Industry news

Good governance is critical to the success of any outsourcing venture. It is an enterprise wide, overarching corporate function, aimed at delivering innovation, value and mitigating risk to the business. An exclusive sourcingfocus.com roundtable, in association with IBM and the NOA,examined how governance should provide a management continuum throughout the outsourcing life-cycle to provide a consistent and appropriate focus on strategic outcomes.

PasS (platform as a service) is expected to be worth an estimated $2.9 billion by 2016 according to Gartner.

The analyst giant predicts the 900 million increase from 2011 figures as the market expands in countries including Japan and the US and technology matures.

The PaaS market is still heavily competitive within itself and with main rival SaaS, the rapid growth over the next four years will be fuelled by fierce competition says Gartner, as cloud providers and enterprise software supplies fight for market dominance.

Fabrizio Biscotti, research director at Gartner, said: “PaaS is where the battle between suppliers and products is set to intensify the most.”

The NHS Commissioning Board is expected to set a record setting precedent for the G-Cloud, as it plans to procure email services from multiple suppliers.

The procurement process would be the largest deal to go through the G-Cloud, potentially providing services to the whole of the NHS.

The procurement process is expected begin in July 2013 when the contract with the previous email provider expires.

Spotify has secured funding of $100 million from Goldman Sachs, Coca-Colam, and Fidelity Investments.

Total revenue raised by Spotify has now reached $288 million despite the company posting a loss of €45 million in 2011.

Along with a loss making model Spotify is facing renewed competition from rivals including French based Deezer who managed to secure funding of $130 million within last month.

Private equity firm Terra Firma has acquired a contract to run UK armed forces accommodation for £3.2 billion.

Terra Firma is in the process of buying Annington Homes who own the MOD housing property, the deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The acquisition marks the largest UK purchase by the firm during 2012 and will see the firm control properties belonging to more than 40,000 armed forces families.

A Greenpeace compiled list entitled ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ has been topped by newcomer Wipro.

The guide which is designed to promote operational efficiency and green projects found that Wipro displayed numerous green processes in recycling and supply chain delivery.

Casey Harrell, IT analyst at Greenpeace described how hardware companies can have a large impact upon the environment because of the nature of their work, the expanding nature of the industry and the use of chemicals in the manufacturing and assembly process.

Jaguar Land Rover has moved production to Shanghai after the Chinese approval of its joint venture program with Chery Automobile.

The move comes after the car manufacturer has seen an 80 percent rise in demand in China through this year. The new plant and production chain will supplement current facilities within the UK rather than reducing construction within the UK.

The venture will see the construction of a brand new facility which is expected to be completed by 2015.

Birmingham Metropolitan College have reduced the cost of IT equipment procurement by 40 percent through the employment of a cloud based benchmarking system.

The college employed the benchmarking software ITelligence from Mercato which provides users with information on the wholesale price paid by suppliers.

Jamie Smith, director of systems and policy development at the college, said: “Like all organisations in the current economic climate, the college needs to get more for less”.

Network giant Cisco are set to acquire cloud service provider Meraki for €1.2 billion.

Meraki with over 10,000 companies using its services is focused upon medium-sized businesses, the acquisition comes as the networking giant seeks to expand into the cloud services market.

In a statement, Cisco senior vice president, Rob Soderbery, said: "The acquisition of Meraki enables Cisco to make simple, secure, cloud managed networks available to our global customer base of mid-sized businesses and enterprises".

Private firms now treat one in five NHS patents according to a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

The rise in the treatment of NHS patents through private firms increased after GPs began to offer patients a wider list of locations to receive treatment.

The employment of the private sector to provide patient care rose under the labour government as a way to reduce waiting times and increase patient capacity.

David Worskett, director of the NHS Partners Network said: "While the overall proportion of NHS care delivered by the independent sector remains very low, at less than 5%, independent providers are very pleased to be making what is clearly a valued contribution to the NHS and patients in these challenging times.”

Concern has increased within elements of the NHS regarding the effect of privatisation with a spokesman from the British Medical Association (BMA) saying: “The BMA has had concerns for a number of years about the ethos of promoting competition between different providers within the NHS as this could lead to a fragmentation and possible destabilisation of patient services".