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Leeds City Council has chosen Sopra Steria Recruitment (SSR) as one of six service providers to supply all temporary and permanent ICT resources for the council over the next four years.

The decision was made after a highly competitive tendering process, where candidates were judged by their ability to deliver critical business projects and IT support, as well as their track records for doing so.

“In winning a place as a preferred supplier to Leeds City Council, we intend to ensure that the opportunity is maximised so that the council realises its resourcing and recruitment ambitions, through SSR’s focus on delivery excellence,” said Peter Holliday, managing director at Sopra Steria Recruitment.

“This win helps cement the SSR aspiration of growing as leaders in recruitment transformation by delivering our full portfolio of services including candidate assurance, candidate selection, recruitment outsourcing, and onsite direct recruitment.”

Leeds is just one of many councils embracing outsourcing in order to deal with the latest set of austerity measures.

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Related: Local councils must find extra £1 billion by 2020 to fund new minimum wage

Lee Kuan Yew, founding father of modern Singapore, first visited Sri Lanka in 1956 in search of a blueprint for post-colonial success. Both were small south Asian nations previously under British rule; however the fate of the two since those days could not have been more different. Singapore has arguably become the most successful post-colonial nation on earth, establishing itself as a global financial hub and growing its GDP per capita from $515 in 1965 to around $55,000 today. Sri Lanka went on to suffer decades of ethnic conflict, corruption, and backward economic policy, losing many of its brightest citizens in the process as they went abroad in search of greater opportunity and stability.

Now six years on from the end of the war that ended in 2009, Sri Lanka is finally seeing its fortunes on the rise, posting GDP growth of 7.4 per cent in 2014 and forecasted to at least match that this year and next despite a certain degree of political uncertainty that would usually leave foreign investors nervously holding back.

Amongst its traditional exports such as tea and garments, outsourcing is becoming one of the largest foreign exchange earners in the country and Sri Lanka is leveraging its British connection to create new opportunities for its people. It is not just the English language, ubiquitous in key cities like Colombo, which stands out. Free education all the way up to university level ensures a well-educated talent pool, and the CIMA, the professional body for management accountants, has more Sri Lankan members than any other country outside of Britain. In contrast to the Philippines for example which is very US focused, Sri Lanka’s background means it can provide F&A, legal, and medical services to clients from the UK with far less cultural adjustments needed.

The forward momentum is such that Sri Lanka won ‘offshoring destination of the year’ in the NOA’s 2014 awards ceremony. It is not the first time that the country of 21 million is punching above its weight amongst its much larger neighbours such as India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. In the face of ethical concerns engulfing the apparel industry it launched its ‘garments without guilt’ initiative in 2008; improving the credibility of its textile industry that counts Victoria’s Secret and Marks and Spencer on the list of global names that choose to source large amounts of garments from Sri Lanka. When the London Stock Exchange launched a global RFP for a faster trading platform in 2009, many were surprised to see that it was a small Sri Lankan software company that won the bid. MillenniumIT is now a fully owned subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group and is attracting top talent from the financial technology sector to its Malabe headquarters, such as CEO Mack Gill, a Canadian with a Master’s from Yale who was formerly president of SunGard Technology Services.

At the other end of the scale entrepreneurs are getting in on the act too, such as Prasad Hettiarachchi of Agaya Holdings, a small KPO operation based out of Colombo that offer document extraction services to clients as far afield as Australia and the USA. “I wanted to be my own boss by the age of 40 and the outsourcing industry will grow at double the pace of GDP here in Sri Lanka for the foreseeable future.” he says. In the long term the company hopes to move into big data analytics and sees the UK as a key market both for new clients and potential business partnerships.

As Sri Lanka continues to develop and grow, so too does its relationship with Britain, from colonial history to a future of partnership and commercial opportunity which both nations can benefit from greatly. Outsourcing forms just a small part of this complex new relationship but it should be recognised as a force for good in developing better global relations and helping a country move on from its troubled past.

James Bruce is an outsourcing consultant for Envoy Holdings, and Managing Director of First Shore Limited.

View James' LinkedIn profile.

Across a wide variety of sectors, buyers of outsourcing are starting to expect more transparency from their service providers.

