Industry news

Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude has confirmed he will not be standing for re-election at the forthcoming General Election and will therefore be standing down from Parliament. Speculation has already begun as who will replace him and take over the responsibility of the Government Digital Service. After nearly 5 years as Cabinet Minister, Maude has helped cut the costs of government IT and helped the public sector be more SME friendly, the Government Digital Service has been so successful it is now been copied by the USA and Australia.

Cameron told ethical standards from public services should also apply to outsourced contract provide

ISG’s quarterly report EMEA ISG Outsourcing Index revealed a 7% growth in the EMEA outsourcing market in 2014. The market growth appears to have been driven in part to by the increased growth of 125% outsourcing activity in France. The UK saw growth of 11% as annual contract value grew from €3 billion to €3.4 billion in spite of the 11% in contract count. The report also showed a strong growth in ITO and uneven results in BPO.

ISG research shows British outsourcing groups are dominating public sector contracts

Bank of Ireland has signed a seven year contract with BancTec to take over their cheque clearing division. The 130 staff currently in the division will have options of transition to BancTec, seek redeployment opportunities within the bank or take voluntary redundancy. Bank of Ireland have made this decision as part of its operation to improve efficiencies and reduce its employee cost base.

Bank of Ireland selects Accenture for outsourced technology role

The Met Police have received criticism from the leader of the union representing police back-office workers over plans to outsource this function. The Union expressed concerns over the processing of sensitive information.

Outsourcing provider Steria will provide HR, Payroll and procurement service in a joint venture with the government known as Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL). Steria is the majority owner with 75% stake with the government taking the remaining balance. The 10 year deal is part of the governments next generation shared services programme.

Metropolitan Police Service tenders for SIAM contract

NHS England is planning to complete the transition to their new outsourcing contract for primary care support (PCS) services by June. They hope to have signed with the chosen vendor by May but this might be delayed until after the General Election. Three suppliers are currently shortlisted for the £1bn contract, Capgemini with South East Commissioning Support Unit; Capita with Anglian Community Enterprise and Equiniti.

Patient safety fears over NHS outsourcing

Li Ka-shing is reportedly to be in talks to buy Britain's second-largest mobile provider O2 for up to £10.25bn ($15.4bn) from Spain's Telefonica.

The 86 year-olds firm, Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa, already owns the Three mobile network, and combining it with O2 would create the UK's biggest mobile group.

As it would reduce the number of operators in the UK from four to three, it is likely to meet scrutiny from competition regulators. With BT group in talks to by EE, consolidation is already very likely within the telecommunications sector.

Telefonica moves ahead with joint offer for TIM Brasil

Sheffield County Council have signed a contract extension with Capita to continue to provide IT services. The original seven year partnership was set up in 2009 has now been extended for up to a further six years. A report by Sheffield Council found moving to a different model would cost around £800,000. Capita have announced the extension is worth £140 - £170m in additional revenue.

Blackburn council to renegotiate Capita contract

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) have awarded Deloitte a £3.2m contract to provide them with assistance and support with their ICT requirements and delivery of the Recruiting Partnering Project (RPP), which is a ICT platform across the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force. The RPP contract was signed in March 2012 with Capita however has not achieved Full Operating Capability due to the need for a new ICT system.

MoD outsourcing strategy revealed

It goes without saying that new technologies have had a great impact on the workplace and how businesses function at an operational level. The use of automation software and cloud computing are reducing the need for low-cost operatives to carry out business processes. But is automation really contributing to long-term business growth or effective decision-making?

Business process automation is the technology-enabled automation of activities. It is a way to streamline operational processes, by eliminating unnecessary tasks, realigning steps and, crucially, optimising information flow. With the relevant automation system, a company is not only in a position to reduce staff workload, so they are freed from menial activities to focus on critical tasks, but maintain the quality of operations at very low costs.

Although the adoption of automation is widespread in the business world, fewer companies invest in business intelligence to generate the data required to make smart decisions. This means business leaders are not basing their decisions on up-to-date business critical data, but on often out of date reports. They are driving while looking in the rear view mirror.

One of the benefits of automation is that data capturing can be automatic. When analysed this data can offer previously unseen insight into business operations such as identifying opportunity gaps or bottlenecks in business flow.

While business automation can save time and money, businesses are often failing to identify its real impact on stakeholders such as employees, customers and the company’s reputation. It can sometimes have unintended consequences.

For instance, a telecoms company may decide to use automated answering machines that are able to deal with customer queries. They would save money on call centre staff, but if this change results in a more negative experience for the customers, it may actually hinder the business from achieving its overarching business objectives if customers choose to take their business elsewhere.

