Industry news

The National Outsourcing Association Awards (NOAAs) took place last night at the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel in London. Celebrating a decade in existence, the NOAAs is designed to recognise best practice in outsourcing projects, and reward end-users, suppliers, advisors and destinations.

National Outsourcing Association Director, Kerry Hallard said:

"2013 is a monumental year for the NOAAs, as it was our 10th Anniversary last night, and yet again we saw a growing number of submissions - all of outstanding quality. The shortlist truly represents the best of the best in outsourcing, and I am extremely proud to see that so many organisations clearly value the positive association of participation. We'd like to congratulate all the winners, and thank all those that took part. Thanks also go to our sponsors; arvato, TCS, Xchanging, Infosys and Sitel, for supporting the event. Without them it would not be possible. "

The winners are:

International Contract of the Year

eClerx Services Ltd. - Global Reference Data Operations

Offshoring Project of the Year

Xchanging

Start-up/SME of the Year

New Galexy

Offshoring Destination of the Year

Sri Lanka

Telecommunications, Utilities and High-Tech Outsourcing Project of the Year

Infosys and BT - Unlocking field force potential project

Public Sector Outsourcing Project of the Year

HMRC

Financial Services Outsourcing Project of the Year

RESPONSE - Hiscox

Best Contribution to the Reputation of Outsourcing

arvato UK & Ireland

Award for Corporate Social Responsibility

SPi Global

BPO Contract of the Year

Firstsource - BSkyB

ITO Project of the Year

Legal & General - TCS

Award for Innovation in Outsourcing

Capita Life & Pensions

Shared Service Centre of the Year

Liberata - CapacityGRID

Outsourcing Advisory of the Year

Source

Outsourcing Contact Centre Provider of the Year

Mindpearl

Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year

Firstsource

Outsourcing End User of the Year

HMRC

Outsourcing Works - Award for Delivering Business Value

Liberata - CapacityGRID

People's Choice Award - Contribution to Outsourcing

End User winner = Graham McKane, Previously VirginMedia

Supplier/support winner = William Pattison, Mindpearl

The UK Home Office has awarded a contract with a total value of £621 million to two companies to manage visa applications globally.

Teleperformance received a £300 million contract while VF Worldwide Holdings received a £321 million, with both contracts lasting for five years with options to extend.

Services covered by the contract include application and biometric tools, document registration, interview facilities, and courier services.

Both companies will be managing a series of sub-contractors who will operate it different geographical locations.

UK e-borders scheme criticised

Call for U.S outsourcing visa rules to be cleared up

Contractors have blamed the US Department of Health and Human Services for the reveal of multiple errors and the poor performance of the HealthCare.gov website.

Contractors working on the HealthCare.gov website have criticised the rollout of the website prior to effective testing, citing a failure to properly test the services provided by the site.

Despite two weeks of testing, the site launched to serve errors with long load times.

Cheryl Campbell, a senior vice president for one of the main contractors CGI Federal, said they “would have liked to have months" to test the project, with the pressure to launch leading to the project moving forward without effective testing.

EquaTerra sees increased healthcare outsourcing worldwide

BT has signed a multi-million contract with Oracle which will see 88,000 HR staff of the telecoms giant moved to a cloud hosted platform as part of a transformation programme.

HR staff will be transferred on to the Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) system, which will cover HR staff based internationally that provide services including management, analytics, recruiting, and other end-to-end services.

The new service provides an easier user interface, improved administration and standardises tool sets across a global employee base.

“Oracle’s comprehensive HCM portfolio will help enable BT to increase productivity, accelerate business performance and empower its people,” said Oracle president Mark Hurd.

BT completes Visa communication upgrade

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee has said that the UK is facing improving prospects with improving business and consumer confidence.

While the committee said that it was, “too soon to draw a firm conclusion from recent labour market outturns about the extent to which productivity would increase", minutes from the meeting revealed optimism surrounding the UK’s economic prospects, with a fail in the unemployment rate to 7.7 percent, and expectations of overshooting a unemployment target of 7 per cent within three, years now deemed as probable.

