Industry news

Frost & Sullivan have revealed that the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Contact Centre outsourcing services market in Brazil has dipped to $5.19 billion.

In its report, whilst it dipped in 2013 the market is expected to grow to $7.34 billion in 2018. The decrease in growth was due to the exit of Tellus and Vidax including a reduced performance in some important companies.

Frost & Sullivan went on to report that the revenue share of inbound services is expected to decline to make way for BPO and back-office services. However the Brazilian BPO market faces the issue of a lack of workforce and high competitiveness among outsourcing companies.

Telefonica moves ahead with joint offer for TIM Brasil

In a bid to help establish Nottingham Trent University in the UK ‘s top forty universities in the annual student satisfaction survey, they knew they had to change their software strategy. The software asset management (SAM) team at Nottingham Trent University were having a hard time keeping a close eye on their legacy management system and knowledge of their infrastructure, so NTU implemented a Snow SAM system hosted in the cloud, which created cost savings and improved student satisfaction. NTU aims to save a ¼ of a million through the new SAM.

Southampton University undertakes major infrastructure transformation programme

Liverpool have confirmed they will take complete ownership of their joint venture with BT, LDL. LDL started in 2001 and provides services including HR & Payroll, IT and web services and customer access. The decision for this transformation was due to a reduction in public spending and therefore left Liverpool looking for savings from existing suppliers such as BT, their aim is to save £156m over three years.

Liverpool Council ends BT joint venture

IBM have maintained its Health outsourcing deal since 1999, winning numerous contract renewals. However the Department of Health have now asked competing outsource providers to tender for the contract. IBM currently supply primary IT outsourced services. The Department of Health are said to be looking for a new approach to ICT infrastructure and support services. The new five year outsourcing contract is due to begin on the 31st of March 2015, with an option to extend up to 10 years.

IBM awarded major contract with Indian group

As troubles in Ukraine continue Western customers raise concerns and fuel job relocations. Luxoft the large Russian-founded IT service provider have announced the relocation of 500 jobs from Ukraine and Russia to the West. Luxoft have expanded operations in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania to minimalize exposure in Russia and Ukraine. There are fears that the civil unrest in Crimea will hinder Ukraine’s promising IT outsourcing sector.

Ukraine launches outsourcing initiative to counter recent economic instability

Lockheed Martin have been awarded a two year contract from the Highways Agency to manage their applications, worth approximately £4m. This is part of the Highways Agency moving away from a sole IT supplier to a service integration and management (SIAM) model. This is the latest ‘tower’ that has been awarded, so far SCC have won the hosting ‘tower’ while Thales have connectivity, their end user consulting ‘tower’ is expected to go out to tender over the next few months with the SIAM element yet to be awarded.

Highways agency award £10 million contract to Thales

The schools watchdog, Ofsted, have decided to bring their inspections of schools in house and end its £40m a year outsourcing contracts with companies including Serco & Tribal. Wanting to re-gain control and after some criticism regarding the quality of the contracted inspectors, the transition will take place in August 2015 when the current contracts come to an end. Currently Ofsted employ 300 in house inspectors with more than 2000 through outsourcing providers.

Civica win £17 million outsourcing contract to support academy schools

Thales UK has been awarded contracts worth a combined £28.8 million to cover the deployment of traffic management technology at Network Rail’s Cardiff and Romford operating centres by 2015.

In a bid to create a more affordable, higher performance railway, Network Rail has awarded contracts for the first phase of a new nationwide traffic management system for Britain’s railways. Their operating strategy has traffic-management technology at the centre of it, creating a consolidated control of Britain’s rail network from more than 800 signal boxes into 12 state-of-the-art rail operating centres over the next 15 to 30 years.

Network Rail aims to cut the cost of Britain’s railways by £250million each year whilst improving industry efficiency, reducing delays and providing more accurate and timely information to staff and passengers.

Serco awarded sleeper service train contract from London to Scotland

The NHS have partnered with Tradeshift e-invoicing platform as part of a strategy to create a paperless NHS by 2018. The NHS Shared Business Services are encouraging over 100,000 suppliers currently working with the NHS to use the Tradeshift e-invoicing system to submit invoices electronically.

Tradeshift will work with the Department of Health and Steria who provide back office finance and procurement services to hospital trusts and Primary healthcare providers.

SME to drive collaboration in NHS shared service programme

Serco the outsourcing firm have been awarded a 15 year contract to operate the Caledonian Sleeper service from London to Scotland. It will take over the franchise from transport operator First Group. Serco have been recently accused of overcharging previous government contracts to the value of £800m.

It’s been a mixed month for Serco