Industry news

Fujitsu has launched its Productivity Suite to provide UK organisations with a private cloud solution for desktop messaging, unified communication and collaboration.

The Fujitsu Productivity Suite is a tailored cloud solution that delivers Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and Lync in a way that enables enterprises and government bodies to benefit from the advantages of a cloud-based approach, while addressing concerns around control, customisation and security.

Microsoft’s private cloud solutions offer deep insights into applications, cross-platform support and the ability to extend workloads between private, public, and hybrid cloud environments. The Fujitsu Productivity Suite enables organisations to choose whether the service is a private cloud service hosted in a Fujitsu datacentre or on the clients’ premises; a shared cloud service with common components shared with other clients; or a hybrid cloud delivered via a combination of Microsoft Office 365 public cloud service for some users and a private cloud option for others.

Tina Quenault director of Cloud Services, Fujitsu UK and Ireland said, “Our customers increasingly demand a flexible approach to cloud adoption – to have cloud on their terms. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for moving to the cloud because different organisations and different parts of a business need to be treated differently. Fujitsu customers can now adopt an approach that’s right for them, with the Fujitsu Productivity Suite enabling Microsoft’s market-leading productivity applications to be utilised via a private or hybrid cloud solution.”

Organisations looking to move to the cloud can, with the Fujitsu Productivity Suite, benefit from a service which is based and managed in the U.K. and tailored to meet their specific requirements. Fujitsu provides options for archiving and full disaster recovery as well as levels of security which can be accredited by, the Communications Electronics Security Group (CESG), the U.K.’s national technology authority for software assurance, to comply with specific security policies that may be incumbent on organisations or government bodies.

Lucas Searle, Virtualisation and Private Cloud lead, Microsoft UK, added: “We’re increasingly seeing organisations looking to adopt elements of both public and private cloud computing, often using them in tandem. This partnership with Fujitsu extends our commitment to providing this breadth of choice, with a singular focus on driving business value and flexibility for customers. Our comprehensive span of public, private and hybrid cloud solutions means that customers are able to focus less on their infrastructure, more on the needs of their organisation.”

Genpact Limited, in conjunction with the Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism of Colombia Sergio Diaz-Granados, has announced the opening of its operations in Colombia, its second location in South America. In its new facility in the center of Bogotá, Genpact will begin providing business process management services to clients in several different industries.

At its press conference announcing the opening of the center, Genpact Vice Chairman Pramod Bhasin stated, “Colombia offers a favorable business climate for Genpact and for our clients – a rich talent pool with a high literacy rate and complementary skill sets, a healthy and growing economy, a number of universities with strong business curricula, a diverse array of industries, and open trade practices. Genpact is honored to establish its roots here in Colombia and become a part of its culture and thriving business community.”

Tech city will have absolutely no impact what so ever. It’s embarrassing to think that our answer to Silicon Valley is a cluster of small technology companies in the east of London which have so far done little more than stress testing for the Olympics.

Yes, its been referred to as Silicon-roundabout but is that really enough to compete? Let’s not forget that the companies on the roundabout are there because the rent was affordable and no other reason. According to Cameron our ambition is to “help make east London one of the world's great technology centres." Let’s recap for a moment, a world competing technology centre? Really? Think of what we’re up against: Silicon Valley houses the headquarters of the world’s top technology companies and accounts for 1/3 of all of the venture capital investment in the United States.

Booming economies in India and China are way ahead of the game churning out engineers, mathematicians and scientists by the bucket load. These economies and Silicon Valley have been around for decades nurturing entrepreneurs, shaking up the tech market and basically changing the way the world works. They have had the foresight to see how the world is changing and what is needed to compete. How is Tech City competing with that? Are we offering anything new or different? As far as I can see it will be a long time before we can create a credible alternative to Silicon Valley.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great start. The government are taking a strong position on the importance of developing an entrepreneurial climate in the UK and getting more involved in tech is obviously the way forward. Even Russia is jumping on the bandwagon with its tech innovation centre ‘Innograd’. But is it too little too late? Cameron and his government have a lot riding on Tech City which was launched last year with great furore yet its goals still remain unclear. No one is quite sure what the government wants out of it, except of course one thing; something in the UK that can directly compete with Silicon Valley.

Naturally the tech giants are backing it. Google and Facebook are creating ‘innovation hubs’ which are bound to attract talent and Cisco has announced a significant investment. But where will the real results come from, the innovation hub in Shoreditch or the global HQ in California? And how will this really affect business in the UK? My guess is it won’t. At least not for long time. Unless something drastically catastrophic happens to Silicon Valley, whatever gets built in Shoreditch really won't have a hope in hell of challenging the world’s greatest tech hub. Let’s face it, we’ve fallen well behind the times and a government funded technology centre is not going to change anything.

Improving professional HR standards in the industry – and minimising risks – can happen through talent management and standards compliance

It might even help when pitching for business or making a sale.

