Industry news

CSC (CSC) today announced that a major multiline insurance provider has signed a license and maintenance contract for CSC’s New Business Accelerator (nbAccelerator) and Insurance Optics Business Analytics. The growing company will integrate the two new applications with its existing CSC policy administration system, CyberLife.

The insurer will use nbAccelerator for application submission, requirements management, work tracking management and policy issue processing for traditional life insurance, universal life insurance and disability income insurance. The company will also implement Business Analytics to access and analyze new business and customer data from multiple systems to proactively and quickly address changing conditions.

“nbAccelerator helps insurers speed new business and create efficiencies by eliminating processing steps, reducing handoffs and automating more tasks, while Business Analytics helps carriers transform new business data into useful, actionable information,” said Michael W. Risley, president of the Life Insurance and Annuity division of CSC’s Financial Services Group. “With world-class solutions such as these, CSC can help insurers reach their growth objectives and reduce the risks associated with change.”

nbAccelerator supports multiple products, distribution channels and administration systems, and provides the technology and business processes needed to seamlessly manage new business. Comprised of underwriting, automation, document management and production-proven work management, nbAccelerator decreases the cost of issuing life and annuity contracts while increasing productivity.

Business Analytics software and services, a part of CSC’s Insurance Optics family of business intelligence solutions, allow insurers to quickly monitor business results and their drivers. The software displays critical data in report or dashboard views with interactive filters, sliders and gauges that make it easy to drill down and reveal specific causes of particular outcomes.

HP today announced that Underwriters Laboratories (UL) has selected HP Networking solutions to improve the efficiency of its technology infrastructure and increase knowledge sharing among employees and customers through unified communications and collaboration (UC&C).

UL has been certifying consumer product safety and assessing compliance for more than 115 years. Each year, more than 20 billion UL marks appear on products from 72,000 manufacturers in 98 countries. However, growth of the company created challenges for an outdated technology infrastructure, hindering its ability to keep pace with customer demand or maintain a competitive advantage.

With the new UC&C solution provided by HP, UL has improved collaboration and communication among its 68 testing and certification facilities and labs. The solution integrates communications on a single enterprise-wide platform, supporting any method (voice, chat or email), location or device. As a result, UL can rely on real-time, integrated knowledge exchange among employees, partners and customers that increases overall business productivity.

UL’s UC&C solution incorporates Microsoft, Avaya and HP networking technologies to deliver unified messaging and instant messenger capabilities, as well as collaboration and voice services. This includes HP A-Series A12500 and A5500 switches. UL also has deployed HP E-Series E5400 and E8212 switches, and E-MSM760 Wireless LAN (WLAN) controllers with the E-MSM422 WLAN access points.

UL replaced 23 private branch exchange (PBX) systems with a single centralized solution for voice communications. The solution streamlines IT management with standardized desktop configurations for employees supported on a common network infrastructure. This enables UL to offer faster, higher quality and more customer-friendly services, which in turn allows manufacturers to accelerate the product life cycle – from research to manufacturing to recycling..

“UL continually seeks to improve collaboration among our customers as we become even more integral to how manufacturers develop and deliver safer products to market,” said Christian Anschetz, senior vice president and chief information officer, Underwriters Laboratories. “HP provided a roadmap to transform our network infrastructure to achieve these business goals while also supporting our plans to move towards a converged infrastructure that will further streamline IT operations and reduce costs.”

HP today announced it has completed its acquisition of Fortify Software.

The combination bridges static and dynamic security analysis across the application life cycle to help clients proactively reduce business risk against malicious attacks. With Fortify Software’s expertise and offerings, HP will offer a best-in-class solution that allows clients to properly address application security from development through operations, and scale to a Center of Excellence program.

The acquisition of Fortify enhances HP’s application life cycle strategy and enriches the HP Secure Advantage portfolio by adding a complete application security offering. With this addition, HP will deliver one of the most comprehensive security capabilities for securing mission-critical applications in heterogeneous environments.

Further details about the product integration will be announced at a later date.

Vertex, a leading global Customer Management Outsourcing (CMO) and Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) company operating across a wide range of market sectors and geographies, has today announced a joint venture with Shell Transource Ltd, one of India’s largest integrated domestic BPO.

The Vertex majority-owned joint venture will emerge as a significant CMO/BPO in India to deliver integrated services across voice, non-voice and fulfillment solutions to customers in over 350 locations in India.

Vertex will strengthen Shell Transource Ltd’s offering by integrating world-class CMO capabilities underpinned by industry specific technology and applications.

This joint venture will supplement Vertex’s capabilities delivered via its four service lines comprising CMO; IT Applications and Services; Consulting and Transformation; and Decision Sciences. The focus will be on Public Sector, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), Telecom, Utilities and Retail. The combined strength will now be approximately 5,000 employees.

