Industry news

Northgate Information Solutions has today announced that it has been successful in

being awarded a place on the IT Managed Services framework agreement by Buying

Solutions, the national procurement partner for UK public services.

The new framework agreement provides the public sector with a wide range of IT

services from remote access to fully managed IT services.

Northgate successfully competed to become one of the twelve suppliers who have

been awarded a framework agreement. The awards are based on a range of criteria

including service delivery, customer services, sustainability and pricing and

contractual considerations.

Northgate has previously been awarded a place on Buying Solutions’ Applications

Solutions framework agreement. The company is now able to offer its full range of

services to customers across the public sector.

Accenture has signed a five-year application outsourcing contract with Nordea, a leading financial services group in the Nordic and Baltic Sea region, to develop and maintain applications that will support the banks customer websites.The company said the deal is designed to help Nordea improve customer service and increase cost efficiencies. As per the deal terms, Accenture would assume responsibility for maintaining and developing Nordeas Web content management platform for its customer websites and would also provide the services through local facilities in Denmark and through its Global Delivery Network using centers in Bangalore, India.

"This agreement gives us access to skilled resources and the benefits of international expertise in Web application development and maintenance," commented Henrik Korch, business chief information officer for Marketing at Nordea.

"In selecting a reliable business partner to help us, we focused on track records of innovation, creativity and new ideas," said Juha Toivari, Vice-president and head of digital marketing at Nordea. "Accentures knowledge of our business and proven ability to provide enhancement and management services for Microsoft applications make it an ideal business partner."

Accenture will deliver the services in collaboration with Avanade, a business technology services provider that connects insight, innovation and expertise in Microsoft technologies to help customers realize results. Avanade is majority owned by Accenture.

Accenture has signed a five-year application outsourcing contract with Nordea, a leading financial services group in the Nordic and Baltic Sea region, to develop and maintain applications that will support the banks customer websites.The company said the deal is designed to help Nordea improve customer service and increase cost efficiencies. As per the deal terms, Accenture would assume responsibility for maintaining and developing Nordeas Web content management platform for its customer websites and would also provide the services through local facilities in Denmark and through its Global Delivery Network using centers in Bangalore, India.

"This agreement gives us access to skilled resources and the benefits of international expertise in Web application development and maintenance," commented Henrik Korch, business chief information officer for Marketing at Nordea.

"In selecting a reliable business partner to help us, we focused on track records of innovation, creativity and new ideas," said Juha Toivari, Vice-president and head of digital marketing at Nordea. "Accentures knowledge of our business and proven ability to provide enhancement and management services for Microsoft applications make it an ideal business partner."

Accenture will deliver the services in collaboration with Avanade, a business technology services provider that connects insight, innovation and expertise in Microsoft technologies to help customers realize results. Avanade is majority owned by Accenture.

T-Mobile UK has signed a five-year outsourcing contract with Indias Infosys BPO, the BPO arm of Infosys Technologies. The contract covers several core processes for their finance directorate which cover customer finance, commercial finance and accounting (F&A), and procurement operations, Infosys BPO said in a statement.

"We are pleased to have been selected by T-Mobile UK. Our strong F&A capabilities combined with our understanding of the telecom industry helps us successfully transform businesses of our clients," Infosys BPO Vice President and Head (Communications, Media and Entertainment (CME)) Gopal Devanahalli said.

T-Mobiles UK arm has come under pressure to cut costs and boost market share to avoid a possible sale by its German parents. The company appointed a new Managing Director, Richard Moat who took over a couple of months ago.

Leading talent acquisition outsourcing firm to provide first-of-its-kind Managed Services Program (MSP) oversight in the United States.

SourceRight Solutions, a division of SFN Group, Inc. (NYSE: SFN), was selected to provide contingent labor procurement program oversight for two Siemens business sectors in the U.S.: Siemens Healthcare and Siemens Industry, Inc. SourceRight will provide a streamlined Managed Service Program (MSP) solution designed to enhance compliance, increase efficiencies, improve cost-effectiveness and centralize management and operations for the procurement of contingent labor positions.

SourceRight, who has been working with Siemens Healthcare since 2006, was awarded a multi-year contract renewal and a significant expansion of its service footprint to additional business units in a competitive selection process. SourceRight's resources, knowledge and technical expertise to run a highly complex MSP were contributing factors to the win.

