Industry news

Atos, an international IT services company, has announced that it has been awarded a new five-year contract with ISS, one of the largest providers of Facility Services.

The announcement follows the decision by ISS to move to Atos. Key factors in appointing Atos as its new UK provider were value for money, increased flexibility, improved resilience and a better user experience.

Mark Brown, IT Director at ISS said: “We chose Atos because we have confidence in their people and their solutions. They demonstrated an excellent knowledge and understanding of our business and presented a standardised cloud solution that has the flexibility to adapt rapidly to changing business requirements while reducing our overall IT costs.”

Atos will manage all IT services and infrastructure for the UK business of ISS. It will implement its cloud solution, Atos Sphere, and its desktop solution, Adaptive Workplace, to migrate all existing services from an on-site data centre to a fully virtualised platform. The new solution will deliver savings from day one while improving flexibility and resilience.

Wipro BPO, the Business Process Outsourcing arm of Wipro Technologies has announced that TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC, UK’s leading provider of value for money fixed line broadband and voice telephony services to consumers and business users, has selected Wipro BPO as one of its strategic partners for its outsourced contact centre operations. Wipro Technologies is the Global Information Technology, Consulting and Outsourcing business of Wipro Limited.

Wipro will be responsible for the creation of a new service centre in India to support the group’s resident customers. Wipro will also work alongside TalkTalk to continue to improve the overall customer experience, including the implementation of new CRM technologies.

"Wipro’s engagement with TalkTalk reinforces our leadership as the long-term strategic partner equipped to help global corporations transform their businesses using our process and technology capabilities. We are delighted to work with TalkTalk and help them strengthen their leadership position in the market place.” said Manish Dugar, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Wipro BPO.

Jo Dawson, TalkTalk’s Director of Consumer Operations commented “We have worked with Wipro for many years and look forward to leveraging Wipro’s expertise, particularly in the use of new technologies, to deliver further improvements in our customers’ experience over the years ahead.”

Sitel, a leading customer care outsourcing provider, has announced it was ranked as one of the “Top Global BPO providers” in the seventh annual Global Services 100 survey, a listing of leading global providers of business and technology outsourcing services. The company was also honoured as a “Top Contact Centre and Customer Management Vendor” and “Top 20 Employer.”

This is Sitel’s seventh year on the Global Services 100 list, and sixth as a category winner. The company was specifically recognised for providing high level customer service and support in several areas:

· Unprecedented customer value: Sitel is changing the perception of the call centre industry from a tactical, cost-cutting alternative to a strategic resource of business value and growth. The company’s call centre solutions continue to reduce service costs, increase revenue and improve customer retention for some of the world’s largest brands.

· Web engagement framework and technology innovation: Sitel’s expertise in leveraging live chat, social media monitoring, and agent/customer personality mapping in the call centre allows clients to capitalise on Sitel’s global expertise, simplifying and strengthening millions of customer interactions worldwide.

· Expanding geographic footprint: Sitel continues to stay ahead of the latest geographic trends, providing support in 26 countries and 36 languages worldwide. While the company maintains a strong presence in traditional leading markets such as India and the Philippines, Sitel is also setting new standards in emerging hubs, such as Nicaragua, Columbia, Bulgaria, and most recently, Serbia.

“Sitel is honoured to be acknowledged as one of the top call centre and customer care vendors once again,” said Bert Quintana, president and COO of Sitel. “This award is a testament to our team’s ability to stay ahead of changing market dynamics, providing the top-notch innovation, solutions and strategies to keep our client’s customer service and business thriving.”

MPs have urged the government to scrap the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) and blasted suppliers CSC and BT for failing to deliver on guarantees made in bumper contracts.

The NPfIT was launched nine years ago and was intended to revamp the way in which the health service uses technology. One of the central tenets of the £11.4bn plan was to introduce electronic patient records (EPR).

But a report published by the Commons' Public Accounts Committee has called on the entire programme, including plans for EPRs, to be canned.

"The Department of Health should review whether to continue the programme and consider whether the remaining £4.3bn would be better spent elsewhere," said the report's summary.

The summary claims that despite a total of £2.7bn being spent on implementing EPRs so far, "the Department has failed to demonstrate the benefits achieved". The previous government is, in part, blamed for the NPfIT's failings for not having "consulted at the start of the process with health professionals".

Read more: http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2099158/mps-blast-bt-csc-npfit-rollout-failings#ixzz1U4b4Fpss

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Sweeping intellectual property reforms to boost growth and add billions to the economy

The Government has announced plans to support economic growth by modernising UK intellectual property laws. Ministers have accepted the recommendations made in an independent review which estimate a potential benefit to the UK economy of up to £7.9 billion.