Increasingly, outsourcing operations are subject to personal and corporate accountability, to ensure standards are complied with and the project or ongoing work completed to maximum client satisfaction.

With some professional standards in the industry in a state of immaturity relative to those in long established sectors such as manufacturing, retail, financial services and IT, what can the owner of a business in outsourcing do to in order to minimise the risks posed by staff being unprepared or by insufficient investment in HR and staff development?

Easy to learn and use online tools are a new way to manage all aspects of the performance of staff, including board members, line managers and employees at the coal face/on the shop floor.

Competencies and job roles

The tools can link each employee’s competencies with their job roles, allowing a picture to quickly emerge showing who is best at what and which employees are best placed to handle compliance-sensitive work.

The manager of the tools can use the job roles function to ensure that employees have all mandatory competencies within their annual [or more regular, e.g. three or six monthly] performance appraisal. Staff can also be measured for their knowledge of, and performance in, non-mandatory competencies.

In some situations, e.g. where the project is complex or fast moving, appraisals may need to be carried out weekly, or more frequently where staff are tasked with adapting quickly and meeting objectives.

Identify

Administrators can identify the competency or competencies required for a specific role and then develop the skills of the person who is in that job role. In many cases, the job role will represent what the employer organisation wants the employee to develop into; for that to happen, the employer will need to have a degree of sophistication within its HR function, which may be quite basic or outsourced to an individual who may be too busy fire fighting to do much else.

In conclusion, the business will have different options available if it wants to improve standards compliance and performance. It may need to take a step back to review its HR function and seek advice on how to improve it if that function has been neglected in the drive for growth. It may have an FD on board who is responsible for HR and could include compliance. The MD or FD may feel comfortable about managing, or authorising the use of, online compliance and employee performance management tools.

Managing talent and complying with standards does have a spin off business benefit. It may be easier to close a sale – or generate interest, pre-sale – because the business can demonstrate that it has given a high priority to compliance, talent management and risk reduction.

Most organisations enjoy the benefits of using flexible labour but to most businesses and that includes procurement, contract labour is seen as a dark art, which is normally left well alone.

With cost control firmly on the business agenda and a raft of new employment legislative changes taking effect, exploring a model that not only manages and mitigates risk but can also enhance both, the user and supplier experience as well as delivering cost savings has to be taken seriously.

So who is the market to provide a managed service:-

• Temporary labour organisations:

there are many thousands of recruitment / temporary labour organisations (as the barriers to entry are low). A minority provide a local (sometimes on-site) managed service. However the suppliers are typically focused on mark-up and headcount maximisation; as this drives margin return.

• Recruitment Process Outsourcers (RPO):

this is a growing sector of the recruitment market. RPO providers are remunerated typically on a mark-up basis, either ‘rostering’ temporary staff themselves directly (like an agency) or by adding a small mark-up to third party supplied staff (typically 2-4%). However they do little to address pay rate actively as it is not in their interest in absolute return terms.

• Procurement Outsourcers (GPO):

An expanding marketplace with a growing level of sophistication addressing service, process and importantly savings .

So what is it? Managed service is the practice of transferring day-to-day related management responsibility to a third party as a strategic method to improve effective and efficient operations. For a contract labour managed service this involves managing the full end to end life cycle from vacancy identification through to project completion.

In essence the role of the managed service provider is to inter-mediate between the customers (hiring managers) and the supply base, this allows the managed service provider to ensure that prefferred suppliers are utilised, to control service delivery and performance whilst also affecting both supplier mark-ups and labour costs. This control of labour cost or pay rate is integral to affecting 100% of the cost, as opposed to the supplier mark-up which may only account for 10% of the total supplied cost.

So far so good but to make the managed service an effective tool within an organisaton it requires a technology platform from which to operate and the provision of adequate resources both sitting with the customer and in the back office to make the manage service work smoothly and effectively. For any business thought needs to be given to the:-

• Implementation of a leading edge technology solution.

• Deployment of resources in the back office to undertake the invoice processing

• The deployment of both category management and resourcing specialists to ensure both financial delivery, service performance management and supplier management and legal compliance.

• The provision of a helpdesk service to manage customer queries.

Most managed service providers will come with a ready made platform but thought needs to given to compatibility with your existing business services and systems and how long any implementation plan will be. In choosing the right managed service provider a consideration needs to be around management information, what you require on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and more importantly can the managed service provider give you what you need.

Extensive management information that ensures vacancy fulfilment performance is measured and actively controlled, and supports the identification of spend patterns is a key requirement.

By means of implementing a managed service approach the customer will be adopting a single or common process. This will reduce the inefficiencies in the current processes and ultimately reduce the people and other overheads associated with the activity. The potential opportunity to integrate with a managed service provider P2P system/s will add rigor to the purchase and invoice approval processes and deliver added rigor to the procurement of temporary staff.

