Industry news

Vodafone’s Newbury-based call centre has been evacuated in the wake of the ‘worst snow to hit the UK in thirty years’.

The phone company decided to send staff home late on Tuesday expecting up to 30cm of snow to fall in Berkshire, where the centre is based, it was reported on CCF Online.

The call centre is expected to struggle with customer calls today due to the number of staff affected by the weather.

Customers phoning the call centre have been told to ‘expect delays’.

As yet, no other call centres have reported problems, but further difficulties are expected.

The Federation of Small Businesses estimates that the snow could cost the economy around £600million a day for the next few days.

Syngenta has announced it will extend its long-standing BPO relationship with Capgemini in the UK to provide financial services.

Under the new and extended seven-year contract, the technology and outsourcing supplier will provide Swiss firm Syngenta with additional financial services including accounting and procurement globally.

“We are proud to extend our partnership with Syngenta and are delighted to be intrinsically involved in the success of their business processes optimisation,” said Hubert Giraud, global leader of Capgemini.

Lancashire County Council is set to launch a major shared services project in a deal reportedly worth over £1.9bn - and is on the hunt for an outsourcing supplier.

The contract will seek to share IT services across the council’s twelve borough councils, Cumbria County Council and other local bodies over the next ten years.

Services to be covered in the deal include IT consultancy and support, technological strategic review services, project management, system integration, the development of customer relationship management software and front line systems, provision of human resources systems, pension fund administration systems, data management and financial management. The deal will also address networking, provision of hardware and software, helpdesk services, user training, printing, and school IT services and related software development.

“The partnership is intended to deliver medium and long term cost benefits, increased efficiency, sustainable and effective services, and improved performance delivery with the primary aim of ensuring the best possible outcomes for the citizens of Lancashire,” the council said in a statement.

The new initiative was announced when the council issued a contract notice requesting suppliers to tender. The council is seeking up to five vendors, who have until 29 January to request participation in the tendering process.

The council has recently come under intense pressure to cut overheads, needing to save £21.7m next year and between £79m and £142m over the next four years. Spending reductions have been forced from numerous directions including increased pressure on services due to demographic changes, new legislation and uncertainties over continuing government grants.

The Sardar Bhiladwala Pardi People's Co-operative Bank Ltd. (SBPPCB), one of the leading co-operative banks in Gujarat, has signed a ten year IT services contract with IBM.

The contract, a pay-as-you-go model, will enable the bank to save up to 50 per cent in its capital expenditure on IT infrastructure. As part of the agreement, IBM will provide server management, network and security management, backup and database management.

Established in 1929, the SBPPCB’s main objective is to help improve the lives of farmers, small traders and artisans.

Mr. Hemant M Desai, managing director of SBPPCB, commented: "This model will set a good example for other co-operative banks for evaluating the core banking system with predictable and low expenditure as well as obtaining a high level of technology expertise."

The NHS has been criticized for spending around £1m on outsourcing to consultants, according to the Express.co.uk.

Health chiefs at NHS Manchester came under fire from patients and MPs for the spend, which went towards experts advising them on how to save cash, as the organization is facing an £18m debt.

NHS Manchester recently entered into a ten month contract with KPMG.

Laura Roberts, NHS Manchester chief executive, told the Express: “It’s important that every opportunity to improve quality and reduce inefficiency is taken.”

CUSTOMER PRIVACY POLICY

This Customer Privacy Policy governs the collection and use of personal information relating to potential and existing customers of sourcingfocus.com by the publication and its related bodies, the National Outsourcing Association (NOA) and the OUT Group – the NOA’s commercial arm.

Sourcingfocus.com is committed to abiding by this Customer Privacy Policy, as well as the requirements of applicable laws, in the operation of its business. Please read this policy carefully as it explains the kinds of personal information we collect about you and how it is handled.

By your continued use of our services (including our website), you consent to the collection and use of your personal information for the purposes set out in this Customer Privacy Policy.

COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will generally let you know at the time of collection how we intend to use your personal information. Usually, we collect personal information about you which we require to respond to your inquires for the provision of goods and services to you. We also process your personal information where we are required to do so by law, and for the exercise or defence of legal claims. From time to time, we may contact you for research purposes, or to tell you about our special offers and other services in accordance with your contact preferences. Where appropriate, we will obtain your consent to do so. Personal information collected from you may include your name, payment processing information, postal address, email address, landline or mobile telephone number, delivery details as well as other non-sensitive personal information. If you use our website, we may also collect information about you or your computer when you browse, to allow you to use the services available.

WEBSITE USAGE & COOKIES

If you are using our websites, we will use your personal information to help you to log on to your account and into restricted areas of our websites and to permit future use of the websites. We may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, or to administer our websites. We may conduct analyses of user traffic to measure the use of our sites and to improve the content of our websites and our services. These analyses will be performed through the use of IP addresses and cookies. We may also use cookies to enable the signing in process after you have registered with us and to provide you with more tailored information when you return to our websites. A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your computer’s hard drive by your web browser. Most browsers accept cookies automatically, but usually you can alter the settings of your browser to prevent automatic acceptance. If you reject the use of cookies please note that the efficient operation of the website that you are using may be affected. Most of the advertisements that you see on the websites are generated by third parties who may use cookies to track viewing of their advertisements and for other purposes specified in their own privacy policies. We have no access to or control over these cookies (although we may use statistical information provided to us – not containing personal information – arising from these third party cookies to improve the targeting of advertisements to you and other users of the websites). You can obtain further information about third party privacy policies or disable their cookies by visiting their websites.

