Industry news

The move in recent years to find new ways of articulating the value that suppliers believe are the real benefits of outsourcing has included discussion about how the industry defines itself. It is my view that in the next few years, we will see a split – between those business partners that move inexorably towards the ‘vested’ model and those that remain committed to the long established ‘purchase and supply’ commodity model.

William Carson, GSA A-List Member, Head of Market Engagement, Teleperformance UK

The future of the sourcing industry will be debated at Sourcing Predictions 2017, a GSA event on the 15th of December at Linklaters, 1 Silk St, London. This is a great opportunity to learn more about the trends affecting the sourcing industry.

GSA Sourcing Predictions 2017, click here.

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Flight bookings for travel to Sri Lanka during the next five months shows a modest 1.3 percent growth compared with the same time last year, according to tourism analytics firm ForwardKeys. “Our data shows that Sri Lanka deserves congratulations on a tremendous year for attracting visitors. In a competitive environment, continued effort will be needed to keep up the impressive rate of growth,” Jameson Wong, ForwardKeys, director of business development, APAC, said. In-depth analysis shows a choppy pattern. Bookings for December and January are respectively 3.5 percent and 4.1 percent ahead, but February and March are 9.8 percent and 21.3 percent behind, the company said.

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Thousands of TalkTalk and Post Office customers have had their internet access cut by an attack targeting certain types of internet routers. It is not yet known who is responsible for the attack. The attack involves the use of a modified form of the Mirai worm - a type of malware that is spread via hijacked computers, which causes damage to equipment powered by Linux-based operating systems.

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In an article on ComputerWeekly.com, it has been noted that the US has introduced wide new hacking powers for federal agents a day after the UK's Investigatory Powers Act firmed up bulk surveillance powers for intelligence and polices services. Changes to the US federal code of criminal procedure allow judges to issue search warrants that give the FBI the authority to remotely access computers in any jurisdiction, reports Reuters. It’s an interesting article and again emphasises the importance of the cyber security industry to the future of business.

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The government agency tasked with safeguarding the state and critical national infrastructure from cyberattacks is significantly under-resourced and has limited capacity to respond to such events, according to The Times. Internal documents show that the National Cyber Security Centre needs a significant increase in investment to adopt EU security requirements and thwart attacks on government infrastructure and major companies.

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The private sector dominated the UK outsourcing market in the first three quarters of 2016 amid an overall slowdown in activity, according to the Arvato UK Outsourcing Index. The research, compiled by business process outsourcing (BPO) provider Arvato and industry analyst NelsonHall, found that businesses spent £3.18 billion on BPO and IT outsourcing in the period January to September, double the value of contracts agreed year-on-year. According to the findings, the financial services and telecoms industries were the most active buyers of outsourced services.

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Sourcingfocus talks to Jamie Tyler, the Director of Digital Transformation and Innovation at CenturyLink about predictions for the industry.

“In 2017, we will see more demand for intelligent services and devices - this will be powered by more advanced algorithms, AI and advanced machine learning. These technologies will provide the ability for these services/devices to start to understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. For example, retailers will provide more reliable online recommendation systems for customers, driverless cars will be smart enough to be rolled out to consumers, security architecture will be more adaptive and permeate all technology processes, etc. Although culturally we, as humans, may not be ready to accept all these new advances.

At CenturyLink, we are seeing our customers move more towards digital outcomes, one of the challenges that businesses are facing is having a more traditional IT system based around 18 month contracts, working in a traditional way around project management and software development. When we move into the rapid development, digital culture, business and culture is struggling to adapt from months and years to days and weeks, it is a struggle to find the skills to adapt to a more agile system of design and implementation. Customers want to make this change but are struggling to do it at a pace as they move over whole operations, which takes time.

One of the key initiatives that CenturyLink has pursued over 2016 is around creating a security platform, what we have classed as a managed security service. And the key thing that makes that platform effective is the ability to predict, it’s using data science and analytics to digest data and predict the likely outcome and then look for strange behaviour, hence identifying a hack before it occurred. Even if it is a false positive initially, the platform learns the more data it has. This is the platform we have been driving with the federal services in the United States, and now it is becoming a more global offering.

In 2017, tackling the complexity challenge will become a top CIO priority as companies tackle ambitious and digital transformation projects (within finite budgets) that will help companies transform their propositions, ways of working and help keep them ahead of the competition.“

At CenturyLink we work with CEO’s to do some skills mapping to understand where their skills are today, because when we look at it from a digital perspective a lot of what is going on is around the modern tech, and new programming being developed, when you look at Big Data and analytics, it is about mapping those sectors in the business today.

The political climate has changed too. Starting with Brexit, because we have not done it yet, we don’t fully understand the outcomes that will emerge. At CenturyLink, we are driven by our customers’ demands so it is very much about supporting the customer globally. Whatever the President-elect does during his term at the White house, we will have the same attitude around meeting customer demand.

We are no longer in a transactional business, we are moving towards an agile, more responsive industry where we are as flexible as possible to the customers’ needs and demands, and the customer is at the centre of all we do. It’s no longer hearing what the customer wants and taking it to them. It’s about the customer telling us what the need to support their business initiatives and strategies.

The GSA UK Sourcing Predictions event is fast approaching and as 2016 draws to a close, understanding the landscape of the sourcing market of 2017 and beyond is crucial. Topics such as cyber security and geopolitics will be discussed at the event following high profile stories in both areas (reported on by Sourcing Focus).

“In 2017, we’ll see a renewed effort by government regulators to accelerate the implementation of security technologies. Ignoring the regulations or inching toward adherence will no longer be acceptable. Extensive progress will be expected – and required” said Tom Kemp, CEO of Centrify on the importance of cyber security.

Robert Barbus, Operations Director of Soitron Group notes that “Trump has been vehemently outspoken with his anti-outsourcing stance during his election campaign, but I expect this to soften once he becomes president. He would need to put specific trade tariffs on India and other major offshoring countries, however this will be seen as a major anti-business tact. Knowing Trump's style of business, I can't see how he's going to put more restrictions on businesses, including his own empire.” In the changing times we live in predicting the future is difficult, but the debate is always interesting.

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The OECD has released its growth projections for the coming few years and it makes sober reading for the UK government, predicting slower growth than the forecast made in the budget last week. India and Indonesia look like strong prospects and growth in the United States is expected to be buoyant. Unemployment predictions remain high for the southern European nations and inflation predictions remain rampant in Argentina. There is a fantastic interactive map to discover more with this link.

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British Airways is considering outsourcing more than 1,000 UK-based call centre jobs as part of an attempt to cut costs. According to the Telegraph, the airline, owned by International Airlines Group (IAG), has asked third party outsourcers to bid to assess its call centres in Newcastle and Manchester, which employ a total of 1,400 people, with a view to delivering savings by shifting jobs offshore or cutting the number of people needed.

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