"SourceRight was chosen to help us consolidate and move our contingent labor procurement strategies to a single platform. They have demonstrated ability to run complex MSPs for companies worldwide and their commercial model invokes true transparency, providing an open-book relationship for the supplier and the customer," said Doug Cutrell, director of global sourcing of Siemens. "It's a win-win-win for all parties."

In the United States, this is the first MSP designed in this unique commercial configuration on the Fieldglass technology platform which is aimed at neutralizing the economic strains that both Staffing Suppliers and large employers are facing. SourceRight's optimized services approach enables all parties, including Suppliers, Siemens and SourceRight, to have a clear view of the program's financial structure, achieve cost advantages and increase efficiencies, while delivering high-quality talent. Specific benefits of the delivery structure include:

A break-out of statutory costs such as state, unemployment, social security and workers' compensation to provide maximum cost transparency and minimize risk exposure

Graduated supplier gross markups based on sourcing demands and difficulty levels by job family

Realization of cost savings through tenure discounts and volume incentives

Distribution of volume incentives based on market share to ensure equity across suppliers

Process optimization leveraging Fieldglass, a leading vendor management technology system for contingent labor procurement

The SourceRight program will encompass Siemens Healthcare and Industry operations in nearly all of the 50 states, as well as Canada and Puerto Rico.

"Through our relationship with Siemens over the past four years, we've proven our ability to continually provide service excellence and innovative solutions. This history of success coupled with SourceRight's unique capability to deploy complex programs was pivotal in the company's decision to expand the relationship into other sectors," said Rebecca Callahan, president of SourceRight Solutions. "In addition to helping guide Siemens in future workforce decisions, we look forward to executing a total contingent labor strategy with management model and philosophy that nurtures transparency and efficiency."

SourceRight's MSP is a scalable outsourcing model that includes flexible configuration options, global program management oversight, optimized supplier management and decision support analytics. Siemens will benefit from SupplierEdge, a SourceRight delivery services solution that streamlines order processing and supplier management to ensure a measurable ROI, access to proven, high-performing preferred suppliers, performance quality and compliance with supplier diversity programs. Siemens will also gain added value from SourceRight Advisor, a workforce analytics and thought leadership solution that provides data and trend analysis to help businesses develop better-informed strategies to optimize their services and workforce management spend.

SourceRight will manage supply chain strategies across all Siemens job families, including IT, engineering, professional, technical, administrative, light and heavy industrial, and more.

Technology giant IBM has signed a five-year, multi-million dollar deal with Quippo-WTTIL for managing the telecom tower companys IT infrastructure.This is IBMs fifth such outsourcing contract in the Indian telecom space. It is already working with Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular and state-owned telco BSNL. As part of the deal, IBM will provide technical support for Quippo-WTTILs IT infrastructure system, including managing the hardware, mailing and infrastructure management software applications, IBM said in a statement.

Quippo-WTTIL manages over 38,000 telecom towers and has plans of rolling out nearly 25,000-30,000 additional towers in the next two years.

"With this agreement, our aim is not just to have an IT partner, but an enabler of growth to enhance our operational efficiencies," Quippo-WTTIL CEO Arun Kapur said.The decision to outsource the management of services is an attempt to create a unified IT environment for the efficient functioning of the joint entity, the company said on Thursday. As per the agreement, IBM will also deploy server and storage support, networking and security services at Quippo-WTTILs hosted data centre in Gurgaon. Quippo-WTTIL currently operates about 38,000 towers and plans to roll out nearly 25,000 additional towers in the next two years.

"IBMs solution for Quippo-WTTIL will help synchronise the recently merged companys everyday business needs, from e-mail to help desk support, enabling Quippo-WTTIL," IBM India/South Asia Director-Integrated Technology Services Neeraj Sharma said.

Patni, leading global IT and BPO services provider, has announced the establishment of a new North American hub for Business Process Outsourcing operations in El Paso, Texas. The move was triggered by a multiyear, multimillion-dollar BPO services contract with a leading healthcare technology and services provider. Adding the El Paso center follows through on the stated corporate strategy to invest in specific regions around the world and contribute toward generating economic opportunities in these regions. Patni has set a goal to increase the size and scope of its North American operations to adapt to market conditions that encourage the establishment of more on-shore delivery capabilities.

