Industry news

Councils in England are to learn later how much the funding they receive from central government will be cut over the next two years.

Similar to the spending review, opportunities should arise for various outsourcing partnerships as councils aim to save money by outsourcing some of their back office functions and share services.

The Localism Bill will lay the foundations for what David Cameron calls "the big society". The bill will also change the role that councils play in finding accommodation for the homeless.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: "I believe it is possible to cut significant sums out of local authorities by simply improving the way local authorities operate.

“They've simply got to wake up to the fact that it is no longer viable to have their own chief executives, their own legal departments their own education departments, their own planning departments - they've simply got to put this together and they've got to look for ways to see these services provided in partnership with local communities.

“I'm expecting local authorities to be able to provide more for less, I'm expecting them to be able to provide a reasonable level of service and I think local authorities shouldn't have some kind of alibi in feeling that these have been imposed from the centre and therefore they've got to provide every single cut on the front line."

Veolia Water has confirmed that Indian outsourcing provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will manage and provide IT services to the firm.

The water company told Computing earlier this month that it had been reviewing its IT support services as part of an ongoing transformation programme, and it was speculated at the time that an outsourcing deal with TCS was under consideration. The company has now substantiated those claims in a statement revealing the Indian firm has been appointed.

"Following a company-wide review of our IT provision, we will appoint an IT business partner to deliver the knowledge and expertise we require to meet our future IT needs," said Buddy Willard, chief information officer at Veolia Water.

"We can confirm that we are currently talking to our preferred partner Tata Consultancy Services Limited with the intention of developing a partnering relationship."

Source: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/1931583/veolia-water-set-outsource-tcs

Credit Solutions, UK-based debt collection agency, has been acquired by Arvato, global outsourcing partner. The deal totaled to £10 million and was aimed at increase of Arvato's presence on the UK market.

The company already owns firms that include outsourcing customer management, financial services, supply chain management, etc. Now, with th acquisition of Credit Solutions, Arvato will be able to strengthen its positions on British debt collectors' market. On top of that, Credit Solutions, which also worked in such sectors as telecoms and utilities, will broaden the scope of activities for Arvato.

Commenting on the acquisition, Mr. Pierce of Credit Solutions, said that "becoming part of a large successful, multi-national and multi-service company like arvato provides significant opportunities for growth. This is the start of an exciting new chapter as part of the arvato family."

Wipro Technologies, the Global Consulting, System Integration and Outsourcing Business of Wipro Limited, today announced the opening of a new development center in Budapest, Hungary.

The Wipro center was set up to primarily service the transformational program of Magyar Telekom (MT), which will enable the latter to improve efficiency in customer experience and increase market agility. Earlier this year, Wipro had signed a multi-year transformational deal with Magyar Telekom (a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom), the largest telecom service provider in Hungary. This strategic move leverages Wipro’s proven global transformation capability and more importantly, enables a complete range of business and technology services to be delivered, closer to the customer.

Mr. Jack Smies, Vice President and European Head of Global Media and Telecom, Wipro Technologies said, “We are fully committed to our relationship with Magyar Telekom. This important investment complements our longer term goals in the region; delivering services in closer proximity to our clients and leveraging the local talent pool better. The net result will be services delivered locally, set against global best practices that, when combined, will deliver a successful transformation program at Magyar Telekom.”

Mr. Christopher Mattheisen, Chairman and CEO of Magyar Telekom said, “Magyar Telekom has been working with Wipro for over three years on a variety of projects. We are pleased to see this expansion as a sign of their commitment to the success of the transformation project.”

Mr. Gergely Lukácsy, Investment Director of ITD Hungary - the government’s investment and trade promotion agency said, “We welcome Wipro’s decision to set up its service center in Hungary. No doubt, this unique investment will prompt other technology companies from India to consider Hungary as a potential venue for their investments in Europe.”

