Industry news

Siemens Energy has won a major contract from Fluor Ltd. to connect Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm to the British power grid.

The volume of the order for the grid connection is approximately EUR84 million. The Greater Gabbard project will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm.

Siemens will also supply 140 wind turbines for this project, which will be constructed 25 km off the coast of Suffolk in the UK.

Udo Niehage, CEO of the Power Transmission Division of the Siemens Energy Sector, said, “Siemens Energy has a unique wind power portfolio. Not only do we manufacture and supply high-tech wind turbines, we also efficiently connect wind farms to the grid”.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Africa as a continent has tremendous potential for growth through outsourcing, with many of its countries offering excellent English, French and other European language skills, good standards of education, a strong cultural affinity, and near-European timezones.

However, Africa as a whole has suffered from the perceived political and economic instability of a handful of its countries, and from the perception of it having a uniformly poor infrastructure and an ailing overall economy.

Good news, then, that Nigeria is taking steps to change that perception and grab a slice of the IT and BPO pie.

The Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has announced its intention to expand the country’s business and information technology outsourcing capacity, and to reposition the NEPC itself to harness the potential of Nigeria's services sector.

Acting executive director Aliyu Lawal, said: “Over the years, NEPC has been aggressively promoting the development of our local products for export, but in recent times, we have discovered that there is even more money to be made from the export of quality services from the country.”

Lawal said he recognised that innovation and efficiency are crucial to the growth of new service industries, especially those enabled by online communications.

The NEPC clearly sees the need to talk to Nigeria's friends and neighbours to expand the initiative elsewhere in Africa. The local 'Bridges Across Borders' scheme was set up by the International Trade Centre to encourage cross-border trade in services within a multilateral trading system, and Nigeria will host the fifth event under the banner in October this year.

As I said in the same recent blog, Africa as a whole has been taking a number of small steps (if not yet giant leaps) towards being a centre for offshore BPO services. Ghana, Morocco, Egypt and Senegal are all on analysts’ radar, with Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa also becoming increasingly vocal about the potential for growth.

Although South Africa's progress has stalled against its relatively modest BPO targets, lets hope other countries in the region have greater success. What's needed is a demonstration of a robust local infrastructure together with governments that talk up their skills and potential.

Small businesses and outsourcing are not always obvious bedfellows, but new research has revealed a prejudice against smaller enterprises that has implications for the outsourcing industry, not to mention the economy as a whole.

As the UK's economic woes deepen, with inflation heading towards five percent, BT Business and Cisco have commissioned independent research among procurement managers within 250-plus employee businesses to determine what they look for from small-business suppliers (companies with fewer than 250 employees) when awarding contracts.

The research has revealed a bias against small business suppliers in favour of their larger competitors, especially in economically turbulent times.

Top-line statistics from the research include these findings:

• 40 percent say they would be less likely to choose a small business supplier in a slowing economy;

• 42 percent would select a larger supplier over a smaller one, believing that big enterprises are a safer option in the long run - even though both may offer the same products or services;

• Almost half (48 percent) have lengthened their payment periods or would consider doing so as a result of slowing economic conditions;

• 52 percent of private sector businesses believe that SME suppliers are less competitive than their larger counterparts;

• 53 percent expect a better overall service from SMEs than they do from larger business - increasing the pressure on small suppliers.

The research also investigated procurement managers' attitudes to outsourcing and how this might impact on their decision-making when selecting a new supplier.

Of significant interest to the outsourcing industry are the following key findings:

• Forty percent of those questioned admitted that what a supplier chooses to outsource would be a major factor in their decision.

• Just over one quarter (26 percent) claimed they would prefer to work with a company that does everything in house;

• One in four said they would be concerned if a supplier outsourced its customer service.

So, with smaller businesses both powering the economy and feeling the sharpest pinch from rising costs, and with many outsourcers seeing the downturn as an opportunity, we have a more highly combustible situation than many realise.

