Industry news

Wipro Technologies, the Global Consulting, System Integration and Outsourcing business of Wipro Limited, has announced the launch of its Testing as a Service (TaaS) Portal to act as a virtual marketplace for potential customers to browse, request for quotes and purchase services online.

The portal empowers the customer to select and buy services at the click of the mouse, thereby dramatically changing the market landscape for software Testing Service providers. Wipro will continue to innovate with this portal and plans to add 20 more services and more sophisticated functionalities to the portal it in the near future.

Globally, Testing Services are a USD 56 billion market, where 10% gets outsourced to India through the traditional off shoring methods, as per third party estimates. Wipro Technologies, has been cited by independent research body, IDC Research, as a leader among Tier-1 Testing Services Providers in a report titled “IDC MarketScape : Global Testing Services, 2010 Vendor Analysis.

“Testing as a discipline has undergone a sea change over the past decade. From being a mere phase in the development cycle, it is now being increasingly accepted as a Productized Service Offering. We believe testing today needs to be business purpose driven and therefore, the highlight of Wipro’s TaaS portal is the simplicity of use that it offers from a clear service definition and a catalogue of productized services, so that customers can browse these services, choose from an array of service parameters, request for a proposal and in near future even buy and consume services online”, said Gangadharaiah C.P., Senior Vice President and Global Head of Testing Services, Wipro Technologies. He added, “Wipro Technologies has been one of the pioneers of independent testing services for global clients and continues to make significant investments in innovative offerings in this space. Based on initial feedback from the industry, the portal is being seen as a disruptive offering that has the potential to change the way business is done in the Testing Services Industry.”

When disaster strikes

Although many top executives still think it will never happen to them, a disaster can strike any company at any time, says Simon Perrin, MD of Network Centric Support. Unexpected events can have a devastating effect on a business, whether that means a dramatic incident like a fire or a flood, or a less extraordinary (but still devastating) IT failure. In some cases, even just an everyday computer 'crash' may be enough to damage important data, and therefore cause problems for the business as a result.

Any of these incidents could make it difficult – if not impossible – for a business to carry out its normal day-to-day activities. At best, this could cause unwanted disruption and a damaging loss of productivity, but in more serious cases, companies may experience significant downtime and suffer irreparable damage to their business as a result. As such, companies of all sizes need to have a disaster recovery plan in place, in order to make sure that their business-critical data and systems are adequately protected.

What is disaster recovery?

Disaster recovery (DR) is the process by which a company resumes business after any kind of 'disruptive' event. The purpose of a sound DR strategy is to make sure that steps can be taken to minimise the potential impact of unexpected incidents like these, or better still, actually prevent them from happening in the first place.

Many businesses often don't realise it until it's too late, but the business data stored on a company's main database is absolutely mission critical, not just in the long term, but on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, and even minute-to-minute basis. If applied correctly, however, a sound DR strategy should be able to help a company to pick up instantly, exactly where they left off, in the event of a disaster, without having any of its important business data lost or damaged.

Backing up key data

Backup and recovery is one of the most important aspects of a sound DR strategy, and indeed an essential part of a database administrator's (DBA's) job. Computers and office furniture can be re-purchased in the event of a fire or a flood, but company data – whether it be financial, customer-related, regulatory or any other type – is usually irreplaceable.

To be truly effective, a DR plan needs to ensure that data is being replicated to a mirror-copy of the company's main database constantly, from the moment it is created, so that the DR system is always 100 per cent up to date.

What next?

Like many security issues, DR planning ultimately comes down to basic risk management: how much risk can your company tolerate, and how much is it willing to spend to mitigate various risks? In planning for the unexpected, companies have to weigh the risk versus the cost of creating a robust contingency plan. Regardless of how big or small your next 'disaster' happens to be, it is a good idea to start preparing for it now.

If you are still unsure about whether you need a DR strategy at all, then consider the potential financial losses of not having one, should disaster strike. You should start by calculating the total losses per day that your company would face if you weren't able to recover all of your key data quickly – and then weigh that figure against the cost of taking a proactive approach to DR right now. Of all the arguments that support the need for a solid DR strategy, this one is probably the most convincing.