This new development center of Wipro Technologies in Budapest will strengthen the company’s platform for continued growth in Europe. With the launch of this center, the number of Wipro centers in Eastern Europe including Romania and Poland, now stands at four and complements the over 20 Wipro delivery centers already active in Europe.

Convergys Corporation, the global leader in relationship management, has announced that it continues its major expansion in the Philippines with the opening of a new integrated contact center in Muntinlupa City.

The new contact center facility, known as Alabang Two, is the second Convergys facility located in the area. The added capacity will bring Convergys’ total employment in the country to approximately 23,000, supporting the company’s status as the largest private employer in the Philippines.

The new Convergys facility measures 68,000 square feet and will employ up to 1,200 additional employees from the region. The contact center boasts executive and administrative offices, training rooms, conference rooms, and employee lounges.

National Water Company of Saudi Arabia has awarded Accenture a contract to design and deploy a comprehensive IT solution for its water and waste water services in the cities of Riyadh and Jeddah. Financial terms were not disclosed.

National Water Company has chosen to work with Accenture as it assumes responsibility for delivering water and waste water services across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The company aims to modernize the infrastructure and introduce international standards of customer services. The cities of Riyadh and Jeddah will be the first two cities to benefit from the National Water Company’s program.

Under the agreement, Accenture will develop and implement a range of Oracle-based solutions that cover customer care and billing, a customer portal, enterprise asset management and middleware. Accenture will provide maintenance and support of the new infrastructure for one year and will also be responsible for a change management program to help the company’s leadership and staff introduce new business processes.

“Our aim is to transform the quality of water services across Saudi Arabia’s major cities,” said Loay Al-Musallam, CEO of National Water Company. “Accenture is willing and able to commit to our ambitious timelines. They also bring a breadth of expertise in the utilities industry, including both technology and consulting.”

“National Water Company recognizes the role of data in maintaining reliable infrastructure and in providing more responsive consumer service,” said Omar Boulos, Managing Director, Accenture, Middle East. “We look forward to bringing both our core utilities infrastructure assets and our retail solutions to the National Water Company’s program.”

Havering and Newham Councils will extend their share services across both boroughs in a bid to save £11m.

The agreement will result in the creation of a new team from existing staff who will support the borough’s technological systems and implement a programme to update and standardise systems.

Mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales, said "In terms of grant funding, Newham is being hit harder than any other London borough so we have to make considerable savings. By entering into this agreement Newham expects to save around £7.5m over five years. We hope to be able to attract other boroughs to join us, offering the opportunity for even more efficiencies.”

Wipro Infofech has secured an IT outsourcing contract for Vasan Eye Care.

As part of the 5-year contract, Vasan Eye Care will outsource its entire IT infrastructure to Wipro Infotech for monitoring and management.

Vasan Eye Care, one of India’s largest network of eye care centres, have also included data centre management and support services into the contract.

K Premraj, Vasan Eye Care Chief Mentor, said. “With Wipro on board, we are now free to concentrate on our core competency of offering quality eye care to patients across India.”

Vasan's network of hospitals comprises close to 75 independent hospitals, distributed across four southern states of India, and caters to five million patients a year.

Teleperformance has been crowned Marketing’s Contact Centre Agency of the Year 2010

Teleperformance, the UK’s second largest contact centre outsourcer, has been crowned Marketing magazine’s Contact Centre Agency of the Year 2010. The judges voted Teleperformance best overall out of a number of contact centre outsourcers for a combination of enviable new business wins, investment in technology aimed at improving customer experience and its work to promote industry best practice.

Marketing magazine commented “Investment in technology has been key to Teleperformance’s growth. The business has a mission control centre (pictured) that allows activity to be centrally monitored real time across its network of contact centres. The agency has also invested in analytics enabling it to carry out higher levels of call monitoring.”

Teleperformance has 12 sites and employs over 6000 agents in the UK and manages contact centres on behalf of major businesses and government departments including Sainsbury’s, EON, Identity and Passport Service and NHS Blood and Transplant.