If small businesses choose to seek third-party help or customer service to cut their own costs and hedge against uncertainty, but major customers walk away because of it, then this area of high pressure could worsen 'the perfect storm'.

Infosys Technologies Ltd. has announced that it has commenced work on its second campus at Pocharam in Hyderabad, India.

The campus will be spread over 447 acres with a total investment of £154m. The facility is expected to seat over 25,000 people and will be completed over a period of 10 years.

As a part of its drive to become carbon neutral, Infosys is designing this campus on best-in-class sustainability principles to achieve energy efficiency, water sustainability, preservation and promotion of biodiversity and effective waste management.

Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy chairman of the board and chief mentor at Infosys commented, "We are delighted to commence work on the new campus”.

Transport for London (TfL) is to terminate a £100m per year Oyster contract.

The contract with Transys will end after a two year notice period.

In an official statement, TfL explained, "The Mayor and Transport for London are convinced that any new contract will deliver enhanced services for less money, driving significant savings."

Shashi Verma, TfL's director of fares and ticketing, commented, “Transport for London is committed to delivering value for money across all of its services. As part of this, we are looking at more cost effective ways to manage and develop the Oyster card system. We expect to save millions over the next few years.”

Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel) have selected Oracle to optimise their national fibre optic network.

Jai Menon, director of customer service and information technology at Airtel, stated, "we have used Oracle's technology, business applications and communications industry applications for 10 years. The new network discovery and reconciliation product will enhance Airtel's network utilization leading to improved customer satisfaction".

Bhaskar Gorti, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications, commented "Airtel's implementation of Oracle Communications Network Integrity will be one of the first with such a widespread scale and complexity".

One hundred CIOs of UK companies have been surveyed on green issues in IT outsourcing.

Seventy Six percent of CIOs surveyed by Fujitsu held the viewpoint that the carbon footprint of outsourced IT operations should still count towards the overall footprint of their organisation. Almost a quarter believe the opposite and expect the contracting company to become responsible.

The research also showed that significant numbers of IT departments are not yet even measuring the contribution of IT to their own organisation’s carbon footprint.

With this in mind, Fujitsu is keen to open an industry wide debate on this issue in a bid to gain consensus. They are looking for agreement on a common set of principles governing the ownership of the carbon footprint of outsourced IT.

Sapient announced that it has acquired London-based Derivatives Consulting Group Limited (DCG), a provider of derivatives consulting and outsourcing services to the financial market.

The addition of DCG will increase Sapient’s ability to address derivatives and operations issues.

Sapient president and chief executive officer Alan Herrick commented, “Today's volatile markets and increasingly strict regulatory environments make this an opportune time to add DCG’s capabilities to our trading and risk management (TRM) practice”.

Cameron Munro, co-chief executive officer at DCG said, “This acquisition makes perfect sense for our clients and our organisation".

Glasgow-based customer contact centre outsourcer Response has won a new three-year deal with Sky.

Under the new contract, Response will deliver a variety of sales and customer service activities on behalf of Sky.

Dave Rumble, Sales Operations Director for Sky commented,“As an organisation, we look to create long-term partnerships with suppliers that can deliver flexibility, additional value and certainty for our customers. “We believe that we have found this in Response, and we look forward to working together over the upcoming months and years.”

Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch have selected SWIFT to develop and operate a centralised pre-settlement matching solution.

The new solution is set to reduce cost and risk for prime and executing brokers of processing hedge fund trades globally.

Today, discrepancies between trade details submitted to prime brokers by hedge funds on one hand, and their executing brokers on the other, are a source of considerable operational risk.

The brokers have agreed to oversee and provide transparency to the market on the evolution of the project.

Gottfried Leibbrandt, Head of Markets at SWIFT, commented “We are delighted to have been chosen by this group of major prime brokers to provide a pre-settlement matching solution to the equity and fixed income markets, in addition to our existing FX matching capabilities.”