While some experts claim cloud computing is the next disruptive technology, others suggest it to be the technology that diminishes the role of the traditional System Integrator. Whatever description is finalised for cloud computing this year, harvesting its benefits will require the guidance and direction of a new emerging breed of Systems Integrator – the Cloud Integrator.

Up until now, the primary focus of a System Integrator has been based around planning, optimising, integrating, and managing their customers’ IT environment. At times, Integrators also take on the responsibility of plugging the gaps between the customers IT needs and the IT infrastructure available to them.

However, emerging cloud computing vendors are proving to be yet another addition to the chain in a typical Integrator business model. The good news is that the availability of a public domain computing platform allows the traditional System Integrator to extend their platform. This is carried out through lease-type agreements as opposed to capital outlay or long-term fixed costs. While certain organisations may be lured into the affordability and scalability that cloud computing offers, it is my view that only an experienced service provider with a strong cloud focus can ensure that their environment is architected in such a way as to provide clear business benefits without compromising on security.

For example, at the onset, the low cost and ready access on-demand computing offered through a cloud environment will cause businesses to rethink what is truly core to their business, and shift an increasing amount of non-core processing to a shared or cloud environment. As a result, organisations will be well served to revisit the classification of each piece of information stored and assumed to be sensitive and critical to the business. However, before companies begin to develop their cloud infrastructure based on the strategy of their business, System Integrators will need to tackle a number of barriers to help hem configure their cloud environment.

Firstly, System Integrators will need to help provide organisations with a highly secure computing environment, where business critical tasks are processed and highly sensitive information is stored securely. If they fail to do this, competitive advantage and business critical information could be lost - which could prove to be catastrophic to the business if it leads to brand damage or their trust being compromised.

Furthermore, the private cloud, which is used for developing, enhancing, trailing and testing out mission critical systems as well as carrying out critical research and development work, will also run into security issues. As such, it also requires an environment that is highly secure. Built on the principles of virtualisation, System Integrators will need to ensure that the private cloud environment is readily scalable and sharable between IT systems and applications within the organisation.

In addition to the private cloud, the public cloud represents various types of external clouds such as Amazon Elastic Compute 2 and Simple Storage 3 that could prove to be of benefit to an organisation. For an organisation to benefit, a Cloud Integrator will need configure these clouds to enable them to operate as an extension to the internal computing platform of an organisation. Due to the open nature of the public cloud, an organisation must be able to shift desktop work into the external cloud without fear of exposing or losing critical information.

There is also the issue of handling a shared environment. A shared environment represents the need to run regularly scheduled applications such as facilities management, accounting, and payroll processing. As such, this activity should be carried out at an outsourcer’s facility where the computing platform may be dedicated for the business.

In summary, sceptics who believe cloud computing to be just another technology buzz-word should remember that just a decade ago, the concept of offshoring IT work also faced strong head winds from political, business, and social fronts. However, in a global economy, the benefits of offshoring in the form of reduced cost, high availability of quality resources, and faster response time due to around-the-clock operations caused most, if not all, businesses to move over to some form of an offshore-based model.

As the IT Outsourcing industry gets used to the benefits of cloud computing in 2011, businesses will depend upon the services of a skilled and trusted Cloud Integrator as a partner to help them configure the right combination of computing environment that addresses their business needs, in the most cost effective manner without compromising on performance and security.

The last few years have brought with them a number of sizeable changes which change the way each of us work and live our lives. However, what few people appreciate is the way in which the changes in the both the economy and in technology are continuing to drive organisations to create an environment where work becomes more flexible and personal, allowing them to take a more collaborative approach.

Of course, this is a trend which will only serve to benefit those with a vested interest in outsourcing, as more and more organisations look for new ways to harmonise and integrate business processes on an end-to-end basis across their enterprises - but why are we seeing this approach?

