Industry news

The Scottish government is moving to invest more funds in mobile services, after new technology displayed in recent trials provided strong benefits and increase patient care.

Staff at NHS Western Isles where able to achieve a 50 per cent increase in the time they spent with patients after the introduction of digital pens.

NHS Western Isles Chief Executive Gordon Jamieson, said: “The NHS Western Isles digital pen project has attracted a lot of attention nationally, and some other health boards have now taken our lead and have invested in the technology themselves.”

NHS health boards have been given access to a £1 million fund in order to employ technical equipment and services and achieve improved patient care.

NHS Scotland looks to replace legacy child health surveillance systems

Mobile solutions already have generated positive results, with increased efficiency, reducing time spent on paperwork and improving communications

The Health Secretary Alex Neil said: “Technology is invaluable for staff who work in community settings”.

“I am pleased to see so many examples of digital technology benefitting patients across Scotland and freeing up time for staff to spend with patients.”

The Scottish procurement consortium attempts to ‘maximise local impact’

The Government has announced a contract value limit of £100 million for IT services, with this limit only being lifted in exceptional circumstances.

The limits on contract size was announced by Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude, and is one of multiple red lines announced in order to increase completion, reduce the dominance of major suppliers and encourage SMEs to bid for more public sector work.

Other new stipulations include limitations on contract lengths, removing automatic extensions and preventing companies from providing services and integration in the same area of government.

Government moves to establish application framework

Francis Maude, said: “We are creating a more competitive and open market for technology that opens up opportunity for big and small firms. These red lines will ensure the government gets the best technology at the best price and we will be unashamedly militant about enforcing them to provide value for hard-working taxpayers.”

Suppliers call for G-Cloud changes

It failures at Lloyds Banking Group has resulted in customers at Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and TSB being left without access to ATMs and debit card services.

A TSB executive said that failures at Lloyds IT servers had resulted in the errors, with Lloyds Banking Group apologising: "We apologise that earlier today, between 3pm and 6pm, some customers were unable to complete their debit card transactions.

UK banks struggle to upgrade old IT systems

The IT banking failure follows glitches effecting NatWest, RSB and Ulster Bank customers throughout 2013 which prevented the use of online services, use cards or withdraw money.

NatWest hit by further IT failings

The Prime Minister has said, during a speech to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), that 3,000 rules will be removed or changed in order to help SMEs prosper.

The changes in removing the impact of regulations are expected to save as much as £850 million per year.

Mr Cameron said that the changes would allow government to: “get out of the way of small business success”.

European SMEs buoyant about growth

The government have placed SMEs at the heart of its long-term economic plan, with local businesses being seen as the way forward to decreasing unemployment and increasing local investment.

FSB's policy chairman, Mike Cherry, said: “government must focus on how they can support these businesses in job creation and growth while the UK's large businesses need to play their part, too, in supporting ambitious small businesses”.

SMEs offered funding for superfast broadband upgrade

Microsoft has announced its plans to match Amazon’s Web Services’ (AWS) price reduction, as the AWS cloud provider prepares to reduce its prices for Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Book Store (EBS) by up to 22 per cent.

In addition Microsoft has revealed that it will reduce the cost of its Azure Storage platform by 50 per cent.

The Microsoft cuts are expected to come into form by March 13th, while the Amazon cuts are due to be in place by February 1st.

"We're also making the new prices effective worldwide, which means that Azure storage will be less expensive than AWS in many regions," stated Microsoft.

Research points to cloud skills shortage

Cloud market revenue to reach nearly $20 billion by 2016

Business process provider Genpact and automotive technologies suppliers Delphi have announced the launch of an operations centre in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

The operations centre will host Genpact’s Huaqiao Project, which will see the business process provider deliver finance and accounting services to Delphi, focusing on transforming and streamlining services through a shared services operation.

The centre currently employees 40 employees from Genpact and is set to expand to 100 staff by 2015.

Mudit Saxena, CEO of Genpact Asia, said: “The cooperation with Delphi is a milestone for us as we grow our facility in Huaqiao into a world-class shared services center to help more multinational companies establish and expand their operations in the region.”

Genpact partners with Markit to development screening checks

Bangalore has held its position as the most popular outsourcing destination for the second year running in a rankings table created by consulting firm Tholons.

Bangalore was ranked as the number one outsourcing destination for IT services worldwide, with Manila and Mumbai ranked 2nd and 3rd respectively.

In the report published in the Times of India, Vikrant Khanna, principal at Tholons, described how BPO was becoming increasingly popular in the Philippines. While the appearance of Indian cities other than large regional capitals, shows that tier-2 and tier-3 cities are benefiting from the continued popularity of ITO.

Indian IT market expands off exports

United Allergy Services (UAS) a U.S. based firm providing allergy testing services, has moved to employ Fairsail Recruit to provide a new HR and recruitment services, in order to cope with increasing business growth and nearly 60 million U.S. allergy sufferers.

Peter Gerard, VP of Human Resources at UAS, said: “We were keeping our HR and recruitment records in paper files, making any reporting or searching of data lengthy and inefficient”.

The contract will see Fairsail Recruit provide a service that can be integrated into existing services such as Salesforce.com, helping to reduce paperwork and administration time.

Mr Gerard added that; “Fairsail Recruit has made the process of finding and assessing applicants much easier, allowing us to search by applicant and vacancies online and automate the hiring and on-boarding process.”

MoD recruitment system behind schedule

Problems facing the rollout of Universal Credit have resulted in the implementation of the combined services program being described as being as “like banging your head against a brick wall” due to communication obstacles.

The comments from benefits manager at Rugby Council, David Wortley, came during the Civica Annual Conference in Manchester, who said: “I do support UC. But the administration leaves a lot to be desired."

Universal Credit faces skills shortage

The comments comes as the £2.4 billion programme to combine the six main benefit systems faces issues surrounding communications and overall support during the transition process.

Despite the comments surrounding the deployment of the scheme nationally, David Wortley described how Universal Credit had helped Rugby Council rebuild its relationship with the local Job Centre Plus and had helped to reduce benefit fraud abuse, saying that: "A lot of people have been hammering it, but for some customers UC is brilliant".

DWP defends Universal Credit IT

The UK Prime Minister, speaking during the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland, described how shale gas fracking would be a key driver for future economic growth in the country.

Mr Cameron described how fracking would provide reduced energy prices, mirroring cost reductions seen in the U.S. from increased competition in the energy market.

The move to harness the 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale that the British Geological Survey has estimated is under the north of England would help to reduce the UK’s reliance on foreign energy sources.

Chancellor accused of driving off investment

Plans for UK fracking forms part of the Prime Minsters move to encourage increased re-shoring: “There is no doubt that when it comes to re-shoring in the US, one of the most important factors has been the development of shale gas, which is flooring US energy prices, with billions of dollars of energy cost-savings predicted over the next decade."

UK plans for fracking are unsustainable warns a new report