Industry news

Chancellor George Osborne says the UK should be at the forefront of an “open data” revolution, enjoying better services and reduced costs.

Speaking at Google Zeitgeist 2011, Osborne said the government planned to unlock thousands of sets of data to help consumers make informed choices and keep the Government honest over spending.

“Our ambition is to become the world leader in open data, and accelerate the accountability revolution that the internet age has unleashed,” he said, citing the fact that the Government had made 6,000 data sets on costs and spending available.

“Already it seems incredible that this time last year, the British public couldn’t access even some of the most basic information needed to hold the government to account, such as spending data broken down on an item by item basis, procurement tender documents and the salaries of senior government officials.”

Fujitsu is to become the first of the major global ICT services vendors to launch a self-service Cloud platform in the UK.

Known as ‘Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform’, organisations will be able to take advantage of the most robust and reliable self-service Cloud-based ICT infrastructure (compute, storage, network, test and development) available to organisations today. It offers organisations a globally standardised approach to service – regardless of size of organisation.

The “Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform’ is already in live service in Japan, Australia and Singapore and is being rolled out worldwide, hence its name. It hits the two most critical business imperatives head on – it gives companies direct control over managing their Cloud-based infrastructure and protects their business information as data resides in the UK. It offers more resilience than similar offerings on the market as it is the only company to host data in a Tier III certified data centre*; has multiple layers of redundancy to ensure data is not lost to disk failure and has automatic failover servers as standard. The company estimates that an organisation can save up to 40% of its annual IT costs by moving services to the Cloud.

At the heart of this Cloud offering is a self-service portal that allows organisations to retain full control and management but with a massive leap forward in terms of ICT productivity, flexibility and agility. The portal includes its own drag and drop functionality meaning system managers can easily change the configuration of servers, hard disks or load balancers. Equally, applications can be installed or firewall polices changed all from a drop-down menu.

Declan Monaghan, business manager for Cloud computing at Fujitsu UK and Ireland, commented: “The adoption of Cloud technologies is driving a more agile, responsive and innovative approach to ICT. However, we know that organisations moving to the new Cloud model of working need the assurance that they are working with a provider they can trust and one they can work with as their use of applications in the Cloud grows and evolves. As an ICT provider working with some of the UK’s most high profile organisations Fujitsu fits that bill.”

Genpact Limited, a global leader in business process and technology management, has announced that effective June 17, 2011, NV “Tiger” Tyagarajan will become the President and Chief Executive Officer of the company and will be appointed to the Board of Directors. Tyagarajan, the current Chief Operating Officer of Genpact, succeeds Pramod Bhasin who has decided to step down as CEO and member of the Board and become Non-Executive Vice Chairman of the company.

“Tiger is a superb choice to lead Genpact to its next phase of growth and development,” said Robert Scott, Chairman of the Board. “To have someone of Tiger’s talent and experience ready for this role is a testament to Genpact’s deep leadership bench and the strength of its succession planning process. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Pramod for his vision, leadership and outstanding contribution that have built Genpact into a global leader in its industry. He will leave a significant legacy.”

Tyagarajan was CEO of Genpact from 1999 to 2002 and led the business through a critical growth phase as a subsidiary of GE. When Genpact became an independent company, Tyagarajan rejoined Genpact from GE Capital U.S. as EVP, Sales and Business Development from 2005 to 2009. Thereafter, he took on the role of Genpact’s COO. Tyagarajan began his career with the Unilever Group in India, and then worked with Citibank, India. He joined GE Capital in 1994 and held a variety of leadership roles in both India and the U.S. until 2005. He is a mechanical engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

“I am delighted to be able to hand over the reins of the company to my long term business partner Tiger,” Bhasin said. “We have worked together for over a decade to build Genpact into a truly global leader. I am confident that he is the right person to take Genpact forward in its next stage of growth. I have been truly privileged to lead this remarkable company and its employees from inception and to have helped create an industry that now provides employment opportunities to millions of people around the world. Along with helping Tiger, particularly in the areas of acquisition integration, organization development and growth in new geographies, I now look forward to other pursuits.”

Tyagarajan said, “I want to take this opportunity to thank Pramod and acknowledge his contribution as the founder and CEO of this company. He has been an extraordinary leader and we have all benefitted tremendously from his leadership and vision over the years.”

Tyagarajan continued, “I am hugely excited to lead Genpact. There are tremendous opportunities ahead of us. We are fundamentally improving the way our clients work. We are building a new “Science of Process” and continue to innovate and invest in comprehensive, cutting-edge technology-based solutions. The recent acquisition of Headstrong has given us exceptional high-end capital markets domain and technology expertise. I look forward to working with our terrific team to continue to create exceptional value for our clients and shareholders.”

Transport for London (TFL) has put out a tender for IT support for its 30,000 employees that will run for 10 years and cost up to £70m.

The tender - which was placed with the Official Journal of the European Union - requests a centralised service desk to provide a single point of contact for all IT-related incidents.

The successful supplier will take on some existing TFL IT staff under TUPE.

In addition to service desk responsibilities, TFL wants the supplier to provide user self-service tools, adherence to governance, service performance reporting based on agreed service levels, customer satisfaction surveying and reporting and continuous service improvement activities and suggestions.