The recommendations were made in May 2011 by Professor Ian Hargreaves in his report, - ‘Digital Opportunity: A review of intellectual property and growth’. Modernising intellectual property law is a key action from the Government’s Plan for Growth, published in March alongside the Budget, which will help create the right conditions for businesses to invest, grow and create jobs.

Announcing the Government’s response to the review, Business Secretary Vince Cable said:

“The Government is focused on boosting growth and the Hargreaves review highlighted the potential to grow the UK economy. By creating a more open intellectual property system it will allow innovative businesses to develop new products and services which will be able to compete fairly in the UK’s thriving markets for consumer equipment.

Essex County Council is modernising its information services and saving £32 million in costs.

The cuts are part of a wider job cull at the council, under the council’s transformation programme to achieve £300 million over four years, which may result in 429 redundancies.

“As part of our ambitious Essex Works: Customer First Transformation agenda, the Information Services Modernisation programme is set to deliver £32 million savings over the next five years through changing the way we deliver IT provision.

“This will require some reduction in the size of our IS team as well as changing the way ICT is used across the county. However, it is too early to provide specific details,” an Essex County Council spokesperson said.

As part of its sale of non-core assets, AIB has agreed to sell its AIB International Financial Services business to the Capita Group Plc for a consideration of €33m.

The deal is subject to approval by the appropriate regulatory authorities in Ireland, Luxembourg and The Netherlands.

Indian call centre staff are selling UK broadband user's financial data, including credit cards and security codes, for as little as 25 pence per user for bulk purchases.

An investigation by The Sun found a former call centre worker who sold the bank account details, personal data such as job description and credit card numbers with the three-digit CVV security code of 1,000 users for £250

Martyn Hart, Chairman of the National Outsourcing Association, said: “Sadly, this is a recurrent problem – but is just as likely to happen in Bolton as Bangalore, if the processes are not right.

“In the current economic climate in India, people leave their job for a few rupees more elsewhere. Staff churn has reached such high levels that some companies are so desperate to get bums on seats and answering the phones that standards appear to have slipped. We believe the companies mentioned run and manage their own operations offshore, rather than outsource to Indian service providers.

“Security in outsourced operations is mission critical; their continued success relies upon a solid reputation. No company would want to work with them if they were known to leak data. Outsourcers simply have more to lose than companies managing call centres themselves. This means they have more robust processes, both in terms of staff vetting and technology-based methods.

“It is alarming that Deepak Chuphal acquired a huge list of comprehensive customer data. Financial information should be protected by business processes that do not allow a staff member access to full sensitive data at one time. No-one person should have access to the full name, address, bank name, sort code and account number etc. all at the same time. Any request for additional information should be logged and audited. This applies to all data centres, whether in India, Europe or anywhere else. This is best practice, as endorsed by the National Outsourcing Association.

“It is not known if Deepak Chuphal has a criminal record, so it is unknown if criminal record checks would have helped prevent this crime (after all, you do not have to be a convicted criminal to have criminal intent) but the National Outsourcing Association calls for ever greater diligence when it comes to background checking, especially in management and IT roles.

Accenture has entered into an agreement with Intertek, a leading global provider of quality and safety solutions, to provide Intertek with global IT and finance and accounting (F&A) services on an outsourced basis. The agreement includes the provision of technology infrastructure, application management and back-office accounting services. Financial details were not disclosed.

Under the global agreement, Accenture will provide F&A business process outsourcing (BPO) services to Intertek through an Accenture global delivery centre in Delhi, India. The agreement includes services currently delivered by Intertek across ten English speaking countries and the programme will be implemented over the next two years.

Accenture will also provide global technology infrastructure and manage Intertek's bespoke technology applications; supporting the group's strong global growth programme and enabling efficient integration of acquisitions.

Following a sustained period of significant growth, including a number of acquisitions, Intertek is seeking to integrate and standardize its finance and technology functions across a number of geographic locations.

“As part of our Intertek as One programme, our collaboration with Accenture will support Intertek's growing IT and accounting requirements across ten countries. This change will provide an efficient, scalable platform to support Intertek's growth program and generate near term cost savings.” said Lloyd Pitchford, Chief Financial Officer of Intertek Group.

McDonald’s UK has signed a deal with Fujitsu for the provision of IT infrastructure support services to the company’s 1,200 restaurants in the UK and Republic of Ireland. McDonald’s is consolidating work, which was previously undertaken by separate providers, into a single contract with Fujitsu with the intention of simplifying its support model to restaurants and ensuring a more nimble and holistic view of its IT estate. The new contract will ensure McDonald’s can deliver the right support capability into restaurants day-to-day, and help the company remain at the forefront of innovating its IT as it moves towards becoming a wider hospitality environment for families.

Within the five year deal, Fujitsu will support the restaurant IT estate, from front of house tills and Point-of-Sale (POS), to drive-thru ordering, restaurant bridge (the area where food is prepared and served) and back office.