Industry news

Unitech Wireless is working with Wipro to launch a telecommunication service that will provide wireless voice, data and ILD/, NLD services across India.

As part of the deal Wipro will implement a future- ready IT architecture in accordance with industry standards. Wipro will also deploy component based Service Delivery Platform (SDP) for Unitech Wireless to deliver wide range of services including Multi Channel Access, Real Time Information Delivery, Multimedia Content and VAS. Wipro will be working with Unitech Wireless from the launch and taking responsibility for key aspects of the service infrastructure.

Commenting on the deal, Rohit Chandra, Chief Operating Officer, Unitech Wireless, said “We are launching a Greenfield telecom operation and want to create a strong customer proposition for our services based on cutting edge technology and business processes aligned with IT. We chose Wipro as our partner because among the service providers in this field, we felt that they brought a unique combination of domain expertise, market knowledge and a customer-centric approach that allows us to grow together.”

Wilton Re, the insurance provider, has signed a new contract with CSC who will provide a full range of business process outsourcing (BPO) services. The 10 year agreement has an estimated value of US$90 million.

Under the agreement, CSC will provide full back-office administration services for 270,000 life policies and convert those policies to its CyberLife policy administration system.

Enrico J. Treglia, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Wilton Re, commented, "By expanding our relationship with CSC, we are able to provide insurers with cost-effective divestitures of non-core businesses.”

TPI, the largest sourcing data and advisory firm in the world has released a new report entitled ‘TPI Momentum 2009 Market Trends & Insights Vertical Industries’ The report presents a comprehensive look at outsourcing activity in 26 key sectors of the US economy.

The sectors covered in the report correspond with the widely used Forbes categories. For each vertical, the report documents information on 20 different IT outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) functions and provides analysis gleaned from the TPI experience of providing expert advisory services in more than 3,000 transactions. Within and across these segments, it shows how client buying patterns have shifted over time, by region, scope and service provider.

"With our global footprint and 360-degree view of the outsourcing industry, TPI is offering objective and concise intelligence that isn't available anywhere else," said Melany Williams, Partner and Managing Director, TPI Momentum. "This report will help all participants in the sourcing industry to uncover pockets of opportunity and align business development efforts with real-world market demand. If you're trying to decide where to focus your sales resources, you need this report."

Among the key findings were:

• Of the 26 industries studied, nine are identified as being strong verticals for prospecting activities. Among these, the Media industry has recently seen strong adoption of outsourcing among mid-market companies as well as increasing spending levels among companies with active ITO / BPO contracts. This recent increase in outsourcing activity is likely to continue as Media companies face significant market pressure and seek opportunities for short-term cost savings.

• In terms of the number of companies represented, the Aerospace & Defense sector is the smallest of the 26 industries classified by Forbes, yet it remains a strong market for outsourcing. In fact, 68 percent of the companies within this space have an active outsourcing contract with a total contract value (TCV) of $25 million or more -- the highest percentage of all verticals studied. Outsourcing activity is likely to be affected in the coming months due to a variety of changes in the sector including acquisition reform, an expected labour shortage and forecasted 2010 U.S. government budget cuts.

• TPI has observed that the larger companies in the Consumer Durables space tend to be experienced outsourcers. Because these companies have been hit particularly hard by the reduction in consumer spending, they are likely to seek outsourcing opportunities in areas they have not strongly considered in the past. When making outsourcing decisions, TPI has observed that Consumer Durables companies are increasingly focused on the long-term financial viability of the service providers considered, adding another layer of complexity to the selling process.

Xerox Corporation, the worlds largest printing company, has signed an IT outsourcing agreement with CSC, the US outsourcer. The contract, which has a seven-year base period, is valued in excess of US $100 million.

Under the terms of the agreement, CSC will provide mainframe processing and application support to Xerox’s North American business. Work will be performed by CSC’s Global Outsourcing Services at various locations across the globe utilising the company’s ‘World Sourcing’ delivery centers.

“Xerox’s selection of CSC speaks to their expertise and experience in managing critical components of IT services,” said John McDermott, chief information officer, Xerox Corporation.

Munich Re, one of the world’s leading re-insurance companies, has signed a new five-year IT outsourcing contract with Atos. Under the contract, worth over £13 million, Atos Origin will develop and manage all IT applications and systems for Munich Re’s UK businesses.

The decision to appoint Atos Origin forms part of Munich Re’s IT strategy in the UK to strengthen its client services and more cost effectively manage its risk by standardising IT systems and policies. The new contract will replace a number of existing contracts.

“Atos Origin proposed a simpler and more efficient solution that will enable us to better meet our future business requirements,” said Chris Everson, UK Head of Business Solutions at Munich Re. “The new service from Atos Origin provides us with the flexibility and control that we need to better manage risk, respond faster to changes in the market place and ensure compliance with new regulations.”

Atos Origin will deliver the services from the UK and India. The Atos Origin team in India will focus on applications development and management, while the team in the UK will work closely with Munich Re (UK) to manage testing and design further service improvements.

Capgemini is expanding its presence in Eastern Europe to meet ongoing client demand for outsourcing services with a new centre in Iasi, Romania. The centre will perform first line IT help desk support and business continuity work for Capgemini’s outsourcing unit. The new centre will be modeled on Capgemini’s nearshore centers in Krakow and Katowice, Poland.

Iasi is one of the largest university towns in Romania, offering a qualified pool of talented and skilled employees for Capgemini. The language capabilities of the graduates will help Capgemini to meet continued demand from its European outsourcing clients, supplying staff fluent in French, German, English, Italian and Spanish.