Establishing the new service hub expands Patnis Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) delivery capabilities to service North American customers from domestic locations in a cost-effective manner, deliver cost take-outs locally and employ highly skilled local talent. When fully staffed, it will employ more than 300 skilled professionals providing a wide range of insurance, financial services, finance and accounting, technical support and multi-lingual helpdesk services to Patnis North American clients. In addition, the BPO services deal strengthens Patnis healthcare delivery capability across the Payers and Providers segment.

Patni currently has three principal service delivery centers in the U.S. in Bloomington, Ill.; Milpitas, Calif.; and Cambridge, Mass., and is committed to adding more on-shore delivery capabilities.

"We have embarked on a plan to expand our domestic operations to address evolving customer requirements for cost-effective services from onshore locations," said Naresh Lakhanpal, EVP and President, Patni Americas. "El Paso is a preferred domestic location possessing state-of-the-art infrastructure, cost advantages, a positive business climate, support from the local government and a highly skilled work force."

The establishment of the El Paso site follows Patnis recent move to open a "nearshore" center in Queretaro, Mexico, to serve North American and Latin American markets and augment the companys global delivery capabilities. The Texas location offers Patni access to U.S. customers that either prefer to or are required by regulators to keep sensitive data processing operations on shore.

Patni plans to expand the offerings on site to deliver high-quality BPO services to a wide range of industries central to the companys mission, including life sciences, telecommunications, financial services, insurance and manufacturing.

Transaction Establishes Wipro’s First Data Center in Europe, Strengthens IT Infrastructure Management Portfolio

Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT) and Citibank N.A. (NYSE:C) announced that the companies have signed an agreement for Wipro to take over the operation and management of Citi’s data center in Meerbusch Germany, a suburb of Dusseldorf. In conjunction with the transaction, Wipro has taken the data center from Citi and intends to use the site to support other outsourcing clients. Citi will lease back office and data center space from Wipro for at least 30 months, and Wipro will provide Citi with facilities management and physical infrastructure management services during the period.

The Meerbusch, Germany center will be Wipro’s first data center facility in Europe and will enable the Company to offer a full portfolio of infrastructure management solutions to its global clients. Wipro expects the data center to support the delivery of its mainframe, Windows, Unix, Linux and AS/400 outsourcing services. In addition, the Company plans to extend its Dynamically Adaptive Infrastructure (DAI) cloud platform to the German data center. The expanded capabilities will enable Wipro to deliver comprehensive outsourcing solutions in Europe that can be managed remotely, delivered in the Company’s data center or installed on the Company’s cloud infrastructure.

“The addition of a data center in Europe represents an important milestone in the Company’s growth strategy,” stated Sameer Kishore, President of Wipro Infocrossing, the data center outsourcing practice of Wipro. “In 2007, Wipro acquired Infocrossing, a US-based provider of data center outsourcing solutions. The addition of the data center delivery capability enabled Wipro to compete more aggressively for large, total outsourcing engagements in the US. The Meerbusch facility will enable Wipro to extend its capabilities to the European market and strengthen the Company’s ability to compete for global outsourcing opportunities.”

The facility is comprised of approximately 9,000 square meters of total space, including approximately 1,700 square meters of raised floor. The facility meets the standards for a Tier III data center and has been owned and operated by Citi for more than 20 years. The agreement transfers ownership of the data center and operations to Wipro, and provides a period of up to 30 months for Citi to migrate its computing infrastructure out of the data center. As Citi vacates the facility, Wipro plans to make improvements to the data center and begin migrating new clients to the site.

“Wipro’s data center capabilities have become a key component when competing for large outsourcing engagements,” added Ralf Reich, General Manager & Country Head, Germany. “With the addition of the Meerbusch site, we will be able to deliver a full portfolio of mainframe, Windows and AS/400 outsourcing services from a Wipro data center in Europe, and extend our cloud computing platform to the region. This demonstrates our commitment to building localized and global delivery capabilities, and provides an important point of differentiation from our competitors,” Mr. Reich concluded.

The US and UK arms of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have awarded a contract for back-office information technology (IT) support to Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), India's biggest IT company, after the professional services firm announced laying off at least 500 IT employees at its Tampa Bay, Florida office, according to two PwC executives who didn't want to be identified.

