Industry news

The number of private sector businesses in the UK at the start of 2010 increased by 48,000 (1.1 per cent) since the start of 2009, statistics from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) today reveal.

At the beginning of 2010, there were an estimated 4.5 million private sector enterprises in the UK. These 4.5 million businesses employed an estimated 22.5 million people and had an estimated combined annual turnover of £3,200 billion.

Business and Enterprise Minister Mark Prisk said:

“Private sector enterprises will create growth in our economy so it is encouraging to see that the number of businesses at the start of 2010 had increased. This was a difficult period, and these figures show the resilience of British business.

“I am determined that the Government will do everything it can to create the right environment for these businesses to now expand and grow, and also to encourage more people to set up on their own.”

Symantec Corp. has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Clearwell Systems, Inc., a recognized leader in the eDiscovery market.

Under the terms of the agreement, Symantec will acquire Clearwell for a purchase price of approximately $390 million, net of Clearwell’s existing cash balance of approximately $20 million. The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval, and is expected to close in the September quarter.

“As information continues to grow at unprecedented rates, the biggest challenge for customers is to protect, manage and backup this information as well as have the ability to categorize and discover it efficiently,” said Deepak Mohan, senior vice president, Information Management Group, Symantec. “The acquisition of Clearwell’s market leading electronic discovery solution will further increase Symantec’s ability to get the right information, to the right people, at the right time, while reducing overall legal review costs and limiting risk.”

Lincolnshire Police Authority are looking to outsource a range of back office services over the next 10 years, a contract worth around £200 million.

The contract for the Lincolnshire Authority and Force involves the widest range of services offered in a single contract by any police authority in the country.

The Police Authority was searching for potential strategic partners since March, after budget cuts of over £20 million over the next four years were announced.

Five companies are already shortlisted for the contract negotiations:

■Capita Bluelight Alliance

■Serco and Logica

■Steria with Reliance

■Northgate Information Solutions

■G4S

Birmingham City Council has revealed plans to offshore up to 100 back-office IT jobs by the end of this year, as part of its money-saving outsourcing deal with Capita Business Services.

The joint venture aims to save the council approximately £35m over the next four years.

“We are looking to offshore a number of back-office roles throughout this year,” said a spokesperson for Service Birmingham.

“Plans are underway at the moment for the first tranche of roles to be offshored; a second tranche will take place over the summer”.

The first two tranches will place approximately 55 roles overseas.

Although Service Birmingham only has “detailed plans” for the initial 55 roles, it will have the option to offshore a further 45 jobs by the end of the year.

Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost consulting technology, and outsourcing service providers has been awarded a five-year contract by the Hilti Corporation, one of the world’s leading technology suppliers for the construction industry. Capgemini Procurement Services, a new division of Capgemini Business Process Outsourcing unit, now provides the complete suite of electronic solutions for Hilti’s Procurement Indirect Materials, leveraging its IBX on-demand technology platform.

The project with Hilti is now live with the first phase in Germany. More than 3,000 end-users are guided to an electronic ordering process with a full scope of call-off methods including catalogues, web-shops, vendor forms and free text orders. Hilti will channel all suitable indirect spend via one channel through the “IBX on demand platform”. Hilti and Capgemini further plan to introduce Contract Management, automatic Invoice Matching and Electronic Sourcing with Online RFPs (Request for Proposals). Hilti was one of first companies to give one single provider the opportunity to deliver all the above processes.

Capgemini will work with Hilti to reduce complexity and to increase transparency in the procurement process for indirect materials. The target is to increase efficiency, contract compliance and spend under management while achieving cost savings.

Jürgen Friederici, Senior VP Procurement Indirect Materials, from Hilti said “We chose Capgemini above competitors because they were offering smart customer relationship management and best industry practice with realistic and measurable goals. Their offering focused on quality and a partnership built on honesty and trust. Capgemini’s eProcurement solutions and content management system with full integration into our ERP was unequalled. We look forward to working with them over the next five years.”

Aegon, the life insurance and pensions firm, has announced plans to cut 213 UK jobs, including those in IT, in a bid to meet its cost savings target.

The posts in IT, marketing and support will be cut from the company’s headquarters in Edinburgh, and its offices in Lancashire.

Aegon will also outsource 106 jobs in the area of the business that manages inbound and outbound documents to specialist document managing company Océ.

“This is a challenging time for our people and our business but achieving a lower cost base is essential to ensure Aegon remains a strong and successful business in the years ahead,” said Aegon UK chief executive Adrian Grace.