Business process automation should focus on business outcomes and how the automated, often outsourced, parts fit into the end-to-end business process. Equally important is recognising what not to automate or outsource depending on the impact on employees or customers.

Critically, automation’s success lies in its ability to understand and communicate how the different parts of the business interact and affect each other using the data generated. Automation without the ability to communicate to different parts of the business could negate whatever efficiency was gained.

By tying metrics to business outcomes and strategic business objectives, it is possible to provide businesses with access to evidence where automation and outsourcing partners are adding value to the business. Analysis such as this is a crucial part of the process.

And the winner is... probably not the entry with over-claim, adjectives, business-speak and no evidence, says Jan Dekker from The Writer.

Awards season is never far away. There’s always someone, somewhere buffing up trophies and getting DJs and LBDs dry-cleaned for a night of backslapping and ill-advised dancing. But of course, before you get the gong, you’ve got to write the entry.

If you win, it’s worth the graft. A trophy to adorn your boardroom and impress your clients and would-be clients. A great morale-booster for your people. And the everlasting right to say ‘award-winning’ in the same breath as your name.

But just how do you win? Clearly, doing great work matters. But it’s how you get it across in words that matters. And unless you’re careful, you could count yourself out well before the shortlist gets drawn up.

I’ve been judging some awards lately. They were for a sector working like mad to get the economy moving and get everyone else to see their business as a proper profession.

Trouble is, that only sort-of came through in the award entries they wrote. If the ones I saw are any guide, the trouble with award-entry writing is the trouble with most other business writing. Only a bit more so. Like a brochure on speed. So here are ten ways to steer clear…

1. Make sure there’s something to say. Sounds obvious, but you need to tick the basic boxes for the category you’re entering. So, if it’s a category about technological innovation, make sure you’ve got some innovative technology.

2. Remember who’s reading. Your judge has got a lot of entries to read, and almost certainly not much time – evenings or weekends, mostly. Yes, they’ve got to read your entry. But they really, really want to read something interesting. Something that makes their decision easy. What makes yours stand out?

3. Say the most important thing first. Don’t leave it buried two thirds in. Or in the supporting documents (which the judge might not have time to read). You haven’t got the judge’s attention for long. Hit them with the killer facts early.

4. Tell a story. If anything’s going to unleash the inner storyteller in your business, it’s got to be an awards entry. All those case studies. All those examples of how you took a problem, thought of a way round it and got a result. A lot of the time, the entries in my pile left out parts of what makes a good story. They didn’t paint pictures to make the situation easy to imagine. Or they didn’t tell me the ending (the impact bit). Or they wrote the whole thing in deathly business-speak. But some got it right. To the business who told me how they found a new CEO for a fashion brand using only social media, well done and thank you. A worthy winner.

5. Don’t just tell them what you did, show them what difference it made. Unless you do, they’ll scrawl ‘yes, and?’ and move on. Without evidence, the judge won’t believe you. Just saying you created a ‘market-leading solution’ or developed ‘eye-catching creative’ won’t cut it. Something has to have changed for the better because of it.

6. Don’t copy and paste. If the judge knows you (and most industries are small worlds), you’re rumbled. If they don’t know you, it’ll be like a bad exam answer that doesn’t tackle the question but just bungs down everything you know about oxbow lakes (or whatever’s closest to what the section on the entry form is asking for).

7. Make it easy to read. If reading is hard work, the judge won’t like you. So do a minesweep for those 50-word sentences, break up long paragraphs and use subheadings. If those subheadings are engaging and even a little bit fun, so much the better.

8. Don’t assume knowledge. You may deal in, say, analytics all day long. But the judge might not know one end of it from the other. What’s it for? What would be missing if someone took it away? Make the extra effort to explain yourself and you’ll be surprised how fresh it sounds.

9. Sound like a human being. Yes, you’re a business person writing for another business person. But you’re both people with, well, feelings. Your job is to connect with your reader’s. Make them warm to you, identify with you, root for you. Use the language you’d use if you were explaining it to them face-to-face. No need to puff yourself up and beat your chest. No need to create gravitas by saying you ‘provide solutions’ or ‘utilise geographic and demographic targeting’ or generate a ‘significant uplift in revenue’.

10. Easy on the adjectives. Phrases like ‘dedicated team’, ‘best-of-breed logistics’, ‘sophisticated cloud-based intelligence’ and ‘unrivalled expertise’ mean nothing unless you make your reader believe they’re true.