Industry news

Carrenza Powers the Cloud for Red Nose Day 2011

Technology partner delivers scalable solution, ensuring zero downtime for charity’s websites and donations platforms

Comic Relief has announced that it will be working with its trusted cloud computing partner Carrenza, to provide and oversee the donations and core websites platforms for Red Nose Day.

Carrenza’s enterprise cloud computing platform will be used to process hundreds of thousands of donations, in just a few hours, raising funds that will give extremely vulnerable and disadvantaged people in the UK and Africa a helping hand to turn their lives around

This partnership builds on the success of Carrenza’s work with Comic Relief for Sport Relief and Red Nose Day over the last four years.

During Sport Relief 2010, Carrenza provided the same trusted technology to handle a staggering 125 donations per second at its peak, contributing to the £44.2 million that was raised in total. Carrenza is providing the same scalable hosting solution for Red Nose Day 2011, which has the processing power and resiliency needed to support Comic Relief’s record-breaking donations platform.

Tim Savage, Donations and Web Technology Manager, Comic Relief, said: “Red Nose Day only takes place once every other year, so it’s crucial that we get it right every time. This is especially true for the technology that we bring on board.”

Savage continued, “We need to be able to scale up to meet spikes in demand over a matter of seconds, avoiding any downtime and without wasting resources on latent hardware for months in-between. Carrenza has enabled us to overcome this challenge, providing us with a resilient platform that can scale immediately to meet our needs and has never let us down.”

KPMG have announced the closing of an agreement to acquire the business of advisory firm EquaTerra.

The transaction focuses on organic and inorganic opportunities in select high-demand market sectors. It is hoped that the agreement will provide clients with a full life-cycle of capabilities for companies seeking to reduce costs and improve effectiveness and efficiency.

“EquaTerra is an ideal fit for KPMG and we look forward to welcoming the EquaTerra team to the KPMG network family,” said Timothy P. Flynn, Chairman, KPMG International. “Through this acquisition, clients of KPMG member firms will benefit from the addition of a market-leading sourcing adviser to help them transform their organizations into more flexible enterprises in a way that meets today’s complex market demands.”

Mark Toon, former Chief Executive Officer of EquaTerra and current KPMG LLP principal, said that the deal adds value for clients of both organizations. “Joining a network with KPMG’s capabilities and global scope provides great opportunities for our employees and clients,” Toon said. “KPMG’s extensive sourcing experience, its Big Four market presence and its reputation for relentless execution is an ideal complement for EquaTerra’s business transformation capabilities and highly respected reputation in the shared services and sourcing advisory sector.”

Mahindra Satyam, a leading global consulting and IT services provider, has announced that its business process outsourcing arm, Mahindra Satyam BPO has renewed its existing contract with NAVTEQ for a further period of two years. Mahindra Satyam BPO’s relationship with the customer is over five years old and provides a wide portfolio of services to the customer.

Luther Siebert, Vice President of Global Production Operations at NAVTEQ, said, “We are delighted to extend our contract with Mahindra Satyam BPO. Mahindra Satyam BPO has always displayed initiative and enthusiasm to support the complex processes required in the creation and updates of NAVTEQ’s digital maps. They have played an important role in helping Navteq provide best-in-class geospatial services to its customers globally.”

Steria, a leading European IT-enabled business services provider, today announced it has signed a Strategic Outsourcing Framework Agreement with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to support and develop operational and regulatory systems.

The framework agreement includes seven aspects of work, wherein Steria has secured the right to bid within the following three areas: Infrastructure, Applications Management and BPO. The agreement will enable the FSA to be a more efficient regulator through technological upgrades, streamlined processes and enhanced productivity.

Gareth Lewis, chief information officer at FSA, commented, "The rationale behind the new supplier framework is to provide increased competition amongst our supplier base given the enormous volume of work we anticipate in the next 4 years. Steria has a proven track record in delivering cost-efficient support functions to the FSA, and we are confident in the team's ability to continue to deliver. My team and I look forward to working with them."

Businesses may be investing in IT at the expense of hiring employees, a Forrester Research analyst has suggested.

In a report entitled “IT Investment May Be Hurting US Job Growth”, Andrew Bartels observes that while IT investment by US businesses rose 11% in 2010, and profits grew 28%, employment was flat. “It certainly appears that businesses have been buying technology instead of hiring workers.

Bartel said: “This pattern was most pronounced in manufacturing industries like mining, forestry products, fabricated metals, motor vehicles, and machinery. In a quarter of industries, tech investment rose by 7% on average while employment was down by 2% on average.”

The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement on 29 November 2010 announced a consultation on some radical improvements to the tax treatment of intellectual property.

The consultation was undertaken on the proposed introduction of a preferential regime for profits arising from patents, known as the ‘Patent Box’, which could see royalties and other profits from patented products and technologies being taxed at just 10 per cent. The consultation ends today with a report to follow shortly.

John Dethridge, Tax Partner & specialist in R&D tax reliefs at Menzies comments: "It seems unlikely there will be major changes to the taxation of innovation and intellectual property (IP) tax relief as the Government is satisfied with the effectiveness of the current Research and Development Tax Credit regime. This encourages early stage research and follow up development where technological uncertainty exists. However, further consultation will follow in spring on the proposed new Patent Box.

“This is being proposed to improve the tax regime beyond the R&D stage, when the product is complete and the IP created is generating an income stream. Many other countries have a reduced tax rate for such income and the UK is currently seen by many corporate investors as uncompetitive, leading to IP being located in other tax jurisdictions, with potentially damaging implications for tax revenues and for the UK economy.

