Industry news

Sears Canada has moved to outsource IT operations to IBM, with plans to outsource further IT services to Wipro.

The outsourcing operation will see IBM deliver IT programmes alongside payroll and finance services.

The move to outsource operations comes as Sears directs investment into its core retail business, with a focus on building a competitive business, including improving store site infrastructure and an increasing drive on enhancing e-commerce capabilities.

IBM will deliver new services from sites in the Philippines, with Wipro providing services from India should Sears look to further extend outsourcing operations.

IBM moves to acquire cloud security company

Wipro Limited announce second quarter impressive financial results

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has selected Capita to provide electronic tagging services in a deal valued at £400 million.

Capita has been selected as the preferred bidder for the contract, which will see the IT outsourcing giant acting as systems integrator between various services involved in delivering electronic tagging used by the MoJ, while providing electronic monitoring and support services.

The electronic tagging service is expected to leverage long term savings for the MoJ in reducing re-offense rates and the need for prison sentences.

The contract will also see Capita working with the MoJ to promote the departments monitoring and support services to other public sector departments where such capabilities are required including the NHS and social care providers.

The contract represents a huge opportunity for Capita, with the large scale contract creating the potential for many more public sector tagging contracts.

Capita chief executive, Paul Pindar, said: “When fully live, this is expected to be the largest, single and most advanced ‘tagging’ system in the world”.

The tendering process had has originally seen Capita face completion from rival firms G4S and Serco, however both outsourcing providers pulled out after being accused of overcharging by the Justice Secretary.

Ministry of Justice’s handling of outsourcing is ‘shambolic’

Ministry Of Justice Expects £100 Million Savings Through Shared Services

Jaguar Land Rover has moved to expand their procurement capability as the car manufacture looks to increase growth in the UK.

The company has created 100 new positions including purchasing managers, procurement specialists and development engineers as Jaguar Land Rover seek to capitalise on almost £10 billion of investment in the UK supply chain and drive future growth.

The development of the car manufactures UK infrastructure includes the construction of a new plant in Staffordshire as the company prepares for the release of a series of new products.

2012 saw a 30 per cent growth in sales with revenues of £15.8 billion over the 12 months to 31st March 2013. 85 per cent of revenue came from the export market with Jaguar Land Rover now looking to overseas expansion with the construction of plant in China in addition to plans regarding an additional plant in Saudi Arabia to meet increased demand.

Jaguar Land Rover looks at Merseyside expansion

Jaguar Land Rover moves production to China

A audit carried out into procurement spending by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) found that suppliers had been overpaid to the tune of £100 million.

The spend recovery audit by officials found that overpayment of £100 million occurred throughout last financial year. This level of overspend was generated from duplicate orders and overpayments for common goods and services.

The revelation comes as the government undertakes recovery audits in all departments.

“Every government promises a crackdown on fraud and error, but we are delivering, with £6.5 billion saved last year alone” said Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude.

The minister added that the public sector was moving for with improved communications to “enable different parts of government to share data about fraudsters and work as one to catch them. This will ensure we further reduce the shocking losses to fraud and error much faster.”

The development of big data and improved analytics processes have allowed the public sector to improve overspend detection rates.

UK moves ahead with outsourcing MoD hardware procurement

MoD move to expand procurement services

Accenture have had their contract to provide application outsourcing services to the RSA insurance group extended for an additional five years until the end of 2020.

The original application contract, which began in 2003 and has been previously extended, provided maintenance and development services to the insurance group.

The RSA group with around 23,000 employees internationally said that the extension will help to further reduce IT costs while developing product offerings and customer service with additional cost savings.

Accenture deploys cloud platform for NHS radiology centres

Accenture see sales growth from increased outsourcing demand

The Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) has recommended the dropping of the HS2 high speed rail project.

The recommendation comes as fears rise that the project could nearly double in cost to as much as £80 billion before completion.

The IEA questioned the economic sense in the construction of HS2 with the spiraling cost of the project, with a rise of 30 per cent in June to £42.6 billion.

IEA director Dr Richard Welling, said: "The evidence is now overwhelming that this will be unbelievably costly to the taxpayer while delivering incredibly poor value for money.”

The government line has promoted the rail-line framework as being key in stimulating the UK economy.

A joint venture between Lancashire Council and BT known as One Connect has consolidated its security systems under one roof with McAfee.

One Connect, which provides telecommunications and business services to the council and public services, originally operated with nine security solutions upon its foundation in 2011.

The move to a single security provider came as the joint venture sought to reduce expense while increasing flexibility and speed of service.

The new security service will be hosted at one centrally managed site with one integrated framework for all users, covering networks, data encryption and backup and email filtering.

McAfee plans for $389 million purchase of network security provider

A high-speed broadband project in South Yorkshire has been scrapped after failing to attract customers.

The Digital Region program funded by the council with European funding was designed to provide local businesses, homes and public services with access to high-speed broadband, but only managed to attract 3 per cent of the required 108,000.

The failure of the project comes despite the success of South Yorkshire in meeting targets by delivering increased broadband coverage to 80 per cent of the population.

Digital Region said in a statement: "Shareholders in South Yorkshire’s pioneering Digital Region project have agreed to halt their search for a private sector partner following increased uncertainty and risk around compatibility of future funding with EU state aid rules".

The estimated cost of continuing with the project is £95.8 million with the scrapping of the high-speed broadband project leading to the loss of £80 million currently invested.

It is now expected that £30 million in funding from the EU in the form of investment from the European Regional Development Fund will now need to be returned.

UK broadband speeds increase rapidly as government spending sees strong results

Ofcom looks to reduce broadband migration costs in order to improve competition

China has announced that it will bring increased internet capacity to all major cities by 2020.

China has set targets of 50 Mbps by 2020 for new broadband services and 12 Mbps in rural areas. The undertaking is huge given China’s population, with nearly 600 million already using internet services, with speeds just averaging 1.7 Mbps.

The plans for increased internet speeds will also see the rollout of 3G and 4G mobile services, with an estimated target of 85 per cent of a 1.35 billion population.

The move to develop broadband and mobile communications comes as China sits behind its neighbours in delivering increased speeds despite a large user base.

China sees sluggish manufacturing trend

Alibaba Group set to build $48 billion logistics network in China

Trusteer which provides cloud services and software aimed at providing security against online financial fraud has been approached by IBM as a potential buyer.

Trusteer has experienced “well above the market's growth rates" according to a report published by Gartner earlier this year.

The move to purchase the security company comes as IBM seeks to offer increased security capabilities to clients against increasingly sophisticated threats.

The acquisition of Trusteer's technology according to IBM: "will help our clients across all industries address the constantly evolving threats they are facing".

IBM identifies increase in cloud uptake down under

IBM appointed as innovation partner for Thames Water