REGISTRATION

By registering with sourcingfocus.com you consent to receive our regular weekly newsletter and be added to sourcingfocus.com and the NOA’s contact database. By consenting to be added to this database you are allowing yourself to be contacted with editorial and marketing related information from sourcingfocus.com, the NOA and the OUT Group. If at any time you wish to be removed from the database or unsubscribe from sourcingfocus.com, NOA or all contact, please contact editor@sourcingfocus.com.

THIRD PARTY

We will only disclose personal information about you internally and to third parties for the supply of goods and services, for website administration, or elsewhere when you have consented to such disclosures, or where such disclosures are required or permitted by law. Where you have agreed that we may do so, we may lease or rent your personal information to selected third parties for their postal or telephone marketing use.

We may track when content is downloaded and adverts clicked on and email addresses may be passed on to sourcingfocus.com advertisers and sponsors.

TRANSFER OF DATA

Third party data processors, advertisers, exhibitors and other such business relationships outside of the EEA, are required to take adequate technical and organisational safeguards to protect personal information. We also take measures to ensure that personal information transferred by us outside of the EEA is adequately protected.

EMAIL CAPTURE

Sourcingfocus.com may from time to time send updates about this product and other relevant products and services. Your email address will only be given to 3rd parties where outlined in the privacy policy. By providing your email address you consent to being contacted for direct marketing purposes by sourcingfocus.com, the NOA and the OUT Group.

SECURITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use administrative, technical, and physical measures to safeguard personal information against loss, theft and unauthorised uses, access or modifications.

We take steps to regularly validate the personal information we hold to ensure that the information is accurate and, where necessary, up to date. Information that is no longer required for any valid business purpose, and that we are not required to keep pursuant to any applicable law, will be routinely destroyed by secure means.

ACCESS TO PERSONAL INFORMATION

You may renew and update personal information that we hold about you by contacting us as detailed below.

CONTACTING US

If you wish to change your contact preferences with us or a third party, please follow the unsubscribe request details. Unsubscribing to sourcingfocus.com will stop us from contacting you in the future, but not the individual 3rd parties whom you have interacted with.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, or no longer wish to receive anything from us, our partners or have your data made available to 3rd parties, you can email us at editor@sourcingfocus.com or call on 020 7292 8685.

CHANGES TO PRIVACY POLICY

We reserve the right to add to or amend this privacy policy at our sole discretion, without prior notice to you. Please review our privacy policy on a regular basis to make sure you have read the latest version and you understand what we do with your personal information. Your continued use of our services or our websites following the posting of changes to these terms means that you consent to those changes.

Tech Mahindra has won a five year outsourcing contract with a new Indian telecoms provider to supply technical system services, including phone and operational support.

STel, based in Chennai, is aiming to start rolling out its services during Q4 of this financial year, aided by the partnership with Tech Mahindra.

The deal follows the outsourcing service provider’s recent partnerships with Etisalat Telecom, a joint venture between the UAE-based Etisalat and the Dynamix Balwas group.

As part of an agreement in the country, telecom service providers in India opt to share passive infrastructure, such as telecom towers, and outsource non-core activities, such as network and technology management, to reduce costs and roll out services faster.

One in seven manufacturing companies has brought its offshore operations back to the UK in the past two years, according to a report.

The EEF study of 300 organisations showed manufacturers were moving production back due to concerns about poor quality and higher freight costs.

The trade body, which represents thousands of manufacturing companies in the UK, said the country had become "increasingly competitive and efficient" over the past few years.

"Many companies have taken advantage of the low-cost emerging markets, both as market opportunities and also as a means of reducing costs," the EEF's chief economist Lee Hopley told the BBC.

"If lower labour cost producers can't provide what they need when they need it, then the alternative is to produce in-house and bring production back to the UK, which some are clearly doing."

The trend is increasingly popular after several companies have suffered from a recent wave in corporate scandals and increased fraud levels, prompting firms to set up an independent and objective audit system, according to the Economic Times.

Both SMEs and large firms are following suit in outsourcing audit work to external firms. Companies including Airtel, Dabur, Nicholas Piramal, the National Stock Exchange, Hindalco, Vodafone, Pfizer and MphasiS are all adopting the approach.

Many companies have also even converted internal audit into a continuous activity, instead of the current practice of doing it for the quarterly or half-yearly financial statements.

"The independence and objectivity that an external agency has, is difficult for an audit team consisting of existing employees; therefore an external audit firm would bring in best practices that probably wouldn't be there in an internal audit team." said Porus Doctor from Deloitte.

Proud Cabaret has signed a three-year deal with London-based Fifosys to outsource its IT infrastructure.

The new 1920s-inspired venue, which has just opened in the City of London, has a restaurant and nightly shows from 9pm until 12pm.

In preparation for Proud Cabaret’s official launch, Fifosys installed a new IT infrastructure, CCTV, and door entry and time attendance systems to help with the running of the restaurant and club.

Alex Proud, owner of Proud Cabaret said: “Time is money and downtime can be costly. With a service that means you are always operational, downtime is not a problem I envisage us running in to.”