Global IT and Product Engineering Services Company MindTree has announced the integration of its Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing and Knowledge Services practices, forming a new Data & Analytic Solutions (DAS) practice.

The integration creates one of the world’s largest information management practices offering customers a one-stop-shop to capture, analyse, enhance and view their business information in support of their corporate objectives.

“As our customers look to harness the power of their data, and turn this information into business insights, the integration of our business intelligence, data warehousing and analytics practices into one allows us to enable our customers to better compete in the market space,” said Scott Staples, Head of the DAS practice. “When you combine the breadth of our offerings with our practice size, specialised industry focus and the overall capabilities of MindTree’s complementary groups, our Data & Analytic Solutions practice is strongly positioned to create greater value for our customers than ever before.”

The MindTree DAS practice is headed by MindTree co-founder - Scott Staples, . The practice is currently 800 people strong and is seeing strong growth momentum based on excellent customer traction for this specialized offering.

The DECC has initiated the process for the procurement of the smart meter data and communication services that will be contracted to DCC.

Smart meters will provide consumers with near real-time information, enabling them to monitor and manage their energy use and will also play an important role in the UK's transition to a low-carbon economy. DECC published it's plans for smart meters back in March.

The DECC tender states: "We are interested to hear from parties who wish to be considered for the data and communications service provision contracts or that have an interest in the SMIP so that we may include those parties in the circulation of information about the SMIP and seek input in a number of areas in order to inform the process for procurement of the services."

Energy Minister Charles Hendry said:“Smart meters will play a key part in our move to a low carbon economy. The Government is determined to drive the smart meters programme forward, and I am very encouraged by the commitment of companies like E.ON to ensuring its success. The rollout will be the largest changeover programme in the energy industry since the introduction of North Sea gas over 40 years ago, involving visits to all households across Great Britain.”

CSC chief executive Michael Laphen has responded to David Cameron's warning over the possibility of NHS contract termination.

Mr Laphen said: “My understanding is that the prime minister said they were continuing with the reviews as we knew, and as we reported, before they go forward signing a revised contract with us.

“I understand there’s some realtime reports out there regarding the prime minister’s comments and remarks in the prime minister’s questions and I understand there’s a number of interpretations coming out of those remarks.CSC is looking forward to the final approval and signing of the MoU agreement. While the process to develop the MoU was protracted, it has resulted in a realigned programme that will deliver significant success and substantial benefits to the NHS, and both strategic and financial benefits to CSC.”

CSC has insisted that an MoU would be signed in the “next few weeks”. But the government reviews, which will now precede any contract signing, could take months.

CSC, the provider of computer services to companies and U.S. government agencies, won’t win any new business with the U.K. government, David Cameron said today.

The Prime Minister has said that the government won’t sign any additional contracts with CSC until reviews of missed deadlines on the system it’s building for the Department of Health are completed.

“We’re absolutely determined to achieve better value for money,” Cameron said in Parliament in London. “There are no plans to sign any new contracts with Computer Sciences Corp. until the National Audit Office report has been reviewed, and until the Public Accounts Committee meetings and major project authorization reviews have taken place.”

CSC is currently revising its contract with the U.K. Government’s National Health Services which caused a fall in CSC shares. The company also said its full-year sales and profit for the year through March probably missed its forecasts.

Barnet, Enfield and Haringey mental health trust has become the first organisation to use Buying Solutions' Desktop 21 framework to purchase IT services.

The north London trust has confirmed that it has signed an agreement with HP, one of three Desktop 21 suppliers, to deliver outsourced services. The firm will provide a fully managed desktop, including applications hosting, network management, data centre services and remote support services.

Desktop21 is a collaborative procurement process between Buying Solutions, DWP and OGC that has resulted in a desktop services contract for the DWP and a framework agreement for the public sector delivering desktop services.

The core offering under the framework agreement is desktop services, closely mirroring the DWP requirement. The requirements provide a standardised set of desktop services suitable for the whole public sector.

The trust said the deal will provide staff with remote access from PCs, laptops, PDAs and tablets with a unified communications capability. Back up and security will be provided through dual data centres and the centralised upgrading of software.

Accenture has been ranked No. 1 on the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals’ (IAOP) Global Outsourcing 100 list, marking the fourth consecutive year that Accenture has topped this ranking of the world’s best outsourcing providers.

The Global Outsourcing 100 is designed to help companies compare and select service providers using an objective methodology that mirrors the evaluation process a buyer would use to select a provider. Providers are ranked on quality following a rigorously judged application process that examines 18 criteria. The final rankings are based on a weighted average of the judges’ scores on demonstrated competencies, size, growth, management capabilities and customer references.

“Achieving the number one ranking for four consecutive years is certainly an accomplishment by Accenture, considering the high quality of the applicants and increased competition from around the world each year to hold on to the top spot,” said IAOP Chairman Michael Corbett, who led the judges panel. “The leading outsourcing firms make ranking high on the Global Outsourcing 100 a strategic objective and going through the rigorous application process benefits all applicants as well as helps buyers make better purchasing decisions.”