Industry news

G4S’s annual general meeting on Thursday 4th June 2015 descended into chaos after a number of protestors disrupted proceedings and had to be forcibly carried out of the venue by guards.

On the day of the meeting it was announced that all electronic devices would be banned from the venue; despite this, parts of the protest were successfully filmed by one activist.

On the YouTube page where the video was uploaded, those behind the demonstration claim that they were “protesting against [G4S’s] profit from oppression, state violence and human rights abuses everywhere… From G4S-run prisons in Israel where Palestinians are tortured and held without charge, to the killing of Jimmy Mubenga during his deportation from the UK by G4S security.”

A G4S spokesman recently told IBTimes: "The G4S board has already announced that the company does not intend to renew these contracts [in Israel] as they expire over the next two years."

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: G4S to Confiscate Shareholder Mobile Phones at Annual General Meeting

Executives at Wipro have announced that the company will be introducing average wage hikes of seven per cent, keeping it in line with rival Indian service providers Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys.

Wipro also said in April that it would reward top performers with double-digit salary hikes.

Earlier this year, TCS increased the wages of its employees by an average of eight per cent, while Infosys introduced salary increases of six-and-a-half per cent.

“The average salary hike would be seven per cent for offshore employees and two per cent for onsite employees, respectively, with high performers being rewarded with substantially higher increases in their compensation," said Saurabh Govil, Global Head of Human Resources at Wipro.

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: Wipro, Infosys and TCS See Europe as an “Achilles Heel”

European datacentre Telecity has agreed to be bought by US datacentre giant Equinix for £2.3 billion, rejecting its planned merger with Interxion which was agreed back in April in the process.

After German regulators had given the green light, it was expected that Telecity and Interxion Holding would be going in for an all-share merger, creating a new company with a combined value of over £3 billion.

There is now speculation that Interxion itself is a potential acquisition target. Digital Realty Trust and CoreSite Realty Corp have both been tipped as potential buyers for the Amsterdam-based firm.

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: Telecity - Interxion Merger Gets the Green Light

Accenture and Everest Group Research have released their report “High Performance BPO: the Value Multiplier Effect.”

According to the report, one in five of the companies surveyed have found the secret to extracting the highest number of benefits from their outsourcing engagements. The report reveals the “secrets of BPO high performers” by comparing where high performers and typical performers differ in their priorities.

Here are the key findings:

• 69 per cent of high performers said gaining access to technology in a BPO relationship was important; only 27 per cent of typical performers agreed

• 78 per cent of high performers stated that their BPO relationships enabled the augmentation of their talent pool, compared to 19 per cent of typical performers

• 76 per cent of higher performers saw “access to industry and process expertise” as an important priority; this was just 38 per cent for the typical performers

Learn more from this Accenture slideshare presentation.

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: Outsourcing Budgets Overspent on Reducing IT Costs, Research Finds

G4S has announced that it will be confiscating the mobile phones of shareholders and media representatives at its annual general meeting on Thursday 4th June 2015. Even G4S staff and board directors will not be permitted to bring smartphones into the vicinity.

The security and outsourcing company is attempting to prevent a repeat of last year’s meeting, where activists who had bought G4S shares in order to attend staged a protest against the firm’s activities and filmed the entire process.

The Guardian has reported it is likely that protesters from a group known as Stop G4S will be attending this year’s AGM.

A spokesman from G4S commented: “Last year we had a large number of protesters who were effectively staging demonstrations in the meeting and they were filming it.

“The intention is not to suppress the legitimate free speech of people but it is just simply to maintain some degree of security for our people in the meeting. That is the rationale.”

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: G4S Chief Accepts 73% Pay Rise

Capita has successfully bought Isys Group, the specialist developer of powerful workforce and workplace management systems, responsible for the development of the “Intelligent Identify” ID verification software.

Isys has over 500 customer internationally in sectors including banking, facility management and online gaming, all of which Capita will now have access to.