From a supplier perspective the simplified process will offer them business economies and ensure they are paid to time – a valuable lever commercially in the low margin, cash flow dependent temporary labour sector.

And the benefits of a managed service:-

• Compliance to preferred optimised suppliers

• Improved vacancy fulfilment

• A robust and standard framework to order and manage contractors

• Through the deployment of technology

- Improve and simplify billing and payment

- Improve candidate & supplier experience

• Production of management information

• Effective vendor management

• Risk mitigation to ensure temporary staff operating within legislation

• Pay rate harmonisation

• Single source supply & simplified process

• Process efficiencies within the back office

At Xchanging Procurement Services we manage over £150 million of contract labour spend through a Managed Service model.

What are your views on which approach derives the best value a vendor neutral managed service model or a supplier led master vendor programme?

The £3bn contract to upgrade NHS computer systems had been "fraudulently concealed" from investors in American IT contractor Computer Sciences Corporation for years, according to a class action claim being brought by angry shareholders.

CSC, now face the possibility of litigation on two fronts – from shareholders and the British taxpayer. The group's existing NHS work is running years behind schedule and has racked up huge costs, much of which have yet to be divided between CSC and British taxpayers.

According to the class action complaint, brought on behalf of a number of investors led by a major Canadian fund, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, as early as May 2008 CSC knew, through reports and testing, that Lorenzo (software package) was "dysfunctional and undeliverable".

Trade union Unite has halted strike action at Fujitsu UK after negotiating an eleventh-hour deal with management over pay.

However, unlike the Public and Commercial (PCS) Services union, Unite stopped short of publicly discussing the deal it had brokered for members.

Industrial action has been due to take place in Manchester, including a small demo at the Tory party conference, but the union said "last minute discussions" led to the suspension of the planned walkout.

Logica, a leading business and technology service company, today announces the appointment of Gary Bullard as CEO UK and member of its Executive Committee.

Gary will join Logica immediately and will take over from Craig Boundy, who will be leaving Logica at the end of the year to become Managing Director at Experian UK & Ireland.

Gary will take on the leadership of a business which has recently been at the forefront of important deals in both the Public and commercial sectors with clients such as Shell and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. He will bring a strong focus on the client, proven knowledge of the industry acquired during a 25-year career at IBM where he ran their Global Solutions business, and a clear track record around introducing diversity in organisations.

IBM has announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Q1 Labs, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based provider of security intelligence software. The move aims to accelerate IBM’s efforts to help clients more intelligently secure their enterprises by applying analytics to correlate information from key security domains and creating security dashboards for their organizations. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Following the close of the acquisition, Q1 Labs will join the newly-formed IBM Security Systems division, representing the world’s most comprehensive security portfolio. After the close, IBM intends the new division to be led by Brendan Hannigan, CEO of Q1 Labs.

The new division will target a $94 billion opportunity in security software and services, which has a nearly 12 percent compound annual growth rate, according to IBM estimates. Q1 Labs will join the more than 10 strategic security acquisitions IBM has made in the last decade and the more than 25 analytics-related purchases, including the recently announced acquisition of security analytics software firm, i2.

“Financial processes have to continuously evolve to align with changing business requirements and compliance mandates. An in-depth insight into our financial performance and effective management of Risk and Compliance is key to retaining our competitive edge. The planned upgrade to the latest Oracle Financial Suite will provide the flexibility and agility to align our processes to new business requirements. We are very pleased to be working with Wipro in this upgrade project and the progress we are making. In Wipro we have a partner who understands our industry and has proven expertise across the various modules of this suite. We are working jointly to implement a robust and cost effective solution for UGI”, said Richard Myers, Oracle Upgrade Project Manager, UGI Utilities.

Wipro’s proprietary and proven upgrade methodology, process templates and tools ensure predictability of success and seamless alignment of pre and post upgrade audits of the financial systems. Wipro offers ‘Easy-Upgrade’ solution as part of its overall Oracle application offerings helping customer organizations evaluate their current Oracle landscape, plan for the future and implement upgrades. Wipro estimates its 'Easy-Upgrade' solution can deliver up-to 40% reduction in assessment costs for organizations looking to embrace Oracle E-Business Suite - R12 or Oracle Fusion Applications.

The Met's Police Central e-Crime Unit has saved the UK economy more than £140 million in the last six months and is well on course to exceed its four-year harm reduction target.

Operational activity targeting online criminals has seen the unit deliver nearly 30% of its £504 million harm reduction target in this initial period alone.

"PCeU, together with its partners in industry and international law enforcement, has excelled..."

This figure - clearly significantly more than the projected target for a full year - relates to the amount of money the UK has been prevented from losing through cyber crime and has been achieved following a number of successful prosecutions and operations by the unit.

The ACPO National e-Crime Programme (NeCP), which is responsible for delivering the policing response to the Cabinet Office's National Cyber Security Programme (NCSP), was allocated £30 million earlier this year after cyber security was recognised as one of the biggest threats to the UK.