Industry news

The National Trust has signed a new ten year customer management contract extension with Vertex, the global provider of BPO and CRM services.

Vertex has managed the National Trust’s outsourced membership services since November 2004. The deal extension will see Vertex continue to manage and deliver end-to-end customer services for the Trust’s membership of over 3.5 million people.

The new agreement means there will be approximately 170 Vertex employees working on the contract across two sites in the North West. The multi-channel operation services, customer care and membership queries received via the Trust’s website, email, telephone and post.  It also deals with banking, print and fulfilment provision for many of the Trust’s various marketing campaigns from a specialist site in Warrington.

Andy Copestake, Finance Director for the National Trust, commented:  “We are looking to further developing our long term strategic relationship with Vertex where we can together take full advantage of the experience, skills and enthusiasm of our people to deliver a first class service to all our supporters.”

The turbulent market is driving cost-based outsourcing, but transformational outsourcing is in for the long-haul, says EquaTerra

Economic volatility may trigger further business process transformation in the financial services sector according to new research from EquaTerra, the business advisory firm.

The research reveals that financial services firms are changing strategy in response to opportunities and threats created by globalisation. Additionally financial services outsourcing buyers have become more focused on cost avoidance and are looking at outsourcing as a means to defer or amortise investments in new IT.

However, the research found that long term outsourcing is still viewed as a strategic tool and a way of enabling business process improvement and innovation.

As a result, EquaTerra expects demand for financial services outsourcing to grow at a more rapid pace, (seven to eight per cent annually over the next five to seven years), in response to both current market challenges and opportunities.

Stan Lepeak, EquaTerra’s Managing Director of research, said: “Financial services firms understand they need to reduce complexity across the board to lower costs. A growing need to customise new product and service offerings to capitalise on emerging markets is adding urgency for operational innovation.”

Winterthur Life, a leading European insurer, has signed a contract with CSC worth over £30 million to develop a cross-business administration system.

Under the terms of the agreement, Winterthur Life intends to standardise its information technology platform for the administration of its individual and group life insurance business, enabling the company to react to the market swiftly and efficiently.

Bombardier Transportation, a global leader in transportation solutions, has signed off on an ITO contract with CSC worth over £680m.

The seven year contract marks an extension of an existing agreement that began in 2002. Under the new agreement, CSC will continue to provide Bombardier Transportation with a range of infrastructure outsourcing services including desktop, service desk, network and application management services. The deal will see CSC provide support for more than 20,000 users at sites across 33 countries around the world.

André Navarri, President of Bombardier Transportation, said: “This renewed agreement with CSC will ensure that our employees have quality IT services and support, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from anywhere in the world”.

Outgoing BT CEO Ben Verwaayen has used the platform at an international conference to lambast business for failing to "get" environmental issues, despite the fact that business has a key role (perhaps the key role) to play in sustainability.

"I think carbon is the new currency. Whether we like it or not, we will get regulation, legislation and taxation, unless we do something ourselves," Verwaayen said to a reporter at the recent INSEAD Leadership Summit 2008 on global citizenship.

India's Tata Communications has signed an equity joint venture with China Enterprise Communications Ltd to acquire a 50 percent stake in the Chinese firm for an undisclosed amount.

Amitabh Choudhary, CEO of Infosys BPO, has set a steep target of $1 billion in revenue in three years for its BPO division, a target which is four times its current revenue.

Infosys' BPO market is growing at 70 percent a year, while its IT business is growing at just 20 percent – nevertheless, still a healthy figure.

Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth MP has today launched “Defence Travel”, a new online service which enables British forces in the UK and overseas to book business travel. The service has been developed collaboratively between the Ministry of Defence (MOD), Capgemini UK plc, Hogg Robinson Group and various other suppliers.

Users of the new site will be able to book travel via air, rail, road and reserve accommodation from anywhere in the world. The service replaces a diverse portfolio of existing systems used by different units, including paper-based processes involving form-filling and the production of printed warrants. Over 300,000 Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force and MOD personnel will be able to use the service, delivering expected cost savings of around £35m annually.