The committee decided that interest rates should remain static at 0.5 per cent with a unanimous vote upholding the current rate.

Bank of England Announce £100bn Stimulus Package

The latest Information Services Group (ISG) outsourcing index posted significant market growth with an 89 per cent rise in the annual contract value compared to the last quarter.

The latest figures posted in the index recorded record numbers of outsourcing deals in the EMEA, with nine out of ten outsourcing contracts in the world worth over €80 million occurring in the region, confirming it as the world’s largest outsourcing market.

The index recorded a total of 125 ITO contracts taken out in the Q3 alone, overtaking the previous EMEA record.

On a regional level, the United Kingdom showed strong third-quarter results, recording €680 million in annual contract value, up 35 percent over the prior quarter. However, Germany led the region’s growth, posting €810 million in annual contract value and surpassing the UK for the first time.

“EMEA achieved the highest third-quarter results on record, a strong rebound from the weakness observed in the first half of the year,” said John Keppel, Partner & President, ISG North Europe. “While the improvements we are seeing are in comparison to weak performances in the first half, we believe the high level of contracting activity speaks volumes about the underlying strength of the current market.”

Bank of England reports improving economic forecast

Wipro announce strong Q2 results with 28% net growth

Smartphone giant HTC is rumoured to be looking into outsourcing phone manufacturing according to sources.

HTC’s top management are moving to separate design and manufacturing with a look to outsourcing the manufacturing side of the business, according to sources speaking to Reuters.

The planned programme would resemble a similar model employed by apple, which outsources manufacturing services, to Chinese based Foxconn.

The move comes as HTC sees a reduction in sales from increasing competition from Samsung and Apple, causing the company to seek to create cost savings and flexibility from the implementation of an outsourced manufacturing model.

HTC and Apple settle outstanding patent disputes

HTC Expands Cloud Services with Dashwire Acquisition

Wipro has announced its second quarter results ending September 30th with strong results.

The IT outsourcing services giant posted 28 per cent year-on-year net income growth, with net revenues from operations of $309 million, an increase of 28 per cent year-on-year.

Suresh Senapaty, Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer of Wipro, said: “Our sustained execution towards increasing operational efficiencies in the business coupled with currency benefits helped offset the impact of wage hikes resulting in strong improvements in operating margins.”

Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro stated that the results “are positive indicators on the global economy. Client confidence is on the uptick and we see it reflected in our results.”

The strong results follows similar reports from other Indian based outsourcing companies, reflecting the strong growth that the services industry is currently enjoying.

Wipro wins 9-year contract renewal

Wipro leads Greenpeace electronic rankings

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union is set to strike this Friday in opposition to plans by the government to outsource back office functions.

The governments planned contract with French based IT services provider Steria is expected to affect over 1,200 workers.

The planned contract is expected to be finalised by the November 1st, and comes as part of the Civil Service Reform Plan, which aims to deliver increased efficiency and savings.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “We will not stand by and watch while yet another piece of the civil service is parcelled up and handed to a private company to make a profit.”

A Government spokesperson said that reform plans called for a more efficient, smaller civil service and that shared services and private sector involvement was key to delivering “more efficient and cost-effective services."

Prime Minister acknowledges public sectors shortcomings when outsourcing

Cabinet Office outsources department services according to union

Research carried out by Efma on the behalf of outsourcing firm Infosys, revealed that 77 per cent of international banks surveyed, where intending to increased investment in innovation funding.

Rising areas of innovation include new customer interaction services brought about by improvements in technology, including mobile and online banking services and internal data analytic services.

The research surveyed 148 banks in 66 different countries, with the survey showing a large percentage of banks planning for innovation promotion, compared to just 13 per cent of banks who had increased investment in a similar report in published in 2009.

Despite the desire to increase the development of innovation through greater funding, many banks have been limited by the continued use of legacy systems with limited infrastructure, which prevents the application of innovative practices.

Financial institutions move to outsource data

HMRC places tender for financial transaction system