A new IBM study of more than 3,000 global CIOs shows that 60 percent of organizations are ready to embrace cloud computing over the next five years as a means of growing their businesses and achieving competitive advantage. The figure nearly doubles the number of CIOs who said they would utilize cloud in IBM's 2009 CIO study, and is one of dozens of new insights and trends learned from CIOs worldwide in businesses of all sizes.

As demand for ever-growing amounts of information continues to increase, companies are seeking simple and direct access to data and applications that cloud computing delivers in a cost-efficient, always-available manner. The use of cloud, which began in supporting deployments mainly inside companies, has now also grown common between organizations and their partners and customers. In IBM's 2009 CIO study, only a third of CIOs said they planned to pursue cloud to gain a competitive advantage. T

Thi study by IBM shows a dramatic increase in the focus on cloud, particularly in media and entertainment, which rose to 73 percent, automotive (70 percent) and telecommunications (69 percent).

Leading legal services outsourcing company CPA Global has leapt up the rankings of The Global Outsourcing 100®, a prestigious industry listing produced by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.

CPA Global is one of the fastest climbers in the 2011 Global Outsourcing 100, which covers the leading players in all disciplines of outsourcing, including the largest IT and business process outsourcing companies. CPA Global rose to 23rd place this year, compared with 42nd in the 2010 ranking and 60th in 2009. The company was also identified as one of the top 20 providers to both the financial services and technology sectors.

Companies selected for The Global Outsourcing 100 undergo a rigorously judged application process that assesses four critical characteristics: size and growth, customer references, organisational competencies, and management capabilities.

Leah Cooper, CPA Global's Director, Legal Services Outsourcing, said: “As a pure-play legal services provider*, we are delighted to have achieved such a high ranking in the 2011 Global Outsourcing 100. Our rapid rise in this important industry listing over the past three years underlines CPA Global’s position as the leader in our sector as well as the growing market acceptance of legal services outsourcing. Many international corporations are already recognising the benefits of LSO, and the question they are increasingly asking us is not ‘why LSO’, but ‘how’ do they go about introducing LSO into their organisations.”

Michael Corbett, IAOP Chairman and chair of the judges’ panel, said: “CPA Global is to be congratulated on again being one of the fastest climbers in The Global Outsourcing 100 and to breaking into the top quartile. The Global Outsourcing Outsourcing 100 is a top industry ranking. The companies who make it into the listing are proven leaders and rising stars. They are the companies you want to partner with to achieve success and better outsourcing outcomes.”

Small business owners are still missing vital funding as the Business Growth Fund launched on May 19th.

The Government’s launch of the Business Growth Fund (BGF) is aimed at helping growing businesses with a turnover of between £10m to £100m, but small business owners believe the initiative will do little to help them access funding, according to research from business software and services provider Sage UK.

Despite widespread publicity, the BGF has attracted controversy, with a number of influential businesses commentators criticising the scheme. The initiative has also received a luke-warm response from small business owners, with 62% of respondents to Sage’s monthly Omnibus of over 1,000 SMEs stating it would have little to no impact on the overall picture of bank lending to business.

Brendan Flattery, CEO of Sage UK, which has 800,000 customers in the UK, commented: “Whilst initiatives like the Business Growth Fund are at least a step in the right direction, the criteria set for application to the fund means that relatively few businesses can actually benefit. Opening up finance to established businesses with a turnover of £10m or more is hardly a step-change to the status quo, where banks remain highly conservative, and risk averse in their lending."

Tracy Ewen, managing director of IGF, said: "“The bad news is that it ignores anyone with a turnover of less than £10 million, which accounts for a high proportion of UK SMEs. Also investment capital is only part of the story. It is the day to day funding that many SMEs are struggling with. On the upside however, for those businesses that do turn over £10 million or more this scheme provides long- term financing as opposed to going to a venture capitalist which will likely want a quick return on investment.”

The European Outsourcing Association (EOA) is delighted to announce Invest in Spain and Scottish Development International as new sponsors of the 2011 EOA Summit & Awards.

Hosted by the EOA’s Spanish chapter, the 2011 EOA Summit & Awards will take place in Madrid on 20th & 21st June 2011. It will look to build on the success of the 2010 event by bringing together Europe’s leading outsourcing suppliers, end-users and support service providers for a two day conference focusing on the latest innovations, trends and developments in the European outsourcing market.

Other sponsors include: PromoMadrid, Omnext, Outsource Magazine, The OUT Group and Valueshore.

For more information on the agenda, how you can enter the awards, register for your place or sponsor, please visit our website at: www.eoasummit.co.uk.

Alternatively please call the EOA team on +44(0)207 292 8686.