Industry news

The Bank of Taiwan has signed two-year core banking contract with a Unisys’ Taiwanese subsidiary.

Under the contract, Unisys will extend the core banking system to support the bank’s seven overseas branches and manage the requirements of Taiwan’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) legislation.

The new system will be expanded to include overseas branches, creating a single global system. The bank hopes this will help: ‘leverage the bank’s existing investments in staff, reporting and risk management procedures.’

“In today’s complex banking environment it is vital that financial institutions have the tools and audit trail to help detect and prevent money laundering activity. The new core banking solution that Unisys is managing for Bank of Taiwan is designed to not only help the bank meet its AML obligations, but also enhance the services the bank provides to the overseas branches and their customers,” said Scott Whyman, vice president, Unisys Asia.

Ipswich Borough Council has announced it plans to provide a customer contact centre in a bid to both improve services offered to residents whilst making an estimated £1.5m saving over the next three years.

The new centre will be a result of the council‘s recent merger with Northgate Public Services to both design and implement such a centre. Staffed by specialist customer service teams, the centre is hoped to offer the most effective services possible.

"For the first time, local people will be able to raise questions and resolve their concerns through a single point of contact with council staff. As a result, the customer contact centre is certain to have a positive impact on improving the quality of life among our communities," said Terry Hayward, head of community and customer services.

Technology employees working for the BBC’s supplier, Siemens, are currently balloting for strike action following the broadcaster’s decision to introduce a pay freeze, according to Computing.

In 2005, Siemens signed a ten-year contract with the public service broadcaster to deliver an enterprise integration architecture layer and other key technology services after the BBC closed its Technology division.

The decision comes at a time when relations between the contractor and its employees at the BBC are already “at an all time low” union official, Suresh Chaula, following the 70 recent redundancies within the Projects and Media Systems division.

There are also a further 50 jobs at risk in the Network and Server Operations division, which is set to be outsourced to Romania.

"As the BBC's technology partner, Siemens are responsible for keeping our services on-air and online. They have kept us informed as talks have progressed and assured us that, in the event of strike action, contingency plans are in place to ensure there will be no adverse effect on audiences," the BBC said in a statement.

Utility provider Morrison Utility Services, has extended its outsourced IT contract with Logica for another eight years in a contract worth £10.9m.

The deal will see Logica provide IT support and management for Morrison Utility Services’ 3,200-strong workforce with until 2014.

Alongside infrastructure management, Logica will also provide application and change management services.

Graeme Cross, head of IT at Morrison Utility Services, said: "As our business grows and adapts to changing market conditions, Logica continues to re-engineer its service.

“The contract that we have with Logica provides a flexible framework that meets the changing nature of our business and we look forward to working together.”

Software exporter, L&T Infotech has announced it plans to provide business process outsourcing, (BPO) in addition to its existing portfolio of services.

With the aim of providing customers with a full range of services, starting from application development to testing back-office processing, the move will help beat off the firm’s larger rivals already in the outsourcing market.

L&T Infotech has also has appointed one of the big four consulting firms to help advise on its BPO strategy, delivery locations whilst helping to decide whether acquisitions are an appropriate entry strategy for the firm into BPO services.

“We want to be able to offer to the full range of services. We already have infrastructure management, independent testing services and application development and maintenance,” said Sudip Banerjee, CEO of L&T Infotech.

Emerging markets private equity investor, Actis, has recently signed a $50 million investment deal with Integreon, a Mumbai-based outsourcing firm backed by Ayala Corporation of Philippines.

Integreon, a knowledge processing outsourcer provide document, legal, analytic, and business services across the globe. Currently with operations in London, Los Angeles, New York, Mumbai, and New Delhi, Integreon hope the investment will help further expand their operations. As a result of the investment, UK firm Actis will also receive two seats on the firm’s board.

Integreon, whose clients include Microsoft and other well known legal firms, plans to double its work force of 200 in the Philippines, to 2,000 around the world, suggesting the KPO market is still strongly emerging with good investment opportunities.

Fred I. Ayala, chief executive of Ayala’s business process outsourcing (BPO) investment arm said, “the company continues to regard the BPO sector as a good area for investment.”

Publisher Reed Elsevier saw an increase in revenues and operating profit last year aided by cost savings from the outsourcing of IT development and back office activities.

Reed Elsevier said outsourcing its IT work helped hold down costs, it was reported in computerworlduk.com, as systems engineering and maintenance and software development engineering were all outsourced, in addition to some back office processes.

"Good progress is being made in developing the next generation of legal research products, and the advanced back office infrastructure to support them, to deliver an integrated and superior customer experience across legal research, workflow tools, practice solutions and client development,” said the company in a statement.

The publisher revealed last week that its revenues for the year had grown 14 per cent to £6,071m, while operating profit had also increased 14 per cent to £1,570m.

Appliance manufacturer Electrolux has signed an IT infrastructure management contract with outsourcing giant HCL.

Under the contract, lasting five years, HCL will take charge of network monitoring and management, servers, IT security and end user computing.

“We wanted to offer a standardized service to Electrolux operations in Asia Pacific without increasing costs. In HCL we found a partner that understands standardization of services and has an ability to support the business locally across the region” said Bertil Norberg, Electrolux Group CIO.

HCL will serve Electrolux through its Global Delivery Centres in India and Malaysia and onsite. It will provide helpdesk services in languages including English, Vietnamese, Thai and Bahasa (Malaysia & Indonesia).

The deal covers 12 countries in the APAC region including Australia.

Israel’s Ministry of Immigrant Absorption has signed a $11.2m contract with ITO provider, Ness Technologies.

Under the five-year agreement, Ness Technologies will provide 24-hour technological support to the ministry’s IT systems responsible for immigrant absorption, registration of immigrants and management of assistance resources, such as public housing, financial assistance and customs tax grants.

The company will also upgrade the ministry’s existing helpdesk in the ministry’s bid to expand ICT systems even further.

“Ness Technologies will assist us in leveraging our IT resources whilst further developing our ICT systems to streamline the immigrant absorption processes. We will continue to improve service to immigrants based on these advanced IT systems,” said, Sigal Lebovich, manager of the Information Systems Department of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption.

CAE, a developer of simulation technologies, has signed an agreement with Wipro to address the simulation-based training, operations and maintenance needs of India’s defence forces.

Wipro and CAE will work together to provide training systems integration and simulation-based solutions for war gaming, C4ISR (battle command) and a range of other defence platforms expected to be acquired by India’s defence forces.

“The Indian defence market is of strategic importance to CAE and this importance is demonstrated in the investments and strategic relationships CAE has established in India,” said Ash Sarin, CAE’s regional VP for marketing.