Sir Ian Andrews, Second Permanent Under-Secretary at the MOD, said: “We are confident that the new service will provide a better service to users and save significant sums of money, helping to ensure that as much as possible of every pound we spend is directed to the front line where it can really make an impact on achieving our objectives.”

Vendors supporting Capgemini on the Defence Travel project include Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Cognos and KDS.

IT solutions consultancy ramsac has announced that it has been appointed to provide network support for V Festival 2008 at Hylands Park. For the fifth year in succession, ramsac has been chosen by event promoters Maztec Ltd to support the backstage network that provides Internet and email access to temporary on-site offices for the production teams and performers.

The V Festival takes place on the 16th – 17th August 2008, Hylands Park in Chelmsford, Essex and Weston Park in Staffordshire and is expected to attract over 160,000 people each day. Each of the acts billed to appear over the weekend have individual production teams that require backstage access to Internet and email. Bob Angus, Director of the V Festival explains, “It is very important that the production teams of the headline and supporting acts have Internet access and as the festival promoters, we must have access to our company network to co-ordinate all event logistics.”

Throughout the two-day Hylands Park event, ramsac will provide backstage network support and will be available for consultancy, advice and on-site support, ensuring that any technical problems are dealt with immediately.

Technical Director at ramsac, Paul Mew, comments, “We have a dedicated support team on hand throughout the weekend to ensure that all technical problems are rectified as soon as possible. Some of the supporting acts only have limited time in their dressing rooms, so it is essential that they are able to access the Internet and their emails instantly.”

Bob Angus from the V Festival adds, “ramsac has provided excellent backstage IT support for the past four years and we are very happy that they have decided to accept the challenge for the fifth year running.”

The security division of value-added distributor Bell Micro today announced findings from a new independent research report which suggests that UK businesses are still failing to address the protection of data assets on the network from staff abuse, misuse or direct theft.

Nearly half (47%) of the respondents questioned at InfoSecurity Europe 2008 believed their companies were yet to implement real-time systems that would inform IT departments if security levels were breached.

This latest research follows similar reports in recent weeks suggesting that more than one third of IT directors say that their organisations have suffered either data loss or data theft internally – not to mention, of course, the latest in a spate of public sector security lapses, from confidential documents being left on commuter trains to laptop thefts from the Home Office and Ministry of Defence.

Most respondents in IT based roles (74%) recognise, and work to protect, against the danger of rogue connections such as customer or contractor laptops, and yet almost half (43%) were failing to enforce a policy of encrypting data on portable devices - such as personal laptops, PDAs and removable media. Worse still, 62% of respondents indicated that IT departments would be unable to detect if an employee copied data off a server onto a PC, laptop, USB stick or a disk.

This is further clear evidence of the unexpected knock-on effects of increased mobility and teleworking: consumer devices, together with business laptops, Blackberrys, mobiles and PDAs are increasingly falling into a grey area of unsupported devices, or computers that serve functions both in the office, at home, and on the journey in between.

This is the logical extension of the famous incident of the IT CEO who left his laptop unattended while speaking at a security conference – when it went missing, he realised that he had essentially allowed the entire company to be stolen by a passing stranger.

Despite the latest report, It's clear that policy, governance and good management are the only viable solutions here, rather than more technology. However, the problem for CIOs, especially those dealing with networks of outsourcing partners, is balancing the increased productivity and flexibility offered by teleworking, homeshoring and homeworking (which some studies put as high as 20-25%) with the increased security risk and potential for data or equipment loss and theft.

“What these findings show is that there is still a paramount need to increase attention to data management and protection in an organisation,” said Steve Browell, general manager of the Security Division at Bell Micro. “How data is encrypted, moved and stored must move up the business agenda, otherwise we are just leaving the gates wide open for the horse to bolt. The tools are already available but vendors, distributors and resellers alike must come together to deliver better education to customers and create a total service that can deliver true data loss prevention.”

While security remains a key investment for UK businesses, this latest research suggests that critical network security services are either yet to be broadly adopted or have been purchased but incorrectly implemented.