Industry news

Outsourced printing firm and India’s largest books exporter, Repro India Ltd, is believed to have bought a controlling stake in the Indian arm of business process outsourcing firm MPS Ltd, owned by UK-based publisher Macmillan.

Shares of MPS spurted 13.3% on the buzz to Rs45.90 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange while the stock of Repro, which counts Penguin Books, Pearson and Oxford University Press among its clients, rose 8.45% to `146.95 at close on Wednesday.

Macmillan holds 61.46% in MPS. Based on the firm’s Wednesday’s market capitalisation of `77 crore, the promoter holding would be worth as much as Rs47.3 crore. A further 9% equity is held by Macmillan Staff Trust.

2bm has been chosen by Yorkshire Water to design and build a new facility in Bradford.

Work on the seven figure project is due to start later this year and will deliver the utility company with a state of the art new facility that takes advantage of the very latest thinking in cooling technology.

"We're delighted to have been chosen by Yorkshire Water," explained 2bm Sales Manager Neil Roberts. "Our approach to design and build is pretty simple really. We take the time to understand the needs of the client and we're not afraid to challenge traditional thinking."

"We put forward what we felt was a very innovative and cost effective design, one that we are confident will deliver real long term benefits for the team at Yorkshire Water."

Terrorists are using cloud computing to plan attacks and remain undetected - and the UK Government needs to keep up with such technological advances.

This was the message of Home Secretary Theresa May, who outlined the Government’s updated counter-terrorism strategy, known as CONTEST.

Cloud, one of the hot topics in the IT world right now, is one example of how terrorists are using modern technologies for their own ends.

“Cloud computing offers new means for storing, sharing and distributing material online," May warned.

"It can be encrypted and configured to work with mobile devices, leaving little or no trace of the data behind."

The Listening Company (TLC), which became part of Serco earlier this year, is now fully operational at Durban House, Bognor Regis, after winning a four-year contract to deliver contact centre services for West Sussex County Council.

Louise Goldsmith, Leader of West Sussex County Council joined TLC staff, including former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio, Sales Director at The Listening Company, and several other County Council cabinet members to mark the occasion.

TLC will manage calls relating to a range of services across the council including social care, highways and library renewals with staff acting as the first point of enquiry for citizens calling the council.

Neville Upton, CEO, The Listening Company said: “I am delighted that we have been selected to deliver contact centre services on behalf of West Sussex County Council. We are committed to delivering excellent customer service which will bring benefits for the Council and local communities across the County. The decision to appoint TLC reflects our strong track record for innovation in the delivery of high quality and efficient services for our customers across the UK.”

Michael Brown, Cabinet Member for Finance, West Sussex County Council said: “It is with great pleasure that we welcome The Listening Company to West Sussex. They have an excellent reputation in the Public Services industry having delivered services on behalf of a wide range of public sector organisations. They are renowned for both their deployment of cutting-edge technologies and their innovative people practices. We expect contact centre staff to thrive under their stewardship and for the people of West Sussex to experience excellent customer service.”

Market Leading Cloud.com Platform Lets Customers Build Clouds the Way the World's Most Successful Clouds Are Built

Citrix Systems has acquired Cloud.com, a market leading provider of software infrastructure platforms for cloud providers. The company's innovative CloudStack™ product line helps providers of all types deploy and manage simple, cost-effective cloud services that are scalable, secure, and open by design. This acquisition further establishes Citrix as a leader in infrastructure for the rapidly growing cloud provider market.

The transition from the PC Era to the Cloud Era is expected to fuel a massive build out in cloud infrastructure, creating a new market projected to exceed $11 billion by the end of 2013, according to industry analystsi. This market will feature thousands of providers of all shapes and sizes, offering a vast array of new cloud services ranging from business, infrastructure and development offerings, to consumer, mobile and gaming services. Most of the clouds that service this market will look nothing like traditional enterprise datacenters. They will run on radically different platforms purpose-built for cloud computing – platforms designed from the ground up to deliver multi-tier, multi-tenant services in the simplest and most cost-effective way. The world's largest and most successful public clouds are all built this way today.

The Cloud.com product line is not a traditional enterprise server virtualization platform with cloud management layered on top. It is a powerful, hypervisor-agnostic solution designed from the ground up to help providers build clouds the way the world's largest and most successful public clouds are built – simple, automated, elastic, scalable and efficient. This proven approach has helped Cloud.com customers around the world roll out new cloud services up to 50 times faster, at one fifth the cost of alternative solutionsii.

With the addition of Cloud.com, Citrix now offers a complete portfolio of virtualization, orchestration and networking solutions purpose built for the Cloud Era — solutions that are not only among the market leaders individually, but also designed to help customers avoid vendor lock-in by letting them use the hardware, software, management products and service providers of their choice.

Outsourcers unanimously agree that FM is facing a margin squeeze

Over two thirds (71%) of outsourcers and facilities management suppliers agree that the Government should do more to help smaller businesses win more of its work, according to a survey by Interim Partners, the leading provider of interim managers to the private sector.

The survey, which was conducted among Chairmen, CEOs and CFOs of some of the UK’s largest outsourcing and facilities management businesses, found strong industry agreement among 64% of respondents that the Government favours larger outsource companies when allocating contracts.

Mark Kitchen, Head of Practice for Business and Support Services at Interim Partners, comments: “Despite the Coalition Government’s attempts to improve outsourcing to SMEs, industry leaders agree that more should be done to help smaller bidders for Government work.”

“Whilst some contracts can only go to outsourcers that have reached a certain scale, there is the concern that too much of the outsourcing market will consolidate in the hands of just a few players.”