TCS declined comment. Its spokesperson Pradipta Bagchi said the firm does not comment on individual clients.

Those being laid off can carry on till 31 December and apply for other "open positions" within the firm, Jonathan Stoner, spokesperson for PwC US, said in a phone interview. If they cannot get another job by then, they would be paid a generous severance package, he added.

Before the layoffs were announced, there were some 1,100 IT professionals at its Tampa Bay office, which employs over 1,800 people in all. The layoffs are part of a restructuring exercise aimed at aligning the internal IT needs of PwC's US and UK firms, according to Stoner.

These two firms would outsource IT services to an "India-based vendor", he added. He refused to name the vendor, citing company policy.

A few of those being laid off are Indians. One of them said the move has triggered "quite a stir" in Florida, more so because earlier this year, the firm cut back its tax practice in Orlando. "PwC is one of the bigger employers in Tampa," he added, requesting anonymity. "So many people laid off in one stroke is big news here."

The deal signals that large firms in the US and Europe don't want in-house IT professionals on their payrolls for back-office support, said an analyst at the Indian arm of a global consulting firm.

"Indian outsource managers typically charge two-three times the employee cost of the company closing its back office," added this person, who asked that neither he nor his firm be identified.

This is because such outsourcing includes all costs of delivery: travel, communication, establishment, etc. The company outsourcing its work saves on establishment cost.

So, if PwC was paying those being laid off at Tampa $30 million a year collectively, TCS would charge at least $50-60 million annually, he added.

Outsourcing firms such as TCS offer back-office support to so many firms that their cost of delivery is very small compared with large firms managing their own back-offices, said another analyst who, too, did not want to be identified.

"Companies such as TCS have well-evolved systems and practices, which make back-office management extremely cost-efficient," he added.

Simon Tennant, Head of Finance Consulting at PA Consulting Group writes about how empowering finance business partners, equips them with business intelligence.

Empower finance business partners and equip them with business intelligence.

Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) cannot monitor, manage or supervise every financial decision made in a company; especially where the company is over a certain size or is particularly disparate. Budgets are allocated to each department and, to a certain extent, each department then has free rein to spend it as outlined in their business plan, provided business targets are met. But in the current economic climate, a CFO can seldom afford to provide budget-holders with any slack. Clearly a certain amount of devolution is essential, but line managers within the various business departments often have their own departmental concerns in mind, more than the concerns or priorities of the CFO.

So how can adequate control be deployed?

One solution is to deploy Finance Business Partners (FBPs) throughout the business. These are individuals with finance expertise who become ‘finance ambassadors, empowered to make financial decisions, each equipped with business intelligence and the CFO’s messages and goals.

However, for a successful partnering relationship, a finance business partner’s role must go beyond the management of the planning, forecasting and budgeting cycle for the department. They should provide innovation by supporting business case development, evaluating procurement options and providing alternative solutions – rather than just being perceived and acting as the controlling hand of finance within the business.

FBPs are of greatest value when they are fed the appropriate data and become a prime customer of the business intelligence (BI) that comes from the shared service centres or internal centres of excellence. Such interaction increases FBPs’ efficiency as the data allows them to make more informed decisions and engage successfully with the relevant stakeholders. To be most effective, BI should be designed to directly feed into business decisions, allowing FBPs to drill-down into the detail when they have inspiration, and be visually uncomplicated to enable finance business partners to clearly demonstrate their proposals to the business.

Innovations and improvements in efficiency based on high quality business intelligence can be quickly shared across the business if FBPs are encouraged to collaborate and become an acknowledged community. How this can be achieved will be dependent upon the culture of the organisation, but some have used Web 2.0-based technologies and collaborative tools such as internal blogs, wikis and discussion boards as conduits through which to share best practice information and experience.

Of course against these blue skies of innovation, collaboration and business-savvy finance business partners, financial accountability and line reporting are still necessary. CFOs should expect conflict in business partnering relationships given that if FBPs are too controlling they may quarrel with the business, and if they are too lax their arguments will be with central finance. Even the best FBPs are likely to suffer private conflict as they seek to meet the sometimes incompatible needs.

Achieving a balance is vital; the worst case scenario is not where finance is too close to the business to be objective, but where finance gets cut out of business decisions as they are seen as a blocker.