This is partially due to the rise of online price comparison sites such as Priceline, Confused.com and CompareTheMarket.com. These websites are now frequently put to use by consumers making online purchases. Buyers in charge of outsourcing also use these sites, and they’re beginning to wonder why there’s no equivalent for real time pricing, ranking and reviews in their B2B procurement processes.

Another issue is the seemingly arbitrary way in which suppliers bundle services in their contracts together. Comparing these services on a “like-for-like” basis is often a struggle, and gives buyers cause to believe that they’re paying more than they should be (regardless of whether this is actually the case.)

Now, many service providers would happily be entirely transparent in their procurement dealings - in theory. However, providing transparency to this extent becomes extremely time-consuming, and is often so prone to human error that the ultimate lack of accuracy can defeat the point of the project in the first place.

As with many procedures in the BPO space, technology is on the verge of changing things for the better. It is now possible for systems to automatically collect this information on the supplier’s behalf; with enough service providers using a uniform system, buyers could be armed with the most up-to-date supplier information concerning quality and pricing every time they procure services.

Such technology is already being put to use. Opportune, a cloud-based benchmarking and savings engine recently launched by the leading SaaS developer Mtivity, is the perfect example, and an unparalleled first in the procurement space. The tool can be used by buyers to extensively compare and contrast potential service providers in real time, drawing on large amounts of data from a huge number of sources.

The scope of the engine is impressive. It allows buyers to interrogate historical data, client specific benchmarks, procurement rate cards, previously run jobs and much more. New data is analysed from the moment it is added, making insights more and more comprehensive as the input increases. Essentially the more buyers use the tool, the smarter it gets!

The benefits of such an application are obvious. Buyers can ensure they achieve significant cost-savings and efficiency gains by choosing the most suitable provider for every job, while the suppliers that genuinely deliver great value can actively demonstrate this and be recognised for doing so.

According to Mtivity, Opportune has already been soft launched among a number of existing clients, with over one million transactions processed through the engine to date. Using Opportune has resulted in an average of 148 per cent in efficiency gains and double digit profit margin increases for those clients.

Now that Mtivity has made Opportune available to the wider market, others involved in the procurement process can benefit in the same way, particularly in marketing and BPO fields where Mtivity specialise.

The future use of such engines has the potential to revolutionise procurement from a transparency perspective.

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The Metropolitan Police has formally made the decision to outsource finance, procurement and HR to Shared Services Connected Limited (SSCL), the majority of which is owned by Sopra Steria.

The business case for the new outsourcing partnership has now been passed on to the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime for final approval.

The decision came after the Met completed market-testing for the three services, where the future impact of both outsourcing and keeping services in-house was considered. The analysis found that “in order to match the financial performance benefits of a market solution, [their] existing in-house business support services could not make the changes required.”

Deputy assistant commissioner Craig Mackey added that the alternative solution to outsourcing would have seen 30 per cent staff cuts in order to meet the required cost savings.

The Met has been debating the decision to outsource back office services for months, in order to find £800 million in savings by 2020. The Force will be looking to replicate the success of Cleveland Police – its five-year relationship with Sopra Steria has successfully achieved cost-savings, highly integrated processes and more police officers back on the front line.

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Related: Metropolitan Police Weighs Up Pros and Cons of Back Office Outsourcing

A report published by Everest Group has found that over 70 per cent of enterprises see cyber security as a major concern when adopting new digital technologies such as social media, mobility, cloud and analytics, yet over 40 per cent of those organisations have not invested in digital security sufficiently.

Everest writes that “this creates significant opportunity for service providers; however, only those providers who can architect a security ecosystem for the modern digital enterprise will succeed.”

The infrastructure services market grew by roughly 0.6 per cent in 2014, well behind the overall growth of the IT services market (2.4 per cent), demonstrating that many ITOs are yet to cash in on this opportunity.

Yugal Joshi, practice director at Everest, commented: “Enterprises realize that digital adoption is a vital business strategy for being agile and nimble in the marketplace. Though enterprises have aggressively expanded the mandate of cyber security in light of digital adoption, they are still not giving it the attention that is due. We believe this creates significant opportunities for service providers to demonstrate differentiated capabilities across digital and security services.”

The full report “Digital Businesses: Mind Your Security” is available to download on the Everest Research website.

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Related: Xchanging finds supply chain risk is the greatest external challenge for businesses

Thurrock Council has elected to terminate its strategic services partnership with Serco which was originally intended to continue until at least 2019.

