Industry news

A report into contract practices by accountants into the practices of civil servants for Edinburgh City Council have revealed multiple failings, resulting in the council paying for £27 million of construction work.

Failures included the avoidance of correct tendering processes, having work carried out without proper evidence of quality control or detail planning into cost reduction and overall supplier costs.

Accountants also discovered that contractors had access to payment systems and that internal reports were destroyed prior to the accountant’s investigation.

The failure in procurement and contract management has been disputed by the council, which called the report ‘historic ‘and out of ‘context’.

Cornwall’s hospitals are now looking at a new procurement process after the collapse of a strategic alliance to digitalise hospital records.

The original program had been with BT but collapsed after a council revolt changed the structure of the strategic alliance with resulting legal advice causing a complete pullout.

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust have revealed that current options for the trust remain uncertain, with hospitals in the region now unlikely to reach government targets to share records electronically by April of next year.

More flexible and agile working practices could deliver savings of up to 32% through reduced estate costs and the ease of access available from new technology.

Research carried out by cloud providers Citrix, found that the government pays £490 per square meter of estate, with an average of 1.1 desks for every office worker, with the figure rising to 1.6 in certain departments.

James Stevenson, area vice president of Citrix Northern Europe, said: “By embracing the benefits offered by modern technology and more flexible working practices, the government could effectively halve the number of desks it maintains across departments.”

A upgrade to IT systems at Morrisons have caused significant delays to supplier payments.

The failure to process invoices was blamed on IT infrastructure upgrades. Morrisons have issued a statement, saying: “We have experienced a temporary issue with our new computer system. But all payments should now be going through to suppliers."

The upgrades are believed to be part of a £200 million upgrade of core systems, including product management and online services along with the affected supply chain payment services.

Upgrades can often prove a risk to ICT services with many major companies including Apple, the NASDAQ stock market and Natwest all suffering from having services affected by failed upgrades.

In a report released by the British Venture Capital Association, the UK was pressed to follow the German example of investing in businesses to promote further investment and growth.

British Venture Capital Association with members including a number of major equity firms, warns in in a report, of the danger of increased regulation and the tightening immigration restrictions on the UK’s prospects for economic recovery.

The report also recommended that the UK moved away from imposing punishing capital requirements for banks that go beyond the increased amounts imposed by the EU.

The UK’s fiscal position remains precarious so there is a limit to what stimulus can be delivered without adding to an already large debt burden,” said Robert Easton.

The EU has proposed a new law that would require businesses to inform authorities of any data breach.

The law is included as part of the proposed cyber security directive and follows an online consolation with businesses, more than 50 percent of respondents agreed that the proposed law would not lead to significant costs.

Authorities would need to be notified of any breaches that, “seriously compromise the operation of networks and information systems".

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has faced criticism from the Committee of Public Accounts, regarding the department’s management of its medical assessment contract with outsourcing firm Atos.

The report attacked the Work Capability Assessment service delivered by Atos and citied DWP as the main party responsible for failings.

Appeals made against the Work Capability Assessment have been successful in one third of all cases without the need for requiring new evidence, suggesting a flawed process.

The report by the committee criticised the relaxed nature of the DWP and their “light-touch approach to managing the contract”.

Labour MP and committee chairman, Margaret Hodge, called for a “substantial shake-up” in contract management at the DWP, adding “The department is too often just accepting what Atos tells it. It seems reluctant to challenge the contractor. It has failed to withhold payment for poor performance and rarely checked that it is being correctly charged.”

Sudlows has been awarded a contract, valued at £2.25 million, to provide a new modular datacentre facility, based on campus.

The new facility, because of its modular design, will allow for increased flexibility and agility. The datacentre is also expected to provide significant savings through energy efficiency.

The on-site centre will allow for rapid access and maintenance, with the whole centre designed for expansion to meet future IT demands.

Manish Khandelwal, sourcing expert at PA Consulting Group discusses India's IT Industry, it's advantages in a global marketplace and it's future direction.

