Industry news

The City of London Corporation has awarded Accenture a five-year contract to help it reduce its procurement costs by creating a new, world-class procurement shared service center.

Under this arrangement, Accenture will have a proportion of its fees directly tied to the savings achieved to demonstrate its commitment and confidence in its ability to deliver savings. Accenture will initially focus on delivering strategic sourcing -- savings from across the City’s diverse base of suppliers -- and by transforming the way that the City manages its procurement operations.

A new central City of London Procurement Service will be created to undertake all procurement and procure- to-pay functions. This service will be delivered by a joint team from the City and Accenture for the duration of the contract.

“The City is seeking to achieve savings and drive efficiencies through the way in which it conducts its procurement and procure-to-pay functions,” said Chris Bilsland, the City of London Corporation’s financial director. “We selected Accenture because of its proven success in delivering procurement services to organizations across the world, although, of course, this new contract will complement our commitment to local procurement. The City of London Corporation will continue to enjoy the legacy of both the financial and non-financial benefits after the contract period.”

Outsourcing group Serco reported pretax profits up by 21% to £213.9m in the year to end-December 2010 (2009: £177m), with revenues up 9% to £4.327bn.

The full-year dividend was increased 17.6% to 7.35p (2009: 6.25p).

At period end, the group's order book stood at £16.6bn, compared with £17.1bn at the end of 2009. During 2010 Serco signed £4.2bn of contracts and was appointed preferred bidder for £1.4bn of contracts.

Serco said 40% of revenues were generated outside the UK, with strong growth in the Americas and AMEAA.

Christopher Hyman, CEO, said: "Our colleagues across the world deliver essential services and their achievements have led to a strong financial performance in very challenging times. We expect Serco's position in new, diverse and expanding international markets to deliver ongoing benefits. Our agility and capacity to innovate underpins our confidence in continued growth across all our regions."

Agilisys has announced they have been named the preferred bidder for a joint, 10-year contract with the London Boroughs of Sutton, Merton, and Kingston to implement a single integrated HR and Payroll platform and to provide ongoing shared services to the councils.

The new service will save the boroughs over half a million pounds annually over the life of the contract through standardisation of much of the three councils’ HR and payroll services.

Agilisys will provide a shared service to the councils, including the delivery of payroll services, as well as hosting the technology itself, creating further opportunities for savings and service improvement.

Speaking on behalf of all the boroughs, Sutton Councillor John Drage, Executive Member for Finance and Efficiency said: “We’re working very hard indeed to cut out waste, reduce staffing costs, use our buying power more effectively, and deliver on major developments. Buying big services jointly with our neighbours is one of the ways we’re trying to protect our frontline services from the deep cuts there have been to the money we get from government.

“This decision will save 42% of what the current system costs and help pave the way for the sharing of many more services and contracts. Local people have said they want us to do everything we can to be more efficient, and this move is a good example of how we’re doing that.

“We believe this sort of contract offers a national template for other councils to follow and we’ll be asking the Local Government Association how they’d like to champion the approach we have taken.”

Kay Andrews, Agilisys CEO added, “We’re delighted to be working with these three councils who, like Agilisys, are at the forefront of innovative service provision to their customers. By working closely with Sutton, Merton, and Kingston Councils, we continue to expand our shared services offerings, delivering highly efficient and effective services to our local government customers, allowing them to modernise their working practices and focus critical resources on front line delivery.”

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HP has announced the integration of 3PAR Utility Storage across the HP Converged Infrastructure portfolio to simplify scalable cloud computing, and introduced new storage solutions for virtualisation and data deduplication.

This integration enables clients to optimise cloud delivery with features like automated storage tiering to improve performance, and thin storage offerings to eliminate over-provisioning.

“Our clients tell us their journey to the cloud will be one of the most critical transitions for them this decade,” said David Scott, senior vice president and general manager, StorageWorks, HP. “HP 3PAR Utility Storage meets their demand for a new storage architecture specifically designed for IT as a Service. The integration of 3PAR with Converged Infrastructure is ahead of schedule and HP is poised to take clients to levels of agility and efficiency they’ve never experienced before.”

