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A software meltdown must be every IT team’s nightmare, especially if it hits the front pages. Fortunately, many IT leaders have long known that outsourcing can be key to ensuring and managing software quality across IT systems and infrastructure. Typically, outsourcing quality not only increases efficiency and reduces costs (by as much as 40% in some cases), but also raises standards.

A relatively new phenomenon in the outsourced software quality sector is Global Quality Management (GQM). Aiming to centralise quality while reducing headcount and costs, GQM enables client organisations to focus on their core business. Internal testing teams are transferred to specialist testing providers and together focus on boosting expertise, improving motivation and encouraging innovation.

In GQM engagements, client organisations often employ small, skilled, internal teams to manage systems and software quality. Their skills are not in doubt. However, the fast changing IT landscape means that internal teams often need a boost in knowledge. Add to this the disadvantage of restricted budgets and teams working in isolation, effectively in an organisational “silo”, and the argument for transferring software quality and testing to an external, specialist organisation becomes clear.

Test Centres of Excellence

Outsourced Test Centres of Excellence (TCoEs), in financial, retail and manufacturing sectors, are a result of the GQM trend. As new technologies, such as mobile, cloud, social and Big Data, continue to change the IT landscape, TCoEs offer a coherent view for organisations that need to identify and prioritise all potential risk areas, while moving forward with these new technologies.

Aimed at large organisations that are working across multiple technologies or locations, TCoEs provide rigorous testing and support for complex systems from one source.

Quality in action

The banking industry is an early adopter of TCoEs. In 2012, UBS, a major European bank, announced the outsourcing of its quality assurance activities. The outsourcing process involved incorporating 23 IT specialists from the bank’s own staff.

An onsite testing team was installed in the bank’s European offices, supported by SQS specialists in nearshore and offshore testing centres, in Germany, Egypt and India.

The bank has the opportunity to increase or reduce the testing team size, in immediate response to any sudden change or requirement.

This quality management model therefore guarantees flexibility, security, cost efficiency and a high level of service and the approach is suitable across industries, not only the financial sector.

Partnerships and communication

Essential to the success of GQM is the close partnership between client organisation and the external specialist testing provider.

The quality programme must be an investment in knowledge transfer and mutual understanding. While external quality teams will be applying standardised and globally recognised methodology to a quality programme, both parties must invest time into ensuring that there is a complete understanding of the client organisation's specific requirements. This includes company culture and practices and other relevant factors, which must be embedded into the programme.

Communication is integral to the success of a GQM relationship. For multi-shore engagements in particular, all team members must, for example, understand the same technical terminology and be comfortable with working through different time zones and with different cultures.

Finally, time is a key consideration. We estimate that it takes 16 to 18 weeks to set up an IT sourcing project, for GQM a longer period is typical, especially if internal testing teams are large. If an experienced, outsourced, quality management company is engaged, this period of time can be reduced significantly, as standardised procedures are put in place far more efficiently.

Outsourcing quality management is not about farming out “your mess for less”. Both parties have to be prepared to put time into transferring the responsibility for quality to the external supplier. Ultimately, a successful GQM engagement will drive cost efficiencies and provide: effective risk control, scalability, sustainability, innovation, reliability and faster time to market.

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The UK government has moved to increase the available funding on offer to businesses that practice innovative techniques, including energy efficiency in IT and networking improvements.

This second wave of funding follows a £10 million pot for companies carrying out research and development in December 2012 and £250 million for innovative projects including smart city development programs.

The rise in funding was announced by Universities and Science Minister, David Willett, with an extra £12 million in funding coming from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). Eight new projects were created, designed to develop networking systems in areas including energy, environment and transport.

The innovation funding is designed to promote UK businesses to stay competitive and at the pinnacle of global technological research.

Other projects include innovation competitions, with a £1.25 million investment for the creation of energy efficient devices and £1.15 million for technology designed to extend battery life.

David Willett said: “Investing in new ideas for technology now means that the UK will maintain its position as a global leader for innovation”.

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The UK’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has moved to investigate the acquisition of Autonomy by HP, following U.S. investigations.

The investigation will focus on alleged suspect irregularities surrounding the $11.1 billion acquisition of the software company.

Since the buyout Autonomy has failed to deliver strong results, performing significantly below expectations. HP itself has said that it had discovered evidence of significant fraud surrounding accounts, in its fourth-quarter results.

HP and Autonomy founder and former CEO Mike Lynch, who attacked HP’s management of Autonomy, said : “We are fully confident in the financial reporting of the company and look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate this to the FRC."

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US President Barack Obama's national security advisor, Tom Donilon, called on China to take three steps in order to reduce the perceived cyberthreat that China represents to U.S. interests.

These included:

1. Recognition by China of the threat that cyberattacks pose to the countries international trade and its relationship with the U.S.