It’s clear that the pressure brought by the global economic downturn has had a huge economic impact on organisations across the world. As a result, more organisations are finding that not only do they need to turn to outsourcing as a means of alleviating their economic pain, but are also waking up to the idea that by investing in and committing to a collaborative relationship with their outsourcing supplier, they can add even greater value. Shared services is a perfect example of how working together can help to cut costs and increase efficiency, and one which has been driven, to a large extent, by the global economic climate.

Equally, it’s true that advances in technology have helped to support a collaborative approach, with innovations such as virtualization and the cloud leading to new ways of working, managing, innovating and outsourcing together. Now that the tools are available for organisations to work together, it’s no surprise to find that more are taking the opportunity to do just that.

Many have predicted that collaboration will be one of the watchwords of the next few years, we are set to see a huge increase in collaboration between end users, suppliers, support, employees, customers, delivering a continuous business value. With this in mind, the NOA launched part one of the BS 11000 towards the end of the year in conjunction with the British Standards Institute (BSI), with a view to promoting solid and profitable relationships in business.

Part two of the BS 11000 is set to launch early next month, with a practical guide. For more information, please visit: www.noa.co.uk

The SQS team will deliver end-to-end testing of Specsavers business applications, from performance through to automated regression testing, with focus on raising quality, reducing risk and increasing the throughput of change.

John Lister, Chief Information Officer Specsavers, commented: “With over 1,500 stores and 26,000 staff, Specsavers is a fast growing business that is dependent on robust and effective technology to enable us to provide great service to our customers. It’s therefore critical that we have a software testing and QA process that helps us to deliver quality software solutions that are great value for money, quickly and efficiently.

“We decided that we needed a testing partner with the focus and offshore capability to match our growth plans, which can provide us with innovative solutions through the lifecycle of the contract and can help us ensure effective governance and independence of testing. SQS meets all those requirements and we’re very pleased to have them on board.”

David Cotterell, SQS Executive Main Board Director, added: “We’re delighted that when selecting a partner with proven off shore and on shore presence, Specsavers put so much value on exceeding customer expectations and pure play testing independence. It’s fair to say that this is probably one of the largest pure-play managed testing service contracts to be awarded in the retail sector and the service will be provided from SQS’ state-of- the–art, off-shore facility in Pune India, ably supported by our on shore consultancy presence.”

Microsoft is among the 120 companies located in Cairo's Smart Villages , an office park created in 2003 to be Egypt's "prime" information technology park. It includes a health club, swimming pool, video conferencing services, a conference center and a pyramid-shaped restaurant called the "Think Tank Caf."

Other high tech companies on the campus include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Etisalat, HP, Huawei, Mobinil, Nokia Siemens Networks, Satyam, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and Wipro.

Egypt's move to block Internet access prompted Microsoft to respond. Asked about the situation in Egypt, Microsoft said in a written response to a query that it "is constantly assessing the impact of the unrest and Internet connection issues on our properties and services. What limited service the company as a whole provides to and through the region, mainly call-center service, has been largely distributed to other locations."

Another tech firm with a presence in Smart Villages is Hewlett-Packard, which has asked it employees to stay at home .

President Barack Obama and other administration officials are urging the Egyptian government to restore Internet services and see access as a human right. "It is our strong belief that inside of the framework of basic individual rights are the rights of those to have access to the Internet and to sites for open communication and social networking," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at a briefing Friday.

Egypt's decision to cut Internet access was apparently intended to disrupt the ability of protestors to use social networks to organise . But hi-tech companies have similar flip-the-switch abilities and can shift services in response to a natural or manmade disaster. It is almost certain that tech companies in Egypt will respond to the current uncertainty much the same way Microsoft did -- if they haven't already.

Phil Fersht, the CEO and head of research at Horses for Sources, an outsourcing research and advisory firm, said top-tier providers rely on Egyptian resources largely for call center work and software support and development. For these firms "it's a massive, massive concern when the government shuts off the internet and all hell is breaking loose," he said in an e-mailed response to questions.