Jeff Smith, CEO and Chairman of Teleperformance UK, who was recently awarded the first CCA Lifetime Achievement Award for his commitment to the contact centre industry, comments; “We are delighted to win this very prestigious award and have our efforts recognised by the industry. I would like to thank everyone involved, particularly our clients who work so hard to promote best practice and continually raise the standard of customer service.”

With donations to charities falling – the 2010 Charity Market Monitor reports that voluntary income to the UK’s top 500 charities has dropped by £64 million - the time has come for charities to re-look at the method and effectiveness of their service delivery.

Traditionally third sector organisations have shied away from outsourcing services – languishing in the wake of both the public and private sectors. Fears regarding the loss of personal interaction, expertise and the integrity of the organisation have all been voiced.

Yet these entrenched attitudes are why I see the current economic climate as an opportunity as well as a challenge for the sector. I hope it will force organisations to reassess they way in which services are delivered and to look afresh at the benefits that carefully managed outsourced solutions can offer.

In fact, historically outsourcing has been one of the Third Sectors biggest secrets. According to Paula Rickson of the Charities Aid Foundation, all charities outsource to some degree, "They don't tend to shout about it too much. Charities are often worried about losing touch with their donors, and sometimes the donor perception is that outsourcing costs money, which isn't the case. Research suggests that outsourcing back-office costs could save UK charities £136 million a year - only one aspect of charity work amongst many that could potentially, and profitably, be outsourced.”

And cost reduction is an increasingly pressing issue for many, as the impact of Government cuts to grant funding is felt. At Connect Assist we can typically find a 20 per cent reduction in costs when taking over a helpline from a charity’s inhouse team. While for organisations that are looking to extend into different areas, working with an outsourcing partner means there is no need to make a significant, upfront captial investment.

Despite this, many charities have still not considered the outsourcing option. According to Professor Cathy Pharaoh of Cass Business School, “The significant advantages offered by outsourcing in offering additional expertise, taking some burdens off charity shoulders and freeing them to pursue their mission, are also acknowledged, but a key finding was that many charities, however, have simply not considered outsourcing. Infrastructure bodies provide limited promotion of outsourcing to members, partly because of lack of understanding and information, but also because of factors such as risk-aversion.”

I would argue that charities should be looking at outsourcing when they lack the capacity to deliver a particular service. Or if a service already exists in-house, but needs to be delivered at a lower cost. A contact centre is equipped to provide a number of features that most in house services would not have. For example, access on a 24/7 basis rather than a 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday service. Levels of call abandonment are also likely to be significantly lower, while smart telephony such as call queue routing and automatic call-backs drive efficiency.

The benefits of such a move are highlighted by MDF The Biopolar Organisation. It received more calls in one week than in an entire year following an EastEnders storyline that included a character’s struggle with biopolar disorder. Having moved from a weekday, office-only helpline run by volunteers, to an outsourced 24/7 service it was able to cope with this demand. Interestingly 70% of calls were taken during the night – calls that would otherwise have been missed.

Suzanne Hudson MDF’s Chief Executive comments, “Awareness of bi-polar disorder has increased significantly in recent years and we were struggling to manage rising volumes of sometimes very detailed calls.

“By outsourcing some of our service provision to a specialist contact centre organisation, we were able to channel member calls to a dedicated helpline resourced externally, while continuing to deal with general enquiries in-house.

Suzanne acknowledges, “Initially we did have concerns regarding the loss of personal interaction, expertise and the integrity of the organisation. But our experience has been wholly positive and we have developed a close working relationship with Connect Assist our outsourcing partner.”

Risk aversion can appear tempting in a tough economic climate. However, where there are real savings to be made and the delivery benefits are apparent, refusing to consider change could potentially endanger any organisation, with the third sector remaining more vulnerable than most.

Patrick Nash, CEO Connect Assist

www.connectassist.co.uk