, planning to do it, or should be doing it.” But with this comes various additional options of outsourcing choice, from staff augmentation, out-tasking, project based outsourcing, managed services or BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer). However, the right choice for each business can vary immensely based on a whole array of varying factors. There is far from a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

The right outsourcing choice must be assessed on the best model to fit each organisation and this will vary hugely around the globe. Different countries carry out business in so many different ways and can be at differing ends of the scale in terms of their development when it comes to infrastructure and economy. Even from business to business, the culture of an organisation must be fully understood by any external provider in order to ensure the correct IT choices are implemented to complement and support the organisation appropriately.

Skills and costs

The TPI research suggests there is a trend in global outsourcing from EMEA, down by 23%, to Asia Pacific, that experienced an all-round year on year increase. It is clear that the availability of highly talented and experienced workers in this region are able to carry out the same level of work as in EMEA but at a significantly lower cost.

With rising inflation and escalating fuel costs just two examples of how businesses are being hit, each year is bringing a new financial challenge for business. Over the past four years, these organisations have cut costs to the bone – not least across IT. But is this really a sustainable long term approach? Is the current internal skill set really capable of supporting the current business needs or any potential expansion into more buoyant global markets? Can it deliver the robust communications required to create international networks of collaboration or exploit innovative technologies to increase efficiency and the timeliness of service delivery?

Leverage Expertise

Successful organisations will know the value of external expertise when used appropriately. But continuing to rely on limited internal resources as they come under increasing pressure is increasing corporate risk and potentially constraining opportunities for business growth. Companies would do well to exploit the proven experience and skills of external providers and look globally when they do.

Turning to an outsource provider in any part of the world offers companies a real opportunity to drive down the risk associated with day to day operations; provides a chance to reduce costs and delivers access to the experience required to build a solid business case for on-going investment. The TPI research shows that BPO is strong and expected to increase further, with businesses having to consolidate and keep the chargeable heads whilst the back-office functions go elsewhere and thus reduce the overheads.

It is those organisations that accept the need for external professional services provided by a company with no vested interest in boosting CVs, and with the required depth of skills and experience, that will be best placed to adapt and respond to the continuing economic challenge.

Outsourcing Yearbook 2012— the UK’s definitive guide to best practice in outsourcing

Buffalo Communications, in partnership with the NOA and sourcingfocus.com present the Outsourcing Yearbook 2012, the most comprehensive review of the UK’s outsourcing industry.

The Outsourcing Yearbook 2012 will be published in January. With over 100 pages of outsourcing insight available online or in one hardback volume, our yearbook is the essential guide for everyone interested in outsourcing.

The Outsourcing Yearbook 2012 will feature:

Latest research

Controversial opinions

Emerging players and destinations

Showcase of NOA award winners

Comprehensive Suppliers Directory

Quarterly updates throughout 2012 (online)

Contact us now to pre-order your copy or discuss profile raising opportunities.

Capgemini has announced the launch of its IBX Spend Capture Cloud solution.

The new IBX Capture Spend Cloud streamlines the procurement process and allows organizations to capture the benefit of on-line spending, which is often wasted due to lack of compliance with procurement standards

According to Capgemini’s CPO Survey 2010, many businesses have not yet realized the full potential of on-line procurement ,with 67% claiming that less than a fifth of their spend is through eProcurement. But cloud services have the advantage of being quick, easy-to-use, ready for use, and not requiring any data integration or customer installation. Capgemini’s IBX Spend Capture Cloud can be up and running in 90 days offering cost benefits of up to 50% compared to an on-premise implementation. The solution integrates with all major eProcurement systems and has pre-built integration package for SAP SRM.