"Egypt has proven capable as a good quality resource location for the Middle East, Africa and European regions in areas such as IT, BPO and call center services and has invested significantly in promoting its capabilities worldwide," said Fersht. "The country has invested millions to promote its capabilities -- and now that investment is looking under threat."

Not surprisingly, the government agency responsible for hi-tech development in Egypt, the Information Technology Industry Development Agency, (ITIDA), has been offline. Efforts to reach officials by telephone, e-mail or through a Facebook account have been unsuccessful.

Fersht suggested that the current problems in Egypt could prompt hi-tech firms to re-think the risks they face in other regions.

"If situations, such as what is currently happening in Egypt, proliferate to other countries with sourcing support services, the first reaction of governments now seems to be to 'shut off the Internet,'" said Fersht, "You have to question how this impacts ITO/BPO services that are hugely reliant on the Internet to succeed.

"The Egypt situation is a serious blow to many of the developing nations seeking to take their share of global services [that] have potentially questionable political stability," said Fersht.

Smart Villages said that by the end of 2009 there were 28,000 professionals working at various companies in the office, and that by 2014 it expected that more than 100,000 would be working at some 500 companies.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9207158/Microsoft_shifts_some_work_out_of_Egypt

Atos Origin, a provider of IT services, has signed a five-year IT infrastructure outsourcing contract with Rexel, an electrical supplies distributor.

Under the agreement, Atos Origin will consolidate the infrastructure of Rexel with a new European platform which will enable Rexel to consolidate its data centres and to share its applications in the region.

In addition, Atos Origin will help to transform the Rexel Information Systems in Europe by standardising and automating the operations of the environments, through its offshore centres, and by optimising the number of servers through virtualisation.

This contract will enable Rexel to improve the agility of its information systems, while at the same time improve the resilience through the redundant architecture implemented at two Atos Origin active IT centres.

Verizon’s business division and Terremark already partner to provide a cloud-hosting service for small and medium-sized businesses in the US. The service is based on virtualisation software from VMware, which acquired a 5% stake in Terremark in 2009.

The deal can be seen as an early example of consolidation in the cloud computing sector. Despite its relative youth, it is an industry that is prone to consolidation, as economies of scale are central to cloud-hosting business model.

Both Terremark and Verizon Business were named “leaders” of the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and web hosting market by analyst company Gartner earlier this year.

Terremark, wrote Gartner analyst Lydia Leong, is “highly innovative and is very effective at exploiting new developments in technology”. Leong warned at the time, however, that the company’s “highly leveraged balance sheet and its focus on spending available resources on expanding its colocation business are inhibiting product portfolio investment and growth, and may be contributing to service woes”.

Meanwhile, Verizon Business’s Computing as a Service offering has high levels of customer satisfaction, Leong wrote. The company is making “marked improvements” to its service offering and provisioning system, she added, but these upgrades “make it difficult to predict the quality of service delivery”.

Leong’s report was controversial because Amazon, the company responsible for popularising cloud-based IaaS offerings, was not ranked among the leaders. Among Leong’s criticisms were that Amazon has “the weakest [service level agreement] of any of the evaluated competing public cloud compute services, even though its uptime is actually very good,” and that “its offering is developer-centric, rather than enterprise-oriented”.

Verizon Business originated in 2006 when the US telco acquired the company formerly known as WorldCom. Once a giant of the dot-com era, WorldCom filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002 after $3.8 billion worth of accounting fraud was exposed.

Source: http://www.information-age.com/channels/data-centre-and-it-infrastructure/news/1597123/us-telco-verizon-acquires-cloud-provider-terremark.thtml

TPI, the largest sourcing data and advisory firm in the world and an Information Services Group company today released fourth-quarter and full-year 2010 data showing record restructuring activity dominating the outsourcing market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

The 4Q10 EMEA TPI Index, which measures commercial outsourcing contracts valued at €20M or more, tallied total contract value (TCV) in the region of €10.5B, a 31 percent drop from the fourth quarter of 2009 but an 81 percent surge over the third quarter of 2010. Despite the sequential improvement in the fourth quarter, full-year 2010 TCV fell 14 percent to €30B.

