Industry news

The Department for Transport (DfT) has announced that more than half of its suppliers delivering technology services for the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway project are are small or medium businesses.

The DfT was one of the first public sector departments to employ the G-Cloud in order to source SME services, as per government guidelines. The HS2 scheme itself has faced heavy criticism from the media and parliament regarding the cost, impact and practicality of the planned route.

James Findlay, CIO of HS2, said: “We took a bit of a leap of faith because there was no precedent for it. I think we’ve come a long way since then. We’re beginning to see quite an acceleration in the growth of G-Cloud”.

He added, "we’ve got a number of large contracts coming up for renewal. As a consequence, we’re using G-Cloud more, certainly within High Speed 2 [where we were using] 100 percent SMEs.”

SMEs join forces in outsourcing for growth

Chancellors budget continues government SME support

Multilingual and multicultural outsourcing services provider Conectys, has announced the opening of a site in the Philippines.

The new facility provides a 350 operational seats and offers additional capacity on demand for large-scale projects.

The new hub builds upon Conectys’ 24/7 international outsourcing services and delivers english services to the North American market as well as Asian languages including Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino Tagalog and Indonesian.

The new facility is designed to deliver business continuity, including power backup, real time automated failover and load balancing between sites and real-time replication of critical data.

“Having a regional presence in Asia Pacific is of key strategic importance to Conectys.” said Arnold Cobbaert, CEO of Conectys.

"Interest in this new facility with our existing and prospective customers is already exceeding our expectations".

arvato expands into Philippines

Wells Fargo looks to offshore jobs to India and Philippines

The Houses of Parliament have agreed to replace Parliamentary ICT (PICT) with a new Digital Office which would bring together all online services and ICT functions under one office.

The move comes after a review into ICT services, with the houses management boards recognising that despite the successes of PICT, Parliament was not placed to become a major digital player.

The Digital Office will be run by a new Head of Digital, who will be tasked with improving the satisfaction levels of users, including Parliament members and the public.

Once the Head of Digital has been selected the administration will then move forward with delivering a implementation plan designed to help Parliament become a digital leader and keep abreast of current innovations and digital services.

Old guard government IT suppliers attempt to compete against the G-Cloud

Nationwide Building Society has deployed a new website aimed at mobile uses aimed at providing increased functionality and remote accessibility.

The new site also provides custom features to the bank’s users designed to offer a personalised account with 24/7 support via Twitter.

Chris Hulse, head of e-commerce and digital marketing, said: “we went back to the drawing board to understand what our customers really want and to ensure it was quick and easy for them to find it, whether they are sitting at home or sitting on the bus”.

Nationwide Building Society – Scan on Demand

A new study has revealed that U.S. technology companies are reducing their offshoring operations in foreign markets due to rising costs.

Only 5 out of 100 technology CFOs said that they were planning to offshore services in the near future according to a survey from accounting firm BDO USA LLP, a rapid drop from 16 per cent in 2013 and 20 per cent in 2012.

The survey revealed that 29 per cent of companies that currently offshore services are now looking to in-shore services back state side in 2014.

A combination of rising cost, economic disruptions and environmental disasters have all contributed to the falloff in offshoring within the U.S. according to Aftab Jamil, a partner at BDO.

U.S have imposed a record visa fine on outsourcer

U.S. regulators warn banks over outsourced risks

Clothing retailer ASOS have revealed plans for an accelerated investment program designed to IT and warehouse funding to £68 million within the year.

The announcement follows a statement in October which detailed plans to invest £110 million in IT and logistics over the next two years.

The move to increase IT spending and logistics comes as ASOS reported increased revenues which the company attributed from technology investment.

The cloths retailer will now increase the speed of the investment programme focused in the UK and Germany, with the £68 million investment replacing original plans for £55 million in 2014.

Nick Robertson, CEO of ASOS, said in a trading statement: “this investment will increase our sales capacity to c£2.5 billion per annum, over £1 billion higher than previous guidance.”

Ocado moves to increase IT investment

JP Morgan increases IT investment by 27 per cent

Retailers are struggling to meet multi buyer expectations from customers according to new research from Accenture and SAP.

The research found that businesses although identifying that importance of multi-channel customer offerings as a priority, were failing to meet the demands due to organisational and technological limitations.

91 per cent of companies involved in the research responded that they were facing significant barriers to offering omni-channels to consumers.

Chris Donnelly, global managing director of Accenture’s retail practice, said: “Increasing adoption of e-commerce and mobile technology by consumers underscores how important it is for retailers to introduce digital commerce into every aspect of their business”.

Limited online presence impacts Morrisons

John Lewis sees profits grow by 59 percent from strong e-commerce

Camden council has moved to harness big data analytics in order to reduce tax fraud in the borough area.

IBM is providing a platform which provides big data analytic capabilities to public services covering the whole borough in a bid to improve services and tackle fraud through the creation of a unified repository of data known as the ‘Residents Index’.

Hilary Simpson, head of ICT business partnering at London Borough of Camden, said: “We have identified at least a dozen specific examples where a Residents’ Index, based on IBM Big Data and Analytics technology can help us.”

“We estimate that the solution could help to cut single person council tax discount fraud by five percent, potentially delivering major savings for our borough”.

The move to employ IBM’s framework comes after Camden revealed digital strategy plans designed to improve savings and help the borough meet budget target savings.

Camden Council reveals digital strategy

Lincolnshire County Council has signed a contract with outsourcing services giant Serco to provide contact centre and BPO services in a deal valued at £70 million.

The contract will run over a five year period with the option to extend over a further two years.

The contract is designed to save the council as much as £14 million in cost savings with the transition process being scheduled for completion by April 2015.

Councillor Martin Hill, Leader of Lincolnshire County Council, said: “We are pleased to have signed this important contract with Serco and look forward to them delivering a better deal with more savings, as well as creating additional local employment opportunities.”

Serco sees stock rise after new CEO appointment

G4S and Serco criticised by government watchdog

Procurement in the NHS is a “mess” and “has no teeth” according to a NHS Trust head buyer.

John Watts, interim director of procurement and ecommerce at Barts Health Trust called for change within the Trusts procurement centre, saying that the centre at present has “no teeth” and that there “is no-one at the centre driving change.”

He added that the approach employed by NHS Trusts would be madness in the private sector and had resulted in huge annual deficits across the country.

He described that change was paramount in driving cost savings: “You won’t get the best price if you’re not prepared to change. It’s about competition, it’s about commitment and willingness to change.”

Mr Watts made the comments at the Government Opportunities NHS Procurement Conference in Birmingham.

NHS launches £100 million fund for innovative IT

NHS trust requests increased funding for paperless transformation