This is not due to any incompetence on the service provider’s part. In a press release, the council stated that “overall Serco has provided appropriate quality services, which have met the requirements of the contract which was negotiated in 2004.”

However, Thurrock Council’s assistant CEO Steve Cox said that ending the contract was still ultimately necessary:

“A world dominated today by austerity and budget cuts is very different to that envisaged in 2004 when this contract was signed and as we continue to shape a different way forward for Thurrock Council.

Both Serco and the council came to realise this and a series of tough, but fair negotiations began, culminating in [this] announcement.”

The cost of the contract termination is yet to be disclosed, with some sources suggesting that it could be in the range of £5 million to £9 million.

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Related: Serco makes new plans for India BPO with few buyers in sight

Numerous Scottish politicians are up in arms after the newspaper publisher Scottish Provincial Press (SPP) outsourced work to India, making 11 local employees redundant in the process.

SNP MP Paul Monaghan, and Labour councillors Deirdre Mackay and Sean Morton, have all publically attacked the move, claiming that the local economy is struggling as it is and needs jobs of this sort coming in, not going out.

However, the publisher has retorted that the decision was made in order to protect over 240 roles within the company, with SPP managing director Thelma Henderson referring to the decision as “sensible business”.

Councillors Mackay and Morton have launched a petition in protest, while Mr Monaghan has called on SPP to reverse the decision in order to “preserve links” between itself and the Highland communities.

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Related: arvato partners with NHS National Services Scotland on HR delivery contract

Prolonged austerity measures have given Britain’s local councils cause to think more innovatively about how to simultaneously provide services and save money, with outsourcing often at the heart of their strategies.

According to the FT, councils from Suffolk to Kent are positioning themselves as trading companies and commissioners, rather than direct providers of services. Research undertaken by Localis, the local government think-tank, has shown that the vast majority of councils share some services with their counterparts, over half own a trading company and, going by current trends, almost all will do so by 2020.

“Councils are setting the pace because they have faced tough finances for longer. They are more confident than central government in outsourcing, merging the back office and joining up front-line services,” commented Andrew Haldenby, director of pro-market think tank Reform.

Recent analysis conducted by the Local Government Association found that UK councils will have to find an extra £1 billion by 2020 in order to fund the new minimum wage proposed in the government’s summer Budget.

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Related: UNISON expresses concerns over Northamptonshire County Council’s extensive outsourcing

Tata Motors has hired Accenture to instigate an “organisational restructuring and performance improvement programme” in order to cut down on unnecessarily bureaucratic decision-making.

While Tata Motors is currently India’s largest vehicle manufacturer, competition along the lines of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and Maruti Suzuki India Ltd is gaining ground. It’s thought that a nimbler, streamlined operation would help Tata widen the gap between itself and those contenders.

Accenture is expected to increase the output of Tata Motors’ 28,000 employees, as well as achieve particular benchmarks involving sales across multiple divisions. Restructuring, performance management, leadership development and an HR systems overhaul have all be cited as responsibilities that will be part of Accenture’s remit.

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Related: TNT chooses Accenture for five-year back office deal

Capgemini and SSP, the global provider of insurance technology, have entered into a services agreement to help insurance companies replace legacy systems and “accelerate their digital ambition[s].”

Two leading UK insurers have already chosen SSP Select Insurance within the last three months. SSP’s work, which is already underway, involves the instigation of digital programmes focused on both UK households and automotive businesses. Capgemini is already actively supporting the work.

"In today's increasingly competitive market, flexibility and the ability to provide a consistent experience to customers across all channels is more important than ever,” said Stephen Lathrope, managing director of SSP’s Insurer division.

“We are delighted to be working with Capgemini to add to our ability to create innovative digital insurance solutions for our customers, and to accelerate the pace with which we are able to help them to realize these ambitions."

Nigel Walsh, vice president and head of UK insurance at Capgemini, commented: "Insurers are looking for cost-effective ways to create the capabilities that they need in order to drive profitable growth. Legacy platforms don't provide the flexibility or agility that insurers need in order to compete successfully, but implementing new platforms and achieving a smooth migration can be challenging.

“Capgemini has a strong record in working with insurers from digital strategy to design, implement, and run business critical systems. We are delighted to be working with SSP and the Select Insurance product."

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Related: Capgemini finalises acquisition of IGATE