Industry news

Indian businesses are eyeing expansion campaigns in the UK, according to research from Grant Thornton. However, while 89% of India’s mid-market see the UK as the top market to grow into, many feel that a lack of a free trade agreement between the nations could be holding them back.

In spite of mounting human rights concerns relating to India’s incumbent nationalist government, UK businesses are clamouring to get tap into the country’s market. The country’s GDP is anticipated to expand by 8.2% in the current fiscal year, in spite of the global economy’s slower performance – and its huge population of 1.4 billion people, alongside its historically cheap labour market, means there is plenty of room for further expansion in the coming years.

Workday and Cognizant have been appointed as the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and systems integration (SI) services suppliers for the government’s Matrix Programme. This will see a single shared service centre established to deliver corporate services across finance, HR and payroll for nine departments led Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). The ERP component of the contract with Workday is for ten years, with the Cognizant SI element running for five years; both parts can be extended by up to two further years. The maximum values of the deals are £81m and £63m respectively.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

University of Cambridge spin-out Neutreeno has raised $3m in seed funding in a round led by Regeneration.VC, with participation from Remarkable Ventures Climate Fund (RVC), Closed Loop Partners, Prequel Ventures, Scania Invest and Beacon Venture Capital.

Neutreeno’s tech uses proprietary process networks, material and energy flow analysis, and advanced “uncertainty models” to generate emissions data that enables enterprises to map their product lines faster—according to the company, providing insights based on as few as 10 data points per supplier whilst tracking 1,000s of products.

Read the full article here.

Accenture has announced a significant ramping-up of its collaboration with the AI chip giant through the launch of a new Accenture NVIDIA Business Group.

The move will see the services provider train 30,000 of its staff on Agentic AI systems in areas such as process reinvention, AI-powered simulation and sovereign AI.

At the core of the initiative is Accenture’s AI Refinery™️, which both leverages the full NVIDIA AI stack (NVIDIA AI Foundry, NVIDIA AI Enterprise and NVIDIA Omniverse etc) and will be available on all public and private cloud platforms.

Read the full article here.

EY UK and Ireland has appointed Anna Anthony as its next managing partner effective from 1st January 2025. The first women to head the region, Anthony replaces Hywel Ball, who will continue as UK chair until a separate selection process for this post is completed early next year.

Anna Anthony became a partner at EY over 16 years ago and has been leading the firm’s UK financial services vertical since 2021. In her current role, she is responsible for over £1bn of revenue, 250 partners and 5,000 employees

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

The firm has been having a tougher time of it for the last eighteen months or so, albeit the company’s latest set of quarterly results both saw an acceleration in sequential revenue growth and pointed to an improving outlook for the remainder of the year. Although reporting that both the strong trading headwinds in this country persist and client purse strings around discretionary expenditure here remain tightly drawn, UK Head, Rohit Gupta had positive news to report. There have been notable recent successes on the large deal front here and the firm’s expansion in the UK Public Sector also continues apace.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

On September 12th 2024, the Cabinet Office announced that the scheduled 'go-live' date for the 2023 Procurement Act was to be pushed back.

Instead of commencing on October 28th 2024, the Act will now come into effect on February 24th 2025 - a roughly 4 month delay.

In a Written Parliamentary Statement submitted on Tuesday 12th September, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet Office, Georgia Gould MP, explained that the Act's go-live date needed to be pushed back to provide time for the government to update the National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS).

Read the full article on Tussell here.

Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL) has announced a partnership with conversational AI supplier PolyAI, as it launches Customer Experience Management, a new offering seeking to “revolutionise” traditional contact centre services with next-generation AI technology.

SSCL was fully acquired by parent company Sopra Steria in 2023, having previously been a joint venture founded by Sopra Steria and the Cabinet Office. The company provides a range of business support services for the largest UK government departments and agencies, including the Ministry of Defence, and police forces. Sopra Steria had a mixed H1 amid challenging market conditions, with the election acting as a drag on its SSCL Business Process Services operation.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

Capgemini has landed deal worth up to £10.8m with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to support its Management Information (MI) Foundations and Transformation initiative. The 21-month call of contract, which contains an option to extend for a further five months, will focus on delivering improvements to DWP’s core MI application, as well as its migration to a new AWS platform.

DWP has become one of the more significant UK Public Secor accounts for Capgemini, which continues to top TMV’s Central Government SITS Supplier Rankings.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

Customer management outsourcer Firstsource has strengthened its position in the UK with the acquisition of Scottish-headquartered contact centre business Ascensos.

Ascensos has extensive operations in Scotland with business centres in Motherwell, Clydebank and Stranraer and has moved nearshore into Romania and Turkey, and more recently into South Africa and Trinidad. According to Companies House it generated operating profits of £0.7m on turnover of £64.1m in 2023 (FY 2022 £63m).