“Any improvement in the taxation of IP is to be welcomed, but we are some way off seeing what the finished article will look like. Some IP is not patented, and it seems this may be overlooked altogether. The identification of embedded patent income may also prove to be far more complex than anything in the current R&D tax credit claim process. Specialist tax advisers are going to be needed to ensure that taxation of innovation is minimised."

David Cameron has said the government will set out plans to allow private and voluntary groups to run almost every kind of public service. He told the Daily Telegraph there would be a new "presumption" that private companies, charities and voluntary groups could run public services.

Ministers are due to publish a White Paper outlining the changes in the next fortnight. Mr Cameron promised to release public services from the "grip of state control" as part of his Big Society agenda.

Mr Cameron wrote: "We will create a new presumption - backed up by new rights for public service users and a new system of independent adjudication - that public services should be open to a range of providers competing to offer a better service.

"Of course, there are some areas - like national security services or the judiciary - where this wouldn't make sense. But everywhere else should be open to real diversity."

HP has announced a new solution portfolio designed to deliver flexibility and efficiency to health organizations.

It is hoped that the new HP Digital Health solutions will enable healthcare organisations become Instant-On Enterprises.

“Sweeping regulation and the changing healthcare landscape are encouraging providers to reorganize into care teams that improve coordination and collaboration across the continuum of healthcare settings,” said Scott Lundstrom, group vice president, IDC Health Insights. “HP’s approach to ‘instant-on healthcare’ should help to address and simplify the transition healthcare organizations will need to achieve this level of efficiency.”

Microsoft and T-Systems have signed a major five-year deal that will allow Shell employees to work together online globally. Shell will buy SharePoint services dynamically via the internet with the hope to increase flexibility at work and to reduce costs.

Shell uses SharePoint as a collaboration platform. With a target date of April 2011, T-Systems is preparing to provide Shell employees a customised version of the Microsoft SharePoint solution virtually, from its own data center.

"For us as a globally operating company, SharePoint is a key instrument for smooth cooperation in projects with decentralized teams. This joint solution will allow us to appreciate considerable cost reductions and greater flexibility," said Shell's VP IT Services Jay Crotts.

Microsoft and T-Systems are working jointly on the project, with Microsoft SharePoint providing a central platform for various applications such as document and content management as well as organisation and collaboration in project work.

Outsourcing and business process automation have been used by many organisations as separate entities over the last decade to help improve the efficiency of their IT. Many companies have successfully used third-party suppliers to deliver processes such as IT support and call centers, across all verticals, in an effort to focus attention on core business initiatives that add value to customers and shareholders. One of the primary benefits of business process automation includes removing non-value-add human interventions to make certain business operations faster.

However, today the problem for organisations is that the wave of quality and cost benefits from outsourcing and business process automation has largely dried up. Simply put, they have banked the savings from large outsourcing contracts over the last ten to fifteen years and there are few new incremental savings to be found. The reality is that these largest contracts are now a thing of the past, because more and more service providers are looking to implement clearer service level agreements (SLAs) to try to minimise risk for the customer.

No matter what type of product they make or service they provide, all organisations face many burdens today, such as rising health care costs, soaring energy prices and fluctuating raw material supplies. However, when the path to profitability reaches a stumbling block, managers seem to think they must make a critical decision: either go left and invest in business automation technology, or go right and outsource production.

While each strategy has obvious pros and cons that should be carefully considered, many companies don’t look far enough ahead before walking down the wrong path too quickly. Moreover, it is my personal view that the two practices do not have to be mutually exclusive.

As the pressure to cut cost remains in these uncertain economic times, I believe that leading edge companies should be looking to embrace process automation technologies and outsourcing together in conjunction with each other. By moving forward with the globalised provision of outsourced services together with experience in process automation from certain cloud enablers, there is the potential to achieve the cost savings seen in the initial wave of outsourcing nearly a decade ago.

It is easy to see why suitable business processes automation and IT outsourcing tend to have common features. For example, both can exist on shared or virtualised infrastructure, which can be shared evenly with other parties without compromise. In addition, the service source and delivery is location independent. Good examples for business automated and outsourced services will tend to have the capability for a uniform service, regardless of location or role of the end user. Desktop support is a classic example of this. Furthermore, a successful business automation and outsourcing service should both follow standard processes such as software testing, HR, security, payroll, and have consolidation as a design feature via server farms.

However, in order for both practices to work successfully, a combined business process automation and outsourcing strategy needs to be considered as an opportunity rather than a threat by the end user IT team. While outsourcing can be perceived as reducing the prominence of the in-house IT functions at an organisation, a combination of the two, when properly applied, will add to its importance. This is because a combined approach will place the end user and his or her team at the center of efforts to automate business processes. This should drive increased shareholder value in the coming years.

The customer also needs to clearly identify who his most trusted partners are for efforts towards a combined automation and outsourcing strategy. This will require an active collaboration between customers and suppliers who will both yield benefits for the efficiencies and innovation that business automation will bring. Unfortunately, some suppliers simply choose to go against subscribing to the idea of a combined business automation and outsourcing strategy in an effort to protect their own profits.

These suppliers will remain tied to the classical outsourced model and will inevitably be driven into offering more and more commoditised services at lower prices and lower margins. These will not be the chosen partners of innovative companies that wish to move their business critical applications into the cloud over the next few years.

In summary, the foundations of a combined process automation and outsourcing service are long established in sectors such as manufacturing. For example, carmakers have shared platforms to deliver multiple model ranges and competitive glassmakers have built factories together. The good news is that these principles are now being brought to the IT enabled services. Organisations are only just beginning to identify processes that can be simultaneously automated and outsourced as part of a single business transaction.