Sean Massey, managing director of Capita’s secure software and technology business, said: “Isys Group has developed its best-of-breed applications over 15 years.

“The acquisition is a great strategic fit with Capita’s existing markets and portfolio of solutions and services. It will enhance our capabilities and create new opportunities to deliver services to our clients, such as automatically feeding information about employee attendance and hours directly into their payroll systems.”

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: Capita Acquires IT Solutions Provider Pervasive

Capgemini has secured a multi-million pound contract extension with Nokia, meaning the global BPO company will continue to provide Nokia with worldwide order management operation services until at least 2020.

The original contract, which involved preparation for delivery, distribution and customer invoicing, was due to expire in 2017. It is now confirmed that Capgemini will continue to provide all of these services for Nokia.

C-level representatives from both sides have expressed their delight with the contract renewal.

“We are very pleased to continue and deepen our relationship with Capgemini building on a successful Supply Chain transformation partnership initiated in 2010, which has resulted in cost optimization, quality enhancement and global process harmonization,” said Johannes Giloth, Senior Vice President Global Operations at Nokia Networks.

“We recognize Capgemini as Supply Chain experts and look forward to developing our relationship into new areas to support our business growth.”

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: Capgemini Acquires IGATE: Hear from the CEOs

The UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has contracted ServiceNow, the enterprise cloud company, to assist with the disaggregating of its largest IT outsourcing contracts.

The DWP’s aim is to increase efficiency and improve the delivery of its current set-up of IT services. The department currently administers the state pension and a wide variety of benefits to over 22 million claimants and customers.

Along with other targets, ServiceNow intends to “help gain insight into which services are not used, keeping only the ones the department considers necessary and useful” and “increase engagement with smaller, more specialized suppliers.”

“Service integration and management (SIAM) can help government departments to manage their often numerous service providers in a more consistent and efficient way,” said Kevin Tumulty, EMEA vice president at ServiceNow. “This helps them drive greater efficiencies and reduce the cost of service provisioning, resulting in better services.”

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: Government Clamps Down on NHS Procurement, Consultant and Agency Spending

After losing its viability as a location for outsourcing back in 2010, Egypt looks set to become a serious destination contender for nearshore service delivery of ITO and BPO five years down the line.

Between 2006 and 2010, Egypt’s IT International Development Agency (ITIDA) ran a successful “Egypt On” campaign for outsourcing that was making good traction. Now, with a graduate pool of 500,000 and 49 per cent of the population working in the services sector, Egypt could be in a prime position to take new business from nearshore companies overseas.

Kerry Hallard, CEO of the National Outsourcing Association, recently visited Cairo to attend an ITIDA investor briefing conference. She commented: “I can unequivocally say Egypt is looking in good shape. Costs remain significantly lower than most nearshore destinations, such as Poland, scalability is good, the graduate talent pool is high, and the domestic and regional markets are growing. Infrastructure is robust, connectivity strong and the willingness of the people infectious.”

You can read Kerry Hallard’s full article “Offshore Outsourcing: Egypt is back On” on the NOA website blog.

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: Soitron’s Destination Analysis: Spotlight on Slovakia

In return for a promised extra £8 billion a year in funding, the new Conservative government expects managers in the NHS to save money by cutting down on procurement, agency and consultancy costs.

Hospitals will no longer be permitted to enter into any management consultancy contract worth over £50,000 without special permission. The hiring of doctors and nurses from unapproved agencies will be banned; those that are hired from agencies will have their hourly wages capped. Hospitals will also be expected to buy goods and services centrally, in order to cut down on procurement costs.

Conservative health secretary Jeremy Hunt claimed that it was the NHS’s turn to “deliver its side of the bargain for patients by eliminating waste.

“It’s outrageous that taxpayers are being taken for a ride by companies charging up to £3,500 a shift for a doctor. The NHS is bigger than all of these companies, so we’ll use that bargaining power to drive down rates.”

For weekly news updates, subscribe to our email newsletter.

Related: Civica Wins King’s College Hospital Contract