Industry news

CSC has told TechWeek Europe that it may axe up to 500 staff following the botched NHS National Programme for IT (NpfIT) project.

“We can confirm that, regrettably, we have recently started a formal 90-day consultation process in the UK which could reduce the number of people working on our NHS account by up to a maximum of 500 people,” CSC told TechWeek Europe in an emailed statement. “This action is necessary mainly because we have now substantially completed many key development activities with NHS, and are now moving away from a focus on development work,” it said.

St George's healthcare trust is leading eight other London trusts in setting up a framework contract worth between £250m and £400m. The deal will provide an electronic patient record (EPR) system, a patient administration system (PAS), a clinical portal and hosting services.

The four-year framework, advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union, says that the EPR/PAS solution will cover a full range of administrative and clinical functional modules required by the trusts.

As well as software, suppliers will be required to provide licensing and maintenance, transition and deployment services, application support and solution monitoring.

The Group reports total 2011 revenues of €9,693 million, up 11.4% on published revenues (i.e. at current Group structure and exchange rates), representing growth of some 2 points above the objective set at the beginning of the year.

On a like-for-like basis (i.e. at constant Group structure and exchange rates), revenues rose 5.6%, with the difference between these two rates primarily due to the consolidation of CPM Braxis (Brazil) and Prosodie (France), acquired in October 2010 and July 2011, respectively.

Bookings during the year totaled €9,903 million, down on last year (-8.4% like-for-like) during which a large number of Outsourcing Services contracts were renewed. Conversely, Technology Services, Local Professional Services and Consulting Services reported 6.2% growth in bookings and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.12, confirming the dynamism of these markets.

British outsourcing group has said this week it had been selected as recommended supplier to partner Britain's Ministry of Defence in providing recruitment services for the Army and IT services for the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

The 10-year deal, which is expected to be awarded in mid-March, will come as a boost to the FTSE 100-listed firm which analysts say is under pressure to win new work after only finding growth in recent years through acquisitions.

After five years of working together through a joint subsidiary, CMA CGM Group and IBM have announced a new strategic partnership.

Under the terms of the five-year agreement, IBM will provide industry-specific expertise in new technologies such as cloud computing and analytics, and support CMA CGM's growth by delivering superior quality information technology services that will help CMA CGM significantly reduce costs.

"Innovative technologies from IBM will help CMA CGM to further improve our customer service. This is one of CMA CGM's key competitive strengths," Mr. Saade said. "The creation of this new partnership with a global market leader is strategic for the Group. This partnership will enable us to offer our customers innovative, purpose-designed IT solutions, while improving our cost discipline."

CSC has announced that John Hancock Financial Services, a unit of Manulife Financial Corporation, a leading Canadian-based financial services group serving millions of customers in 21 countries and territories worldwide, has signed a six-year extension to its information technology outsourcing (ITO) agreement with CSC.

Under the agreement valued at $25 million and awarded during the first quarter of fiscal year 2012, CSC will continue to provide applications and infrastructure services for the carrier's U.S. Wealth Management Division in support of the administration of more than one million fixed and variable annuity policies.

"Since 1987, CSC has been John Hancock's strategic partner, supporting our wealth management practice and enabling us to improve efficiency, productivity and profitability while we focus on the essential functions of our business," said Tony Todisco, vice president, John Hancock Annuity Systems. "With the new distributed environment, John Hancock will have greater flexibility and efficiency, and a foundation for the future."

Atos, EMC Corporation and VMware has announced a strategic alliance for open cloud computing. Additionally, Atos plans to create a new company, Canopy, providing a wide range of cloud solutions and services designed to speed the delivery and help customers quickly take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing.

Based on best-of-breed technology from global cloud computing industry leaders EMC and VMware, the new offerings will include an open cloud platform that enables customers to easily and flexibly choose, access and deploy cloud-based services for their enterprise IT needs.

Canopy will provide a market-leading one-stop shop for cloud services, enabling organizations to easily, securely and cost effectively accelerate their move to the cloud. As part of the strategic alliance and in addition to providing the advanced technologies upon which the new Atos cloud solutions and services will be delivered, EMC and VMware also intend to invest alongside Atos to help drive innovation and the successful adoption of Canopy's solutions in the marketplace.

UK defence group BAE Systems has reported a drop in annual sales after defence orders fell back and has warned sales will not grow this year.

Revenues fell 14% to £19.15bn in 2011 while pre-tax profits were £1.46bn, up slightly on 2010's £1.4bn.

The drop in revenue was mainly due to a cut in orders from the US army after it pulled out of Iraq and the delay of an order for jets from Saudi Arabia.

ResponseTek and CallMiner Form Alliance to Provide Integrated Speech Analytics and Customer Experience Management Solution for Contact Centers

Contact Centers Can Obtain a 360-Degree View of Customer Experience by Combining Speech Analytics with Customer Experience Insights and Action Management Tools

ResponseTek, the leader in customer experience management (CEM) software solutions announces a formal agreement with CallMiner, the leader in enterprise speech analytics. The partnership creates a best-in-class combination of capabilities that will drive rapid improvement in quality and customer satisfaction metrics.

ResponseTek has been the leader in call center based customer experience solutions for over 6 years, providing innovative multi-channel survey capabilities, advanced workflow tools, and real-time analysis of large volumes of customer data. The addition of CallMiner’s speech and voice analytics allows ResponseTek to interpret unstructured voice feedback within the ResponseTek Listening Platform™, providing contact centers with a complete understanding of customer experience drivers.

DRIAS, a US company which provides outsourced functions to the insurance sector, has chosen Cardiff Bay for its first European Centre of Excellence.

The investment will initially create 30 jobs at DRIAS Transnat, but will rise to 50 over two years.

The project is being backed with £162,000 from the Welsh Government’s Economic Growth Fund – a £15m initiative to support job creating capital investment projects.