Richard Dicketts, Global Head of Infrastructure Management at Capgemini, commented, “Opening a new outsourcing centre in Romania highlights the ongoing demand for these services, despite the current economic climate, and enables us to continue to help our clients grow, innovate and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.”

Time Warner Cable Inc, a leading US television company, has extended its existing e-Care contract with Convergys. Time Warner Cable worked with Convergys for over a decade in various lines of business including billing solutions. The company will now extend its agreement in order to create a superior customer experience.

Convergys will work with Time Warner Cable to offer ‘e-Care alternative customer contact channels’ including both email and online chat in both English and Spanish. Through these channels, customers can receive account information and support, digital phone technical support, and answers to queries about billing, browsing, connectivity, and email issues. Along with live agent availability, Time Warner Cable offers a wide range of channels for support of its nearly 15 million customers.

“Time Warner Cable strives to provide its customers with the type of service and care opportunities expected from a digital company like ours and our relationship with Convergys supports our commitment to providing that level of customer care,” commented Time Warner Cable Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Sam Howe.

Atos Origin has acquired Shanghai Covics Business Solution Ltd, a leading Chinese SAP consultancy integrator. The move marks the first acquisition carried out by Atos Origin in China.

Through the deal Atos Origin hopes to reinforce its capability across SAP systems in China, notably in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. In addition, it will be able to double the number of its local experienced SAP consultants.

Herbert Leung, CEO Atos Origin in Asia Pacific, said: “The acquisition is no doubt a strategic move to sharpen our competitiveness of delivering SAP implementations complying with the highest SAP quality standards in China. This is also in line with our aim to use our China SAP operations as a major SAP Competency Centre across the Asia-Pacific region.”

After the acquisition, Shanghai Covics will be wholly owned by Atos Origin. Retaining the company name, Shanghai Covics will continue carrying on its business while Atos Origin reviews its operations and synergies during the transition period.

We are currently seeing more interest in innovation from our outsourcing clients here in the UK, although they do not always call it that. In fact, for some people the word innovation may be a word that they choose to avoid. That’s understandable as innovation can sometimes have a ‘bad rep’, especially if associated with gadgets or experiments that don't have business value. The fact is, innovation means different things to different people. However, in the new economy, there is certainly a need for companies of all sizes to differentiate (or ‘innovate’) and it is the CIOs who recognise the ways in which IT can provide that differentiation who are succeeding in the current economic climate. There’s often a pre-conceived misconception that only large organisations with equally large budgets can benefit from innovation programmes. This really isn’t the case. Approaches to innovation can and in fact must be tailored to match the size of the organisation, skills, business strategy and available resources.

At IBM, I lead a team that focuses on collaborative innovation and together, we have created specific innovation programmes (we call these "Value Creation Centres"). The innovation projects that we deliver (which fit easily into outsourcing contracts), range from the tactical to the strategic and from business to technical in focus. For each innovation project, a combined task force from IBM and from the client side is formed from the outset in order to establish a clear innovation management model that defines our joint approach. These programmes have been well received by our customers, but the focus of these has changed in recent months. Right now, a number of customers are interested in a more tactical approach to innovation.

Innovation in business can be defined in many ways and it’s not necessarily about inventing new and complex solutions. Very often there’s a simple answer to a challenge and the innovative approach needed to solve it. It’s important to remember though that innovation is not something that can simply be bought; it is a creative process that needs to be nurtured and managed systematically, using a range of tools and techniques, right through to delivery.

Successful innovation programmes don’t need to be a long-term commitment, they can run for a limited time to address a particularly pressing business need or to match personnel and resource availability. Whether you want to expand your core business, gain entry into new markets or simply become more efficient, an innovation project cannot be ignored.

Amid stories of doom and gloom, it was refreshing to see analyst firm Gartner’s recent report that outsourcing deals in IT are on the up. Companies today are clearly eager to remove the cost of operating IT whilst maintaining service levels. Moreover, this outlook proves how outsourcers can continue to add value by delivering innovative business processes.

Whilst clients have reaped the rewards of outsourcing traditional IT, very few have managed to realise the benefits of the latest mobile technologies. Mobile email is probably the most common example seen within many businesses today, though the plethora of ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions on the market prevents outsourcers from providing any value in this field.

But there are other fields where off-the-shelf falls flat. More precisely, ‘field services’ workers such as maintenance engineers and delivery drivers who can benefit from mobile IT. Here mobile email is more a hindrance than a help. Can you imagine a courier typing out an individual email to record deliveries to the hundreds of addresses they visit daily?

There are a range of applications such as CRM databases that field workers access but IT departments struggle to ‘mobilise’. This is because IT departments’ experience with mobile technologies is limited, and field applications are more complex. Another challenge is the fact that most field service organisations have unique business processes, which prevent any radical changes taking place. This means technology needs to be designed around the workers, not the other way around.

Adapting highly complex technologies to extremely diverse working cultures is like eating soup with a fork. Nonetheless, there is a desire for mobility within field workforces. In a recent report from Aberdeen Group, 95% of companies said mobility was important to their field service operations.

Unlike previous technology cycles, outsourcers can still make an early impact and lead this new era of business transformation. As I’ve already alluded, most companies lack the experience to build or manage mobile infrastructures. And with a variety of new vendors to co-ordinate, outsourcing these relationships removes any potential management headaches.

During this period of uncertainty, the best path is to scale mobile IT on an as needed basis rather than shoulder up front expenditures in areas such as mobile devices. Outsourcing can again lend itself to this approach by allowing clients to adopt an Opex friendly subscription model.

’Mobile Sourcing’ can add an entirely new dimension to client value, and offer outsourcers better-protected revenues than simply competing at the commodity end of the market for desktop PC services.