Paul Sweeny, CEO, Vertex Group, said, “India is one of the world's most attractive and rapidly growing markets. Today’s announcement shows our commitment to investing in this market and is part of our global strategy of broadening and deepening our CMO capabilities. We recognise a huge untapped opportunity within Shell Transource and their unique business model and have identified a valuable way of extending our CMO/BPO business in India. Our respective strengths are a natural fit and will address the fast evolving needs of the local market.”

Indian industrialists would take up the outsourcing issue during the Indo-US Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG) meeting here on Tuesday, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry President, Mr Rajan Bharati Mittal, has said .

“Tomorrow (Tuesday), we will take in the PSAG (Private Sector Advisory Group) the outsourcing issue,” Mr Mittal said ahead of the trade advisory group meeting on the sidelines of the trade policy forum meeting, co-chaired by the Union Commerce and Indust ry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, and his American counterpart, Mr Ron Kirk.

Mr Sharma arrived in Washington from Chicago on Monday evening and soon thereafter had a meeting with the Indian CEOs, here to attend the PSAG meeting.

“I have already told the Minister (Sharma) that as an industry body we are raising the issue of outsourcing,” Mr Mittal said.

He added, “On the one hand they (Americans) are talking about Indo-US partnership in innovation and technology and allowing all services; on the other they are restricting people’s services. That’s something which is not acceptable.”

“This is a serious issue for India. This is an important issue for us and we will take this us seriously,” he said.

When asked what was the response from the United States on the issues raised by India with regard to outsourcing and visa fee hike, the FICCI President said it was a “cold response’’.

Notably, Mr Sharma is yet to receive the response to the letter he wrote to Mr Kirk on the hike of categories of H-1B and L1 visas.

Besides outsourcing, the PSAG would be discussing three important issues logistics and urban development; urban infrastructure and technology and services.

“We have put a paper from the Indian side on urban infrastructure and logistics.They have put a paper on technology innovation and services,” Mr Mittal said.

Source:http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/businessline/blnus/14211102.htm

IBM is stepping up its presence in the business analytics market, announcing that it plans to acquire Netezza.

The company has entered a definitive agreement for the Massachusetts-based firm – known for its high performance data warehouse appliances and accompanying analytics applications – with a price tag of $1.7 billion (£1.09 billion) in cash.

The deal is still waiting to be approved by Netezza’s shareholders but IBM said it expected the deal to go through in the fourth quarter of this year.

"IBM is bringing analytics to the masses," said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive of IBM Software and Systems.

"We continue to evolve our capabilities for systems integration, bringing together optimised hardware and software, in response to increasing demand for technology that delivers true business value. Netezza is a perfect example of this approach."

Once the deal is done, IBM plans to integrate the company into its Information Management software portfolio and will keep its 500 employees worldwide.

Jim Baum, president and chief executive (CEO) of Netezza, said: "Our customers choose our appliances for their fast time to value and how they simplify analytics against big data."

"Together with IBM, we are looking forward to extending our capabilities to a much broader market."

NextiraOne, Europe’s leading expert in communications services, has signed a new contract with existing customer The Listening Company to provide a new state-of-the-art Contact Centre environment at its newly acquired Manchester office. The new infrastructure will include Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony and full Advisor voice recording for around 500 Customer Service Representatives (CSRs), plus a new Local Area Network (LAN).

The Listening Company provides outsourced Contact Centre and Customer Service facilities for a range of household brands and Blue Chip companies, including Sky, Microsoft, Toyota and a number of major leisure and financial organisations. NextiraOne is a long-term partner and has implemented several previous Contact Centre solutions for The Listening Company, including its Headquarters in Richmond and sites in Portsmouth, Newcastle and Tonbridge.

Under the contract, valued at £1.2 million, NextiraOne will design, project manage and implement the new VoIP Contact Centre and Local Area Network for a site taken over by The Listening Company in Manchester city centre and will bring the facilities there to the highest standards and quality of service for Contact Centres. NextiraOne has designed a multi-vendor solution combining and integrating technologies from Alcatel-Lucent Genesys, Cisco and Nice. This represents a new technical design for The Listening Company and is being seen as a pilot project and the blueprint for possible future upgrades to existing sites.

The move to VoIP brings significant cost benefits as well as better quality and reliability of service, whilst the introduction of full Advisor voice recording provides the necessary compliance, particularly for financial transactions and customer service issues, important to many of The Listening Company’s major clients. It will also be used for training purposes.

“Our work puts us in the front line of customer service on behalf of our clients”, said Richard Simpson, Director of IT Architecture, at The Listening Company. “Quality of Service (QoS) and compliance issues are both of paramount importance since they directly affect the corporate image and reputation of our customers. The move to VoIP and full Advisor recording allows us to continue the process of improving our services with the right mix of quality and compliance, in over nine years of working together, NextiraOne has proven itself to be a reliable and cost-effective partner and we have returned to them for all our expansion needs.”