We’re all aware that the revolution in communications over the past decade has meant that businesses of all sizes now operate, not just in domestic and regional markets, but in a truly global one. Given this, it’s not surprising that many organisations now look for global service models from their suppliers. But how realistic is it to demand a worldwide approach to the outsourcing of recruitment, let alone the wider aspects of talent management?

Although a genuinely international model might at first seem attractive, the devil is of course, in the detail – detail which suggests that a single, templated approach to talent acquisition is unlikely to work effectively. We hear a lot of talk about a global recruitment arena and the movement of talent across borders, but it would simply be wrong to believe this has eroded the key differences between key regional and even local markets. Take, for example the use of networking tools, both physical and online.

While these may be highly effective in Western European countries such as France and Germany, they are much less so in Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union where candidates respond better to targeted, individual approaches. Online sourcing is also fraught with difficulties in one of the world’s fastest growing economies, China, because its rigorous firewalls render many of the tools commonly used in the US and UK, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, virtually useless.

This seems to means that, at least for the foreseeable future, in-depth local knowledge combined with international reach will provide the best competitor advantage in the battle for talent. The challenge is to turn a regional partner model into an effective global solution for the client. At Ochre House we’re attempting to achieve this with our partnerships in the USA and on the Pacific Rim by combining adaptation to individual geographical markets with a common, consistent approach to those things that should be regarded as ‘universal’ – the criteria that are non-negotiable wherever hiring is undertaken.

Into this category will fall such things as buy-in to the company’s business and social philosophy, its basic standards and its commitment to diversity and work/life balance. And we tend to believe this combination of local and international is not a stop-gap or a compromise while we wait for some completely global hiring platform to be devised. Perhaps the most effective solution to international talent sourcing model is not in the pipeline - it may have already arrived.

UNIT4 has announced that it will partner with Hampshire County Council to create a back office shared services programme that will be offered to public sector organisations across the UK in a bid to help them reduce costs and reform service delivery.

The services will be delivered collaboratively by Hampshire County Council and other public sector partners. Hampshire County Council will be the hosted service provider and through the partnership provide support and functional expertise for finance, procurement, asset management and HR & Payroll. UNIT4 will underpin the shared services delivery with its Local Government Platform, which is founded upon Agresso Business World and best-in-class partner solutions.

Hampshire County Council believes that the proposed services will help to address some of the impact of the current Government funding restrictions.

“This is an important partnership”, said Councillor Keith Evans, IT Champion for Hampshire County Council. “These shared services will be available to other public sector organizations across the UK. They will generate worthwhile economies of scale to all participating organizations and, equally important, will provide a more assured and quality-based mechanism and environment in which to undertake new initiatives.

"UNIT4 is a progressive company with innovative ideas that match our own. The agreement provides us with access to a cost effective ERP solution that can address the urgent needs of our potential customers today and provides a robust and scalable platform that can support any future expansion.”

ITC Infotech, a global IT services company and a fully owned subsidiary of ITC Ltd., has set up a Center of Excellence (CoE) for Oracle Industry Solutions. The company has established a close working relationship with Oracle across a variety of industries to provide cutting-edge solutions.

Mr. L N Balaji, President, US Operations, ITC Infotech said, “Our close working relationship with Oracle helps us stay ahead of the technology curve, thereby enhancing our value proposition to customers. With the CoE for Oracle Industry Solutions, we will further consolidate our position as a global leader in chosen industry domain solutions including Life sciences, Retail, Consumer Goods, Travel and Hospitality.”

The CoE for Oracle Industry Solutions will help ITC Infotech deepen capabilities and incubate expertise. Through the CoE, the company will work on best practices, develop new solutions and continuously add value to existing engagements. Additionally, the CoE for Oracle Industry Solutions will help ITC Infotech expand offerings across industries where it is already serving customers globally.