It’s February and there’s a real buzz. Valentine's Day is fast approaching and the entire Indian IT industry is excited. But it’s not romance that is setting hearts aflutter but the Nasscom India Leadership Forum.

It’s now a must attend event, easily the largest gathering of the Indian IT industry, but with increasing participation from global outfits.

The buzz at Nasscom feels very different to any other industry event. The growth is dizzying and numbers mind boggling. The event is a real celebration of the Indian IT industry.

So, how has India got IT so right?

Partly it reflects a dauntless Indian spirit and a desire to succeed under any circumstances. India’s lack of quality infrastructure helped the Indian IT industry to succeed in a curious way. While traditional industries such as manufacturing are highly dependent on the raw materials and demand heavy and reliable infrastructure, IT primarily needs human capital. In the pre-liberalisation era, when industries such as manufacturing found it hard to succeed, more and more Indians looked for alternative jobs, and they found them in IT. The sector offered a powerful combination of significantly higher returns on investments for the employers and global growth opportunities for the employees.

And Indian IT was in the right place at the right time. In the ‘80s the industry was just emerging, by the ‘90s it was starting to gain some interest from around the world. Then came the Y2K bug. The world needed large volumes of basic IT skills and Indian companies were there on their doorstep to meet that need. The world’s IT glitch was India’s opportunity.

That drove a rapid transformational change. In the western world, it became acceptable to have an IT problem resolved in a faraway country, at a fraction of the cost. And no other country offered technical skills in the volumes that India could supply.

Inevitably, there were pessimists who said once Y2K was over Indian companies would struggle to find work. The reverse was true. Changing economic realities, growing demand for technical skills and the valuable experience Indian companies now had meant they were much more in demand. Industry revenues that were 10 billion USD in 2001 crossed the 100 billion USD mark in the year 2012.

Other than the cost differential, India has another advantage over the rest of the world. It has an English speaking technical workforce that is willing to travel, relocate within or outside the country and explore. India produces innumerable numbers of English speaking graduates every year. So while there are specialised skilled teams in various places in the world, outside India there are not many options for an outsourcing operation that requires large numbers of English speaking IT or business process outsourcing skills.

Then there is the fact that success breeds success. Today’s Indian IT industry is actually no longer about Indian companies. Almost all the leading global service providers have their base in India and it’s where they find most of their skills. This has led to a virtuous circle, where the country has attained a critical mass of skills, so attracts more business and more skills.

So, what does the future offer?

It hasn’t always been easy for the industry and it won’t be in the future. Some western governments are taking more protectionist positions. Inflation is sky high therefore threatening the cost differential, the fundamental driver of offshoring. Infrastructure remains the perennial problem and the political landscape is as fragmented as ever. Then there is the issue of inconsistent quality of skills. And competition is hot on the heels, with many other countries wanting a piece of the offshore IT services pie.

India will need to use its experience and its head start to stay in front of the competition. More needs to be done to move ‘Brand India’ away from a focus on cost and more towards its ability to undertake large scale transformational programmes. More investment will need to go into products to balance the services portfolio. While the large outfits may continue to dominate, the smaller players will need to be more agile and nimble to explore the opportunities. Growth will need to be more inclusive, and need to touch the hinterlands of India.

One thing is sure though. With India accounting for more than half of global sourcing business, India’s crown is not going to slip anytime soon. So, the Nasscom India Leadership forum will be as upbeat, energetic and full of optimism as ever. Not many can challenge St. Valentine in creating a buzz. The Indian IT industry can.

The DfE has started to gather advice from within the private ICT sector for the development of the ICT curriculum through a consultation of industry leaders.

The new curriculum is designed to provide the requisite skills to develop the UK IT industry, and replace the past outdated curriculum that failed to stimulate students or provide the skills that the industry is looking for.

The first draft of the curriculum details how it: “combines creativity with rigour: pupils apply underlying principles to understand real-world systems, and to create purposeful and usable artefacts”.