Industry news

A report released today by IBM and the Saïd School of Business at the University of Oxford has found almost two thirds (63%) of UK and Ireland businesses recognise the competitive advantage associated with Big Data. This marks a significant increase with just over a third (34%) recognising its value back in 2010.

Despite this increased appreciation however, there are still key areas which UKI companies are failing to exploit Big Data potential. Less than half of companies (39%) currently analyse data from social media (39%), whilst similar volumes neglect external feeds (39%) and geospatial data (37%). Investigating the reasons behind the lack of uptake, the study found a ‘lack of understanding of how to use Big Data to impact business’ as the key primary obstacle, with 41% of UKI respondents agreeing.

Commenting on the report, Matin Jouzdani, Strategy Consultant at IBM Global Business Services, said: “One key reason for companies not collecting and analysing wider varieties of data lies in the veracity – or truthfulness – of insights generated from sources such as real-time data and social media. Striving for high data quality is an important Big Data requirement, and the survey respondents questioned the ability to trust rapidly growing forms of unstructured data, such as those generated from on-line consumer comments, reviews, Tweets and other forms of freely offered opinions.

“Another reason that such forms of data are being underutilised is due to the skills gap. Having the more advanced analytical capabilities for managing unstructured data – including geospatial location data, voice and video – as well as streaming data remains a top challenge for most organisations. Less than 25 per cent of the survey respondents say they have the required capabilities to analyse highly unstructured data – a major inhibitor to getting the most value from Big Data.”

BT iNet has announced that it is to recruit more than 50 people into its Converged Infrastructure Practice over the next 18 months, in order to help customers take the first steps towards cloud adoption.

The programme, which is being led by BT iNet’s director of converged infrastructure, James Wolf, will expand the company’s existing advanced data centre skills and capabilities, and will form a core part of the BT Compute product family.

As a result, BT iNet is launching its biggest ever recruitment drive to increase its team by more than 17 per cent in order to expand its converged-infrastructure-focused practice. The new roles will cover both sales and engineering, as well a dedicated team to accelerate the adoption of new products and develop new services that complement the ‘BT Private Compute’ portfolio.

BT iNet’s Private Compute solutions also provide a pathway into other parts of BT’s portfolio that address the later stages of the cloud journey, including its Managed Compute and Cloud Compute platforms.

Neil Pemberton, managing director, BT iNet, said: “Understanding the cloud journey can be complex for customers, so it’s important to break it down into clear and simple steps that help simplify adoption. That’s exactly what we’re doing with this programme, which has been designed to provide the solutions and capabilities that customers need now and help them move towards the cost-predictability, cost-effectiveness and efficiencies offered by cloud services.”

Google, which earlier this month surpassed Microsoft in terms of value, saw its third-quarter profits slide because of spiralling costs and a decline in advertising prices.

It delivered revenues of $11.3bn in the third quarter, but these fell short of analyst estimates of $11.8bn, whilst profits tumbled to $2.18bn, down a fifth on the $2.73bn it made in the third quarter last year.

The results has been scheduled for publication after markets closed in New York, but they were accidentally released early, still with a gap for a quote from Google’s chief executive, Larry Page.

HP Helps Serco ASP Deliver High Quality Shared Services

HP has announced that Serco’s Anglia Support Partnership (Serco ASP), one of the UK's leading shared services providers, has selected HP to help improve the quality and efficiency of its healthcare services.

A robust, high-performance HP Converged Cloud solution based on HP CloudSystem and HP Storage will help Serco ASP improve essential services by managing people, processes, technology and assets more effectively.

Serco ASP provides a wide range of shared services to the NHS and other health-oriented organisations in the East of England, including recruitment, payroll, pensions, purchasing and financial services. The company currently produces 42,000 payslips per month on behalf of its customers from its integrated service centre in Huntingdon, and operates four primary care support centres in Cambridge, Ipswich, Witham and Norwich.

“Serco ASP needed a high performance, future-proof IT platform to support business growth, both geographically and into other market sectors,” said Mark Smith, Head of IT at Serco ASP.

HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL), a leading global IT services provider, has announced results for the quarter ended September 30 2012. HCL’s quarterly revenues increased by 3.2% QoQ to US$ 1,114 mn.

HCL’s European business posted a revenue increase of 16.4% YoY in Q1 FY2013 and 2.8% QoQ in the first quarter of FY 2013. This geography contributed 28% to HCL Technologies’ revenues.

Commenting on the results, Stuart Drew, Executive Vice President – Europe, HCL Technologies said “Europe remains key for HCL’s success with a sound growth of 16.4% YoY. The new financial year has begun with key engagements across industries.”

Europe highlights for the quarter:

• HCL has established a Centre of Excellence for SAP Visual Enterprise (VE) in the UK, to serve its European customers.

• HCL has been chosen by a Top 5 global pharmaceutical company for a multi-year, multi-service managed services engagement encompassing end-to-end application support.

• HCL has won an engagement with a leading media & publishing company to provide enhancement support for its Salesforce.com applications.

• HCL has entered into a global partnership with SuccessFactors, a SAP company, and a global market leader in cloud-based software designed for Human Capital Management. Under the alliance agreement, HCL will provide implementation services, license referrals, and a general operating program for the SuccessFactors Business Execution (BizX) suite to customers in North America, Europe, Latin & South America, Asia Pacific and India.

IBM has expanded its cloud, Big Data and mobile based security offerings as it seeks to take advantage of the expanding data security market.

Announced services include database monitoring capabilities, cloud based automated patching and mobile cloud access applications.

The move will see the IT giant expand into markets where it will see increased completion with rival company HP.

The announcement comes as IBM saw a 5 percent reduction in year-over-year profits during third-quarter announcements and experienced static growth in net income.

China’s economy saw a slow down for the seventh quarter, impacted by the global economic slowdown which has resulted in GDP growth missing government targets.

While GDP expanded by 7.4 percent from last year, the figure represents a significant slowdown in growth from an average 10 percent increase in the past three decades.

Premier Wen Jiabao was reported by local media to have said that the economy in the third quarter was relatively good and that economic growth goals of 7.5 percent were still achievable.

Transport group Go-Ahead has announced that it is aiming for profits of £100 million from the running of bus services within Britain by 2015/16.

The company operates around 4,600 buses serving 1.7 million passengers daily with annual revenue returns of £70 million.

Go-Ahead have said that they expect to achieve such profits through, “high quality services, innovation and marketing and cost efficiency”.

The Gov.uk site has gone live, replacing redundant sites Directgive and Business Link, with the promise of generating £70 million in savings.

As part of a three stage transition process, the site has now gone live, with the remaining stages involving the migration of government departments across to the new site by March 2014.

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude, said: “The public wants services to be delivered better, and with GOV.UK we are responding with a digital platform that makes services quicker and easier to use, and produces efficiencies for government."

Telefonica Digital expects to save at least 30 to 40 percent through cloud based HR software over the next three years.

The communications giant has invested millions in procuring HR software from Workday, however expected savings would deliver savings that paid for the investment within two years.

The system will consolidate applications while providing a flexible platform that can be rapidly implemented.

HR costs have also been achieved through the promotion of BYOD and integration of HR systems across different regions.