Mr. Balaji added, “Loyalty Marketing is a key growth area for ITC Infotech and we are witnessing significant traction in this area. Companies across the board are looking at enhancing customer relations and strengthening customer retention.”

buyingTeam, Europe’s largest procurement outsourcing specialist, has announced the renewal of its partnership with Universal Music UK, signing an extended three-year contract worth in excess of US$2 million.

buyingTeam has been working with Universal since 2003 to improve business performance through better procurement practices, including active cost management and the realisation of resulting savings. The company will continue to oversee the management of Universal Music’s indirect expenditure, ranging from media and creative services to facilities and overhead costs.

buyingTeam will also be responsible for a wide range of strategic and operational responsibilities such as the development and delivery of procurement strategies, stakeholder and supplier relationship management, strategic and tactical sourcing, contract management, spend analysis and risk mitigation for all Universal Music operations in the UK.

As both businesses and public sector bodies focus increasingly on procurement to drive organisational efficiency and effectiveness, many are turning to specialists to help to improve performance by implementing enhanced buying processes and behaviours. buyingTeam has a strong track record of working with a wide range of blue chip clients and changing underlying attitudes to buying. Through aligning procurement more closely with overall business objectives, buyingTeam and Universal Music UK have generated long term, sustained savings, which comparatively outperform the returns delivered through cost saving programmes.

The Universal UK account will continue to be managed by Paul Denyer, engagement manager at buyingTeam. Paul has led Universal Music’s engagement in the UK for two and a half years.

buyingTeam CEO Matthew Eatough commented: "Renewal of our relationship with such a highly valued client is a strong endorsement of the progress that we have made together. Through working closely in partnership with our clients, we can deliver extraordinary results. In addition to significant cost savings, we have encouraged the introduction of new buying behaviours and processes, which enable Universal to achieve the best levels of value over the long term.”

Universal Music UK’s CFO, David Bryant, commented: "The primary objective of our partnership with buyingTeam is to develop and implement an effective long-term procurement strategy. Today, we have superior strategic procurement processes in place that continue to deliver sustained improvements to our business.”

Consip, a public company owned by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) with responsibility for public procurement, has awarded Accenture a four-year, $6 million (USD) contract to develop, build and maintain an eProcurement system that will help transform the way the Italian government manages its procurement operations by increasing efficiencies and ensuring value for money across suppliers.

Accenture will provide Rome-based Consip SpA with management consulting and IT services, overseeing the development and daily maintenance of a new eProcurement system to enable Consip SpA to fully leverage the latest eProcurement technologies and processes while reducing costs and improving efficiencies.

This project supports the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) wider Program for the Rationalization of Public Expenditure in Goods & Services. Accenture won the public tender for this project leading a consortium in partnership with PwC. Accenture has worked with Consip SpA across a broad range of initiatives including strategic sourcing, eProcurement and marketing.

Gianmario Pisanu of Accenture’s Health & Public Service practice said, “This contract reinforces our committed and ongoing relationship with Consip SpA and underscores Accenture’s deep knowledge of our client’s business. Accenture will use its broad industry skills and insights from our global network to support Consip’s mission to reduce procurement costs across the public sector. We will work in partnership with our client to introduce an innovative eProcurement system that reflects superior knowledge of central and local administrative purchasing, best-practice supply chain management and high performance in the public sector.”

New BT security “out of the cloud” service presented at CeBIT 2011 in Hanover, Germany

BT has announced its cloud-based security solution - Managed Virtual Firewall Service (MVFS). MVFS will alallows companies to fully protect their internet access without having to invest in their own hardware or software. Add-ons such as URL filter, virus protection and intrusion prevention are also available.

BT has set up a virtual firewall for its customers in a BT data centre and handles any relevant updates as well as configuration, maintenance, licence management and monitoring.

Additional functions such as URL filtering, virus protection, intrusion prevention and extended reporting can be added depending on the service package.

“Many companies can ill afford continuous monitoring of the threat level and prompt installation of security updates” explains Dr. Frank Kedziur, Head of Business Continuity, Security & Governance Practice at BT Germany. “This new cloud-based firewall service allows our customers to avail themselves of the expertise of our security specialists and benefit from a firewall that is always up to date without having to invest in hardware or software themselves. As BT can react quickly to changing requirements, customers can also benefit from a flexibility they would hardly have when using their own equipment.”