Industry news

The University of Cambridge and Infosys have signed an agreement to undertake research in engineering, management and business, architecture and pharmaceuticals. Both partners will explore opportunities and implement research initiatives.

Professor Alison Richard, Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge added, "We, at Cambridge, are convinced that sustained collaborative research in business, science and technology has a pivotal role to play in the world today, and I am certain that this collaboration will create further exciting opportunities for us both in the years ahead.”

Speaking about the research partnership, Narayana Murthy, Chairman of the Board, Infosys Technologies said, “This collaboration will create an opportunity for some of the best minds engaged in academia and at Infosys to come together to identify and create relevant solutions in the areas of engineering, business, architecture and pharma."

Iceland has signed a seven year ITO deal worth over £11.5 million with Getronics.

The contract, a renewal of a previous deal, will run until 2015 and it includes 24x7 server hosting and systems management support. The fixed annual contract will be implemented throughout the UK.

Mark Pearson, IS Director at Iceland, commented, “We’ve built up excellent rapport and trust”. He also added, “The changes made to the contract have provided us with stability and security in terms of our IT platform in the current financial climate.”

Dave Baldwin, Managing Director at Getronics commented “We know Iceland’s business extremely well and have invested time with key contacts and stakeholders throughout the re-negotiation process. This has enabled us to completely align our technology and service provision with Iceland’s requirements and as the renewal was instigated by Iceland this speaks volumes for the working relationship we now have in place.”

The Ukrainian Hi-Tech Initiative has begun research for the “Central and Eastern Europe IT Outsourcing Review 2008”. The research will look at the state of the IT outsourcing market in Central and Eastern Europe.

The review will examine indicators of development in IT Outsourcing across central and Eastern Europe. The report will cover market volume, number of professionals, number of IT companies providing outsourcing services and individual labour costs to end users. This research will also look at the expert opinions about the impact of economic recession on global outsourcing development, particularly on the development of outsourcing in CEE region.

The Ukrainian Hi-Tech Initiative will work with various local bodies to collect and collate data on the region. Those involved include the Baltic Outsourcing Association, Hungarian Service and Outsourcing Association, Employers’ Association of the Software and Services Industry – ANIS (Romania), Bulgarian Web Association, and the Association of IT & Business Process Services Companies.

Valerica Dragomir, Executive Director at Employers’ Association of the Software and Services Industry (ANIS) commented, "The lack of analytical information about outsourcing services in CEE region prevents Central and Eastern European companies from demonstrating their potential in outsourcing services provision. That is why the decision of CEEOA to conduct the Central and Eastern Europe IT Outsourcing Review in an annual format will help the customers to receive a regular and reliable source of information on the development of IT outsourcing services market in the Central and Eastern Europe"

When complete, readers will be able to view the report at ITONews.eu, readers can also subscribe by emailing subscription(@)itonews.eu specifying “Central and Eastern Europe IT Outsourcing Review 2008” in the subject line.

This week has seen another example of sourcing and software as a service (SaaS) working in partnership, a sure indication of the emerging paradigm for sourcing this century.

Oracle Sourcing on Demand is the enterprise software giant's latest foray into on-demand services: a module for the purchase of supplies and services.

That said, this is no radical departure for Oracle, as the offering is based on existing components in its E-Business Suite Release 12, which means seamless access to other components of the suite.

As you might expect, the module is designed to enable collaborative processes, such as sourcing and striking the best deals, and because any business relationship is an ongoing thing, it allows you to build in rules and templates from previous successful – or unsuccessful – bids.

While it might not appreciate the comparison, Oracle is in a face-off against SAP, whose own SaaS provisions have been criticised by SaaS players. Salefsorce.com CEO Marc Benioff is on record as saying SAP's SaaS strategy is “horrible”.

In Oracle's case, it is also up-against specialist SaaS procurement and sourcing vendors, including Coupa, which was set up by ex-Oracle staff – something common to many of the leading SaaS vendors. Oracle chief Larry Ellison is himself an investor in Salesforce.com and NetSuite, two of the leading lights of the SaaS world.

Oracle is therefore firmly in the business of hosting and renting applications – and prices for Sourcing On Demand are reported as being in the region of $5,000 to set up and $850 a month to use – which the company believes carries a strong message in the recession, given that procurement can be a notoriously inefficient process.

That said, e-procurement was one of the major areas of promise at the turn of this century, and that market never blossomed despite the considerable promise.

• In other news this week, it will surprise few industry commentators that Satyam is seeking buyers for a majority stake in the troubled Indian services giant, which is still reeling from the scale of corruption and false accounting revealed earlier this year.

NASA has partnered with Cisco to develop an online collaborative global monitoring platform called the "Planetary Skin" to capture, collect, analyse and report data on environmental conditions around the world.

Under the terms of the ‘Space Act Agreement’, NASA and Cisco will work together to develop the Planetary Skin as an online collaborative platform to capture and analyse data from satellite, airborne, sea- and land-based sensors across the globe. This data will be made available for the general public, governments and businesses to measure, report and verify environmental data in near-real-time to help detect and adapt to global climate change.

"In the past 50 years, NASA's expertise has been applied to solving humanity's challenges, including playing a part in discovering global climate change," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Centre. "The NASA-Cisco partnership brings together two world-class organisations that are well equipped with the technologies and skills to develop and prototype the Planetary Skin infrastructure."

Readers can follow the project here: http://www.planetaryskin.org/

Satyam Computer Services has started the bidding process in an attempt to sell 51 percent of its shares, according to a Reuters report.

In a statement Satyam said bidders need to submit their interest by Thursday. The bidders will then be asked to submit a detailed expression of interest and provide availability of at least 15 billion rupees (US $290 million) by March 20.

Outsourcer breaks company record and increases earnings by a further 25 percent

Converso Contact Centres, headquartered in Southend-on-Sea, has achieved record revenues within the last three months. In November the company generated