Industry news

HP Lands Multiyear Agreement to Enable P&G's "Always On" Operating Environment

HP Enterprise Services has announced that Procter & Gamble (P&G) has signed a multiyear agreement for HP (HPQ) to help provide an "Always On" operating environment that enables the consumer-goods leader to keep products moving on time, from production all the way to shoppers' carts in the retail store.

Under the terms of the agreement, HP will be accountable for the comprehensive systems reliability of critical P&G processes, such as manufacturing, procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, physical distribution and financial close.

Prime Minister David Cameron is leading a high level delegation of over 25 companies this week to Mexico.

Prime Minister David Cameron is leading a high-level business delegation this week to Mexico, which is hosting the G20 and B20 summits in Los Cabos.

He is accompanied by Chancellor George Osborne, Trade & Investment Minister Lord Green and over 25 UK companies, institutions and universities including Diageo, Rolls Royce, Virgin Atlantic and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Also travelling are Business Ambassador Tamara Mellon and pottery designer Emma Bridgewater.

Lord Green said: “Almost two hundred years ago, the UK was the number one European exporter to Latin America. British expertise helped to build Mexico’s railways and canals, but UK firms currently account for less than one per cent of Mexico’s imports. We need to turn this performance around in one of the world’s most promising markets.”

Pillsbury Global Sourcing today announced the launch of its iPhone app, Sourcing Deal Tool Kit, now available for free in the App Store. Sourcing Deal Tool Kit helps deal makers calculate performance metrics and costs in IT and business process outsourcing contracts, right from their iPhone, during crucial contract negotiations and routine service management.

The app’s key features include tools for measuring whether downtime levels in a contract could substantially harm a business, comparing providers’ performance against promised service levels and monitoring cost of living changes in different countries where service providers have operations.

“We designed Sourcing Deal Tool Kit as a fast, reliable way to crunch performance and cost numbers at the negotiating table with service providers,” said Joseph E. Nash, a Washington, DC consulting principal with Pillsbury Global Sourcing, who led development of the app and shared it for beta testing with Pillsbury clients and leading service providers.

“Translating contract terms into business and performance metrics historically requires a lot of offline legwork, but now customers and providers can quickly turn to their iPhones for reliable calculations instead, which can save time and further empower decision makers by keeping them well informed.”

Motorola Solutions, Inc. and Psion Plc. have recently announced that they have agreed on the terms of a recommended offer by Motorola Solutions for all Psion shares for 88 pence (US $1.36) in cash per Psion share. It is intended that the acquisition will be effected by way of a recommended cash offer.

Psion has been a pioneer in ruggedized mobile computing products and their application in industrial segments around the world. With headquarters in London and a major operational presence near Toronto, Canada, Psion has been a leader in mobile computing solutions since 1980. Psion has approximately 830 employees, customers in more than 50 countries and delivered 2011 revenues of £176 million (approximately US $273 million).

Greg Brown, chairman and CEO of Motorola Solutions, said: “Psion is a compelling opportunity to strengthen our industry-leading, mobile-computing portfolio with ruggedized handheld products and vehicle-mount terminals that will deepen our presence in the global markets in which we compete.”

John Hawkins, chairman of Psion, said: "The Psion directors are pleased to unanimously recommend this offer by Motorola Solutions at a price which offers a significant cash premium to both the current and recent market prices. Psion continues to successfully deliver on its strategy of introducing exciting new products while strictly managing the cost base. The offer by Motorola Solutions provides Psion's shareholders with certainty in an environment where certainty is in short supply."

Google said: "Last year we released a paper on the energy savings from using Gmail instead of locally hosted email. Here, we expand on that analysis to include the cloud-based office applications of Google Apps. Our estimates, which we’ve supported with a case study from a Google Apps client, show that migrating basic IT applications to Google Apps significantly reduces energy consumption and carbon emissions. Based on our analysis, a typical company or organization that migrates to the cloud could:

• save an estimated 68–87% in energy for its office computing

• reduce similar amounts of carbon emissions

These findings are consistent with a case study presented in a paper of the actual savings achieved by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), a Google Apps client with approximately 17,000 users. By switching to Google Apps, GSA reduced server energy consumption by nearly 90% and carbon emissions by 85%."

Quest Software Inc. has received buyout offer worth about $2.15 billion from an unnamed party, a proposal superior to an existing offer that may create a bidding war for the business software maker.

Quest said it has received an offer of $25.50 per share from an undisclosed buyer.

Publication of sales achieved through the G-Cloud framework have revealed that the majority of purchases made to date have been for Huddle's collaboration software.

Huddle sales account for more than £400,000 of total sales of £453,000, with buyers of the software including the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The largest Huddle sale is for £251,000 to the Ministry of Justice, followed by similar deals for £70,200 to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and for £66,546 to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

The BBC has reported that two North Yorkshire councils are to stop sharing services.

The site states the North Yorkshire councils are to end the sharing of some services after saying the arrangement was not working.