During 2010, both the number of restructurings awarded and their value increased significantly. Restructuring TCV jumped 118% to €11B, the highest total ever recorded and more than one-third of the overall market for the year. IBM benefited the most from this trend, winning restructuring mega-deals at ABN Amro, Danske Bank and Nordea Bank.

“Restructurings were the big story for the European outsourcing market in 2010,” said Duncan Aitchison, Partner & President, EMEA, TPI. “Considering the number of contracts up for renewal in the year ahead, we anticipate that trend will continue, though the value of contracts awarded will likely fall back to pre-2010 levels.”

Now in its 33rd consecutive quarter, the TPI Index provides a quarterly snapshot of the sourcing industry for clients, service providers, analysts and the media. It is the industry’s authoritative source for marketplace intelligence related to outsourcing transaction structures and terms, industry adoption, geographic prevalence and service provider metrics.

The 4Q10 EMEA TPI Index found that during 2010, restructurings also had a big impact on mega-deal activity in the region, which had more mega-deals and mega-relationships than any other region. This led to an upsurge of activity in Germany, The Netherlands and the Nordics.

While outsourcing spending in the United Kingdom’s commercial sector declined for the second consecutive year, the public sector grew, accounting for 77% of local TCV. The overwhelming majority of public sector outsourcing in EMEA continues to happen in the U.K. – 92 percent in 2010.

Driven by restructuring mega-deal activity, EMEA’s Financial Services industry sector performed especially well, with almost €10B in TCV awarded in 2010, up 29 percent in comparison to 2009. The Travel and Transport, Energy and Business Services industry sectors also increased their TCV in 2010.

An analysis of TPI Index data shows clients steadily migrating towards smaller contract awards and multi-sourcing over the last decade. The percentage of Forbes Global 2000 companies based in Western Europe operating in a multi-sourced environment rose to 83 percent in 2010, and among these, 25 percent use five or more service providers. While some organisations in the region have begun consolidating their service provider relationships down to a select group of strategic partners, there has not been a swing back to single-sourcing, TPI research found.

“Like their counterparts around the world, European companies are increasingly opting to employ multi-sourcing strategies,” said John Keppel, Partner & President, Information Services and Chief Marketing Officer, TPI. “Using multiple providers, they can customise their sourcing solutions and leverage the best skills in each market. We expect the preference of companies to multi-source will continue to grow as it allows them to tap into the best talent possible for their needs.”

Intelenet announces collaboration with Empronc Solution’s product BAZ as a platform for Spend Governance and Outsourcing.

Intelenet Global Services (Intelenet), the leading global BPO service provider, today announced its collaboration with the Mumbai headquartered Empronc Solutions. The real time Enterprise Spend Governance solution BAZ, provided through this collaboration is a unique outsourcing opportunity using a robust spend management framework. The solution effectively streamlines the entire spend process from initiation to payment, for practically every spend area.

"The combination of world class business processes and robust Enterprise Spend process management software is an efficacious tool for the industry. The two teams have worked together for the last one year so as to make the implementation simple for the end customer and to deliver a very high degree of Spend Governance in transaction processing. This would be a SaaS offering or can be hosted at the customer end." said Ram Panickar, CFO Intelenet Global Services

The solution addresses the typical high volume transaction areas pertaining to indirect spend categories, travel, employee reimbursements, petty cash, purchases, projects and contracts. These areas experience the highest transaction volumes and paper work. They are considered to be high-risk areas for governance and productivity leakages. The software control parameters allow excellent visibility to the client, even as processing happens in an outsourced location.

“Intelenet’s reach combined with the BAZ Enterprise Product will be a big boon for the decision makers in organizations wanting to be productive, ‘greener’ and on top of their Spend Governance. The solution seamlessly integrates with any existing financial system and works well with or without an ERP deployment.” added Jayant Dwivedy, CEO, Empronc Solutions.