Industry news

Based on a recent report on competition within the broadband market, Ofcom has proposed new plans to reduce the cost of broadband supplier migration for customers.

The wholesale cost reduction is expected to reduce the overall amount by 80 percent, while reducing the minimum contract length from a year to one month.

Ofcom is currently facing the Catch 22 situation in trying to avoid limiting the investment in the nationwide rollout of superfast broadband while preventing the main distributor BT from damaging competition within the UK broadband market.

"The proposals are designed to promote competition in the superfast broadband market at the wholesale level. These would be expected to flow through to consumer benefits in the form of lower retail prices and easier switching between superfast broadband providers" said Ofcom.

NAO to investigate BT’s monopoly on rural broadband contracts

Ofcom clamps down on BT in a bid to increase competition

Thames Water has invested £4 million in a new analytics systems designed to provide real-time data in a bid to improve customer services and identifying potential problems.

The new service named the AORTA (Asset Operations Real Time Analytics) project, is designed to drive efficiencies in analytics as well as updating and modernising systems, through the migration of data from old systems allowing for the increased visibility of current and past information.

The core service platform is being delivered by Wipro and is based on employing a real-time approach to water supply predictions in order to increase overall accuracy.

IBM appointed as innovation partner for Thames Water

Severn Trent looks to renegotiated offer

Outsourcing firm Accenture have posted increased profits in the third quarter for overall global sales, with total revenues of $7.2 billion.

Despite increased revenue streams, Accenture failed to meet the company’s target of $7.5 billion, and saw a reduction in sales in the EMEA region.

Sales for the EMEA region were down 4 percent in the third quarter to $2.78 billion, compared with $2.91 billion for the last quarter.

The company has seen increased business in outsourcing, with bookings and revenues being higher than expected compared to low levels seen with consulting.

“Our third-quarter results were solid overall, although consulting revenues were below our expectations. We delivered very good profitability, with operating margin expansion and EPS growth reflecting the disciplined management of our business," said Pierre Nanterme, Accenture CEO.

Accenture deploys cloud platform for NHS radiology centres

Accenture see sales growth from increased outsourcing demand

A report from analyst firm TechMarketView, the UK software and IT services industry is predicted to decline by 5 percent in real terms from 2011 to 2016.

While the software and IT services (SITS) markets are expected to grow 8 percent by 2016, the increase of £44.3 billion in the UK market will represent an overall decline.

While expectations rest on an overall decrease in growth over the coming years, TechMarketView reported increased for opportunities for SMEs, identifying a: "golden opportunity for SMEs to snatch business from larger players."

TechMarketView chairman Richard Holway said: "The baggage of established businesses makes it a lot harder for them to be agile in today’s market, which presents an enormous opportunity for SMEs and start-ups.”

UK outsourcing sales plummets 80% for Logica

UK outsourcing is expected to grow rapidly in the second half of 2012

The creation of a shared public services centre has generated significant costs savings for South West Wales police forces.

The new centre is able to process emergency and non-emergency calls, a feature that separates the centre from other emergency call centres.

The contact centre services itself is operated on a scalable platform allowing for staff to handle calls during peak periods.

The centre itself, which employs technology and infrastructure services from Siemens and OpenSpace Voice, allows staff access to real time information while handling calls, providing users with improved information for assessing the need for emergency dispatch. The quality of intelligence from real time data has succeeded in increasing first call resolution rates.

Time to be open-minded about open source contact centres?

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service Invests in Network to Handle Emergency Calls

Tech Mahindra Limited and Mahindra Satyam have announced the completion of their joint merger, four years after Tech Mahindra acquired Satyam in 2009.

The purchase of Satyam came after a high profile account corruption scandal which resulted in significant reputational damage.

The completion of the merger will result in the creation of the fifth largest Indian IT outsourcing company and will see the sharing of back office infrastructure including HR services, marketing and overall financial processes.

The creation of Tech Mahindra according to a released statement, has created a company with revenues of USD 2.7 Billion, a team of 84,000 professionals servicing 540 customers across 46 countries.

Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam and CA Technologies enter into Global Partnership

Merger of Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam announced

UAE airlines Etihad Airways have signed an IT services contract with airline technology specialists SITA.

The multi-million pound contract is expected to last ten years and is expected to generate significant cost savings through streamlining processes and upgrading the airline’s IT infrastructure across 89 Etihad sites.

The contract will see the provision of tablets to airline staff, allowing employees access to real-time data on passengers.

James Hogan, CEO of Etihad, said: “The SITA partnership is important as we seek technology solutions that can meet our own requirements and increasingly those of our equity airline partners."

Ryanair places order for 175 planes as it begins mass expansion

Airlines set to become biggest investor of mobile services

UK based Vodafone has placed a bidding offer of €7.7 million for Germany cable company Kabel Deutschland.

Vodafone already holds a strong telecoms market in Germany, with the second largest customer base of 32.4 million customers in the country.

The successful acquisition of Kabel Deutschland, would provide Vodafone with a customer base of 8 million TV viewers and 5 million broadband users. The buying of the cable and telecoms company would allow Vodafone to provide package deals containing television, broadband and telephone services all within one.

The bid faces competition from U.S. based cable giant Libery Global, who placed an offer last week, and may yet raise their bid to compete with Vodafone.

Telefonica agrees on $1 billion sale of O2 Ireland to 3

Green light given to Vodafone and O2 merger

A new government report has called for a switch to electronic invoices in a bid to develop and modernise the public’s sectors procurement processes.

The report detailed that the government would seek to examine ways in which to persuade suppliers to transition to electronic invoices rather than introduce the practice as being mandatory.

The report, entitled Information Economy Strategy report, pointed to the success of electronic invoices within the NHS and local authorities, in driving savings and efficiency targets.

The G-Cloud is citied in the report of an example of how electronic systems can drive savings and innovation.

“For UK businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to realise the full benefits of e-invoicing, it is important that the systems are easy to install and use, and pricing is flexible enough to suit the needs of diverse businesses”, said the report.

MoD move to expand procurement services

Network Rail simplifies IT supplier list

Mobile giant Telefonica have accepted a bid from 3 owners Hutchison for O2 Ireland’s mobile business.

The deal would result in a rapid increase in market share in Ireland for the operators of 3, with a rise to 37.5 percent with the acquisition of O2’s share. By acquiring O2’s market share, 3 would be placed just behind Vodafone, as the second largest operator in the country.

Hutchison is in the process of moving forward with European expansion, having recently bought Orange Austria from France Telecom and entered into talks Telecom Italia regarding a potential merger.

While the deal has yet to receive approval from the EU competition commission, approval would allow Telefonica to regain significant funds as part of the telecommunications company’s goal to reduce overall debt by €5 billion by the end of 2013.

Telefonica has incurred debts in recent years from investment in Central American expansion, with the O2’s Irish division’s profits down 12 percent from the same time last year.

BskyB signs off on £49 million fibre broadband contract with Virgin

Telefonica cloud services to cut HR costs by 40 percent