"Hambleton and Richmondshire district councils were among the first in the country to pool resources, setting up the scheme in 2009. Te councils share a chief executive and senior managers, as well as having a combined waste collection service.They said combined savings for both were more than £1m a year."

When it comes to data security, many firms decide they’re happy just to leave it to the experts, safe in the knowledge that they’ll keep their data under lock and key and away from harm. However, with such vast amounts of data leading to a dilution of the security process, how can a company ever be completely satisfied that the experts are doing an expert job?

Perhaps the most honest answer is that they can’t, and I’m sure that the old adage about ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is applicable to many in this instance – until something goes wrong! There are, however, steps that businesses can take in the way they draw up SLAs that can help them to mitigate the potential risks involved.

The first of these is to make sure that you have clear, up-to-date policies in place to govern your security processes. This includes ensuring that your suppliers have ‘skin in the game’ – that they’re likeminded companies who understand the industry and have a stake in the success of your company’s data security. One way to achieve this is by enforcing accountability with penalties invoked in the event of any breach.

Of course, I’m not naïve enough to believe it’s impossible for the best-laid plans to go awry, and so as the outsourcer you need to be sure you understand the data being outsourced, and are ready to ask yourself the right questions. For instance, if a breach occurs, would there be catastrophic consequences to the business? If the answer to this is yes, you may need to either reconsider or look at segregation of the data – either way there are likely to be cost implications to manage the risk.

This decision has to be taken by the person best placed to understand the potential IT security threat and business impact – the CIO. They need to be comfortable that the organisation’s appetite for risk is adequately mitigated with the supporting controls, tools and training in place.

With the CIO and fellow board members driving the security responsibilities of staff members, a secure business culture should follow. However, a business can only promote a culture of security if all staff members are complying with instructions. Clearly, before this happens, clear and explicit instructions on what should or should not be done, must be shared across the business with named individuals who have the accountability for security in each area. What you’ll see is that a culture of security will quickly become the norm, and when people understand and buy in to it, understanding the implications for both the firm and themselves if they aren’t ‘on-side’ and compliant will soon follow!

In summary, it’s important to make sure everyone is pulling in the right direction with clear accountability. You can’t just leave your data with another company and hope for the best; by creating stringent guidelines, for both your company and for service providers, the pieces of the data jigsaw should, with careful planning and monitoring, fall into place and stay there.

CIOs are finding themselves under increasing pressure as IT infrastructures become progressively complex, with the explosion of cloud services and exponential data growth becoming a problematic issue. Earlier this year MTI research found that nearly half of IT professionals in the UK (44 per cent) feel they don’t have the capacity to accommodate increased IT demands, while only one in nine feels they are fully resourced (11 per cent).

Time is becoming ever more precious to CIOs, whose roles have dramatically changed over the years with a more strategic focus. Today’s CIO’s are responsible for business transformation and play a vital role in helping businesses to gain the competitive edge through the use of technology. With the whole organisation looking to IT to lead innovation, CIO’s and their teams cannot afford to be distracted by time-consuming administrative tasks. To reduce their workload and IT administration processes, CIOs can take a step back and adopt managed services. This enables IT departments to outsource their IT to a technology consultancy that can take daily management tasks off their hands.

By operating robust managed services offering CIOs can significantly streamline their system administration tasks, freeing them to focus on more important tasks. The daily management of the IT environment is carried out externally, with the focus on the operations management of hardware and software whilst ensuring service delivery. Within this, the strongest focuses will be on capacity planning and provisioning, security management, proactive technical support and technical upgrades.

In addition, CIOs will also notice an increase in their organisational security and a reduction in downtime. The performance of their systems is routinely monitored externally through datacentres and networks that offer 24x7x365 support, all backed by service level agreements. This provides real-time detection of security threats and problems. A disaster that could previously have gone unnoticed until it caused several hours of downtime can now be spotted and solved by the service provider before it can affect the business.

The net result of this is an increase in organisational productivity, enabling CIOs to focus their attention on pressing business issues rather than having to waste their time worrying about day-to-day IT systems management and routine administrative tasks. Companies can outsource as little or as much of their IT needs as they like in the knowledge that their IT department’s workload is being freed up to deliver the strategic and competitive advantage that will help the business succeed in the current economic landscape.

By leveraging the right technology and working with a reputable managed service provider, businesses can rest assured that corporate data and information is kept secure outside their premises, whilst enhancing business continuity in the process. This enables early notification of potential problems, allowing staff to swiftly address issues without impacting on the company’s business – all without the involvement of the CIO.

Implementing solutions to meet the increase in demands are heightening the workloads of IT departments. Half of the respondents to our survey said the increased demands were “significantly” eating into their workload and one in six (16 per cent) indicated that the increased workload was “catastrophic” or “overwhelming.”

The good news for CIOs is that utilising remote managed services puts them and their IT departments in complete control of their organisation’s IT environment. CIOs no longer have to worry about the management of their company’s infrastructure as they now have a vital tool that helps them become more effective, and provides their organisation with reliable, flexible IT support.