“Directors of mid-tier FM providers and outsourcers do not want to see the rapid consolidation within the sector that could happen if small providers are permanently locked out of the market for Government work. Many larger providers sub-contract some of their work to small, specialist providers so they want to see as healthy a supply chain as possible.”

Weak economy means margin squeeze

Every single survey respondent agreed that FM contracts are under more margin pressure than before the credit crunch.

Interim Partners explains that the poor performance of the economy and the timing of the Government’s austerity drive have put a squeeze on FM clients’ budgets.

Mark Kitchen says: “The squeeze on margins means that facilities management companies, as well as wider outsourcing providers, have to become more efficient than ever before in providing a high quality service.”

“Interim managers have a proven record of stripping out unnecessary costs to maintain margins and service delivery quality, even when clients are asking for a cheaper service.”

Government austerity drive likely to signal more work

Although margins are being squeezed, 79% of providers say they still are expecting more work because of the Government austerity drive.

Mark Kitchen continues: “It’s increasingly accepted that outsourcers and FM providers can help the Government to deliver a lot of public services more cost effectively than the Government can itself. As further cuts are implemented support services businesses are expecting an increase in demand from central and local government.”

New services for customers critical to future growth

The survey also reveals that 64% of outsourcers and FM providers expect growth to come from adding new service lines, rather than international growth (21%) or UK growth from existing service lines (14%).

Mark Kitchen adds: “Senior support services figures are saying that strong future growth is going to come from offering clients additional services, such as back office outsourcing, rather than selling to more customers in the UK or expanding overseas.”

“It is always difficult to launch a new service to customers because of the perception of inexperience in the market place but hiring an interim manager can really help. The business can market the interim’s previous experience of delivering the service to help it win new business. When the interim spearheads delivery of the service for the client they will also train up permanent staff.”

In a speech in London yesterday, the PM argued the need to give individuals and local communities more control and more choice over the services they receive.

Mr Cameron said the reforms were a “people power” revolution that will replace bureaucratic control with “more freedom, more choice and more local control”.

He described public services as “the backbone of the country” but said that they still operate with a “take-what-you’re-given” philosophy that has failed sufficiently to close gaps between the life quality of the rich and poor.

“I know what our public services can do and how they are the backbone of this country. But I know too that the way they have been run for decades – old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you’re-given – is just not working for a lot of people.

“Public services were centralised with all the right intentions: to drive progress through from on high, to keep tabs on how that progress was going with targets and rules and inspections. But the impact of this has been incredibly damaging.”

The PM’s speech follows the publication of the Open Public Services White Paper which sets out the government’s approach to public services by applying five key principles:

•Wherever possible we should increase choice by giving people direct control over the services they use;

•Power should be decentralised to the lowest possible level;

•Public services should be open to a range of providers competing to offer a better service;

•The state’s role is to deliver fair access, fair funding and fair competition; and

•public services should be accountable to users and to taxpayers.

The White Paper will be followed over the summer by a wide-ranging discussion with individuals, communities, public sector staff, providers and others with an interest in how public services are delivered.

Cognizant, a leading provider of consulting, and business process outsourcing services, and Visma, a leading provider of business software and services for accounting and administration, has announced that they have entered into an outsourcing arrangement with Norway Post, the leading Norwegian postal and logistics services company owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications. Norway Post is engaged in the development and delivery of integrated, value-adding communications and logistics solutions to domestic and international customers through physical and electronic networks.

As part of the multi-year deal, Cognizant and Visma will collaborate to deliver finance and accounting services to Norway Post. The services delivered span the entire value chain of transactional finance services, ranging from accounts payables and receivables, to fixed assets, general ledger, and period-end closing.

Visma will combine its local Norwegian accounting and regulatory expertise with Cognizant's global delivery model, transaction processing capabilities, and Oracle solution accelerators to deliver significant process improvements, greater operational efficiencies, increased automation, enhanced productivity, and a high-quality customer experience.

Genpact Limited, a global leader in business process and technology management, has announced that it is strengthening its longstanding partnership with Nissan and is assuming the management of Nissan Human Information Service (NHIS), Nissan’s shared services center for human resources (HR) operations based in Yokohama, Japan. NHIS has operated as a subsidiary of Nissan Motor Ltd. since 2000 and currently handles HR functions for 54,000+ Nissan employees worldwide.

This collaborative relationship also includes a seven-year agreement, whereby Genpact will provide payroll, benefits, staffing, training and other key HR services to Nissan, leveraging its deep expertise in enhanced HR processes.

"This transaction makes sense given our strong relationship with Genpact and their proven business process and domain expertise, operational excellence and strong delivery capabilities," said Nissan HR. "Nissan is confident that Genpact will streamline the NHIS operations to best-in-class levels and provide exceptional learning and growth opportunities for NHIS employees. The business outcome will be the delivery of outstanding services to our customers which is of utmost importance."

Camwood Limited, the UK-based specialist in application logistics, has announced the launch of Application Lifecycle Manager™, a cloud based service enabling access to real time information on the status of a single application, groups of applications or an entire portfolio.

Designed for the requirements of project and application teams, Application Lifecycle Manager tracks, monitors and manages the status of applications, be it part of a normal lifecycle or part of a key migration project, where business continuity is paramount.

Bhadresh Sachania, head of PMO for Tube Lines commented: “Camwood ALM is an immensely powerful tool that provides immediate and accurate visibility on the status of all our applications, enabling us to understand how they are being used and by whom. It also highlights the application interdependencies that exist, enabling us to plan our migrations effectively.”