2. China should proactively move to stop cyberthreats throughout cyberspace.

3. Through diplomacy China should move to establish an understanding of acceptable practices in cyberspace between nations.

Tom Donilon, said in a speech to The Asia Society, that both countries shared common interests in these regards: "Economies as large as the United States and China have a tremendous shared stake in ensuring that the Internet remains open, interoperable, secure, reliable and stable".

The move comes as the U.S. steps up pressure on China’s suspected use of cyberattacks to gather technological information and sensitive data from western industries and government departments.

The move to clarify acceptable cyberspace practices, underlines the grey areas of international relations that cyberwarfare inhabits, despite having the ability to impact critical infrastructure, and the difficulty of proving attack origins.

Parties within the U.S. have pressured for an equal cyber policy response to such attacks. Donilon’s comments come as the U.S. seeks to force an ultimatum from China regarding its suspected offensive use of its cyber capabilities.

China calls for cooperation over global cyber threats

U.S. military IT infrastructure unprepared for cyber attacks

By transitioning email providers Warwickshire Council is expecting to see savings of £250,000.

Service options included Microsoft Office 365, Google, IBM, Exchange, and open source offering Zimbra via supplier Savv, with Google winning out on high cost-efficiency.

The council has now moved to a department wide roll-out of Google Gmail, the service transition will also allow the 4,500 council staff access to Google services including Google Docs, IM, video conferencing and greater archive space.

Cloud services provided by Google will meet suitable security accreditation for the majority of the council’s requirements. Tonino Ciuffini, CIO at Warwickshire County Council, said: “The real benefit has been instant availability of services. It reduces the time for delivery”.

The council is looking to future collaboration with G-Cloud services, with expectations on a major procurement contract being agreed on within the next 12 months.

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China’s foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, has called for increased “rules and cooperation” during a press conference, saying that China represented one of the countries that “faces the most severe cyber-attacks" in the whole world.

In the press conference Yang Jiechi described how China supported U.N. legislation on Internet security and pressed for the need for cooperation between nations, rather than the development of increasing cyberwarfare.

China has been repeatedly accused of carrying out state sponsored cyber-attacks against western government, with calls growing in the U.S. to retaliate in kind.

Yang Jiechi responded to the criticism, saying: “I hope that the relevant parties will stop the irresponsible attacks and criticism, and instead take practical actions to promote mutual trust and cooperation”.

U.S. military IT infrastructure unprepared for cyber attacks

According to research from the Computing Research Association (CRA), numbers of U.S. undergraduates taking computing majors increased by more than 29 percent during last year’s academic year.

The CRA survey also found that graduates were continuing in education to higher levels, with an 8.2 increase in those earning a Ph.D. from the previous year.

The rise has come as graduates increasingly become of aware of the importance of IT, with skills in high demand, with many science field demanding applicants with a high level of computer literacy.

Peter Harsha, the CRA's director of government affairs, said that computer degree uptake is based somewhat: “on the perceived strength of the IT sector”.

Under-utilisation of skills is hampering innovation

BAE Systems Detica have been select as the preferred bidder for delivering a service management integration framework (SMI) by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

The contract, which is expected to be signed over summer, will see the selected supplier managing FCO’s range of suppliers delivering services to more than 260 estates around the world, delivering to more than 1,400 employees. As the supplier BAE will also seek to drive efficiencies and reduce costs through system improvements.

The global framework contract is expected to be worth as much of £80 million over the six year contract length.

Managing Director of BAE Systems Detica, Martin Sutherland, said that BAE was looking in the coming months: “to deliver a solution for the FCO that allows the organisation to achieve dynamic resilience in its IT infrastructure across the world.”

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A NatWest spokesman has revealed that the fault which made key customer services unavilable to millions on Wednesday 6th of March for a number of hours, was due to a mainframe hardware fault.

The mainframe error effected customers of RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank, stopping users accessing online banking service, cash machines or from making payments.

The inability to access services brought back memories of a three day service outage effecting RBS services in June 2012. However the two similar incidents are not connected according to RBS.

The impact of the service disruption seems to have varied from customer to customer, with some users still being unable to access services on the following day.

A RBS spokesman said: “This problem was caused by a hardware fault and was not related to the issues we experienced last summer.”

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Pakistan has begun construction on its end of a natural gas pipeline between Pakistan and Iran. The 2,775 km long pipe valued at $7.5 billion is expected to be completed within the next two years, with the Iranian side of the pipe nearing completion.

The pipe itself is expected to help Pakistan deal with energy demand, with the country’s energy infrastructure frequently failing to provide stable power or prevent blackouts.

The construction project has been met with opposition from the U.S. which has asked Pakistan to exit the project.

India had originally been involved in the early stages of the gas line project but has since pulled out, with a signing of a nuclear deal with the U.S. pre-empting the pull-out.

Pakistan has also been approached by other parties including Saudi Arabia and the U.S. with alternative energy solutions.

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