Industry news

Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has moved to reduce costs by turning to outsource key

The move to reduce costs comes after Vestas was hit by government cuts to renewable energy subsidies, resulting in reduced profits and two years of losses.

The manufacturer has sold manufacturing units to German based group VTC Partners GmbH, with around 1,000 staff transferring under the deal to the new owners, and has completed multiple factory closures over recent years in a bid to reduce losses.

The outsourcing programme, which will cover manufacturing and casting process, is expected to deliver significant savings, with around €30 million saved over a two year period.

BP prioritises gas and oil as it places its US wind power business up for tender

Chancellor accused of driving off investment

The UK government have moved to invest £100 million into the countries enterprise zones, in a bid to encourage private investment through infrastructure development and available financial support.

The 24 current enterprise zones are allowed to submit competitive bids for the available funding, with a deadline of the 18th of November, alongside local enterprise partnerships.

The £100 million investment in enterprise zones will help to back business creation in local economies according to Eric Pickles, with the government communities secretary saying that the zones were: “at the centre of our plans to back business, help local economies grow stronger and give the UK that competitive edge.”

SMES to receive lending boost

SMEs forced to adapt to economic pressures

The Metropolitan Police have revealed plans to update its IT infrastructure after being criticised for outdated legacy systems.

The move to update IT services, comes after the police force was criticised by London Assembly’s Budget and Performance Committee, for the high maintenance costs and limited capability of the current IT framework.

The Metropolitan Police have now placed a tender for a £44 million IT framework, which will provide control room and surveillance capabilities.

A deadline of the November 4th has been given for tender applications to be submitted to the Met for the new framework, with contracts available for supply, support and maintenance.

BT awarded police PSN contract

South West Wales police drives savings through shared service centre

A new skills survey has found that adults in England are performing poorly in ICT skills competence compared to other countries.

Countries including Australia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Austria, Korea and the Netherlands all outperformed England with greater mean score rankings in the survey.

The report revealed that men continued to outperform women, with this trend being seen internationally, and that the survey might have unfairly represented England due to the high participation of older age groups in the study.

The report stated: “Although the average score for problem solving in technology-rich environments was lower than the OECD average, this must be seen in the context of the far higher participation in this domain compared with other countries, which was particularly marked among the older age groups”.

The report added that the: “majority of the population in England now has access to ICT and this new domain recognises its increasing importance in all aspects of people’s lives and its implication for future national policy and planning.”

Welsh government invests in IT skills as market grows

UK economy being driven by IT despite existing skill gaps remaining

The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) have awarded a five year £40 million service management contract to BAE Systems Detica, which will see the information services provider delivering end-to-end IT services to the department.

The contract will see BAE Detica manage the FCO’s suppliers while implementing efficiency savings, as the department looks to reduce ICT costs by 40 per cent, and improve on existing user experiences.

The conclusion of the tendering process comes after BAE was selected as the preferred bidder for the program in the first quarter of 2013. The programme is due to go live in spring 2014.

BAE awarded $7 million contract as it moves to consolidate systems

BAE Systems terminate Logica HR BPO contract

The UK e-borders scheme has been criticised in a new report, with recommendations for a ‘total re-think’.

John Vine, chief inspector of borders and immigration, said that the e-borders, despite being positioned as a globally advanced system, had failed to effectively alert border staff, without a single person having been stopped by the scheme so far.

The data currently being collecting by the e-borders program according to the report, currently failed to effectively allow border staff to monitor foreign nationals entry and exit from the UK, with this functionality not being available until 2018 at the earliest.

The scheme has been hampered by only screening airports and not including train and ferry passengers , in addition only two airlines have signed up for the pre-departure screening checks.

The report also revealed that the e-borders system is under pressure, demands on the system have resulted in more than 640,000 drug and tobacco alerts being deleted in order to prioritise immigration alerts.

Accenture led consortium wins national border control system contract

UK Border Agency closed down

National Services Scotland (NSS), which supplies support services to NHS Scotland, are preparing to look for new services to replace outdated legacy child health surveillance systems.

The NSS have revealed that the child health surveillance systems have become increasing inefficient and increasing expensive, with the systems having been developed for the NHS, up to 15 years ago.

The NSS said that the systems “now have a number of challenges including legacy technology, inflexibility, poor architecture and poor value for money.”

In tendering for replacement services, the NSS are looking for systems which are able to support a large service base of more than 5 million Scottish children, migrate past data easily from the legacy systems and provide a modern online interface allowing for flexibility and accessibility regardless of location.

NHS selects three suppliers for recruitment system

NHS Shared Business Services secures supplier framework contract

Airbus has awarded a contract to Atos, to develop, maintain and transform the enterprise management content system of the aerospace giant.

The five-year contract is designed to transform the management content system, which is employed by 59,000 employees, as well as customers and suppliers, in joint collaborative tasks and in transferring large numbers of documents relating to aircraft engineering and design.

The new contract is expected to reduce the overall costs of the content platform, while simultaneously driving innovation and growth.

Jean-Marie Simon, CEO Atos France: “We are extremely proud to have been chosen, from a number of competitors, as Airbus' global partner to transform the management of its information assets.”

Airbus looks to reduce rising energy costs

Airbus signs ITO deal with CSC

Northeast Utilities (NU) have moved forward with outsourcing their IT services to India, the contracts would see the outsourcing of part of NU’s IT operations to Indian based Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys.

Northeast Utilities which operates the largest energy delivery system in the Connecticut, has said that the move will generate savings, with Tata and Infosys being placed to deliver enhanced IT capabilities, in order to meet customer expectations.

The ITO operation would see the migration of the roles carried out by 200 IT workers based in New England to India.

The move to ITO to India is expected to affect around 200 U.S. based jobs, with Utility jobs having been viewed as being relatively secure. The move to outsource has been attacked by local government representatives, with Democrat state rep. Joe Aresimowicz, saying: "Shipping these good-paying jobs away will not just hurt Connecticut's economy, but it could also pose a serious security threat".

Calls for a clear up of U.S. outsourcing visa regulations

Tata awarded £13 million contract

Outsourcing provider Infosys has been awarded a four-year contract to deliver application management services to Japanese car giant Toyota.

The contract will see Infosys provide services to Toyota’s European operations as part of a programme to reduce overall costs.

The contract will include management of more than 150 European operational applications, including those used in manufacturing, the supply chain and in sale processes.

In outsourcing application management services, Toyota is looking to refocus its manpower on delivering project development and the optimisation of services.

Pierre Masai, Chief Information Officer, Toyota Motor Europe, said: “standardisation, global delivery model coupled with scale, productivity benefits and continuous improvements will help optimise application management costs.”

Infosys and Tata awarded ITO contract from U.S. based energy organisations

Infosys wins five year BMW IT infrastructure contract