Richard Wright, Sales Director at NextiraOne UK, said: “The Listening Company is yet another example of how our long-term relationships with customers build a level of trust and partnership that not only leads to repeat business for us but encourages innovative approaches to customers’ needs. We listened to The Listening Company and proposed a solution which will provide tangible benefits in its operations.”

NextiraOne is Europe’s leading expert in communications services and has a direct sales and service presence in 17 countries, serving more than 60,000 customers. The company designs, installs, maintains and supports sustainable solutions to meet the communications needs of its customers - from voice, data and video to mobility, security and applications.

HP today announced a solution that helps wireless and broadband companies generate new revenue by providing midsize business customers with cloud-based mobile device management services.

With HP Cloud Services Enablement for Device Management as a Service (HP CSE for DMaaS), communications service providers (CSPs) can help businesses solve a costly and burdensome problem: managing employee smartphones, notebooks and other mobile devices. As work moves outside the office, businesses must support a wide array of mobile devices, networks, operating systems and applications.

With HP CSE for DMaaS, CSPs can provide businesses with an efficient, flexible, services-on-demand solution. Through a secure, customizable web portal, IT staff can manage mobile devices and PCs through the cloud. Using over-the-air technology they can configure devices, distribute applications, diagnose problems, enforce security policies and protect data with full back-up and restore capability.

The benefits for businesses are: reduced cost, complexity and risk; access to state-of-the-art mobile device management technology; reduced capital investment; and the ability to extend high-value productivity applications to mobile workers.

“Employees are taking their work on the road, and companies must evolve more efficient ways to extend full support for these employees and their devices,” said Stacy Crook, senior research analyst, IDC. ”Telecom companies will value a solution that provides both the opportunity to provide business customers with cost-effective mobile device management services over the cloud – and the impetus to kickstart a new high-growth business.”

“As mobile device management becomes more complex and costly, companies need help from a trusted provider,” said Tim Marsden, director, Communications and Media Solutions, HP. “CSPs can become that provider. With the HP solution, they can leverage the advantages of the cloud, efficiently manage a company’s mobile devices and, ultimately, build a new business for themselves.”

HP CSE for DMaaS is the third offering in the HP portfolio, following previous announcements of communications as a service and infrastructure as a service.

TechTeam Global, Inc., a worldwide provider of information technology outsourcing and business process outsourcing services, today announced that it has become an authorised reseller of the Google Apps™ Premier Edition suite of communication and collaboration tools, and will provide services to help customers implement and use the toolset. Drawing on its extensive experience supporting end-user environments for medium to large companies globally, TechTeam is positioning itself to help organizations transition to cloud-based solutions.

The Google Apps suite of cloud computing applications provides simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools to organisations. With Google Apps, users can use applications such as Gmail™, Google Talk™, Google Calendar™, Google Docs™, Google Sites™, and Google Video™ for business on their own domain to work together more effectively.

TechTeam will offer value-added services to help customers with needs assessment, training, pilot implementation, migration, deployment and ongoing support to ensure a successful transition and ongoing productive use of this powerful suite of tools. The company's substantial experience providing services for end-user computing environments enables it to deliver value well beyond the technology implementation, with an approach that includes full consideration of end user and business process needs. Ongoing support from TechTeam will include a multilingual Google Apps help desk to answer questions and address other end user needs quickly and effectively.

TechTeam will bring further value to Google Apps customers through its experience working with the unique requirements of large and multinational organizations. The company has the maturity, process discipline and organizational depth required to ensure long-term success in these complex environments.

"We are excited by this new opportunity to help our customers," said Gary J. Cotshott, president and chief executive officer of TechTeam Global. "We recognise the tremendous value that Google Apps can bring to organisations, and know that our capabilities and experience can greatly benefit them as they move to the cloud."

Cotshott continued, "We are carefully watching technology trends and listening to our customers' needs. We expect to build further capabilities to help customers take full advantage of the cloud computing model."

TechTeam is a recognized industry leader in help desk outsourcing and end-user computing support. The company was named No. 1 globally in help desk outsourcing across both Tier 1 and Mid Tier customers, as well as No. 1 globally in IT infrastructure outsourcing for Mid Tier customers, in Datamonitor's 2009 Black Book of Outsourcing report on Top Infrastructure Management Outsourcing Vendors.

Plans to open additional office at Xiamen centre

Dell has planned to open a second major China operations centre next year in Chengdu with manufacturing, sales and services to support the Western-China development strategy.

Dell said that it is developing its manufacturing and customer support centre in the West Chengdu High-Tech Park, which is expected to be operational in 2011.

The new Chengdu operation adds to the company's presence in China, which includes two computer manufacturing plants and an enterprise command centre in Xiamen; a product-design/engineering center in Shanghai; and an international service centre in Dalian.

The company also plans to open an additional office at its flagship centre in Xiamen and hire up to 500 team members later this year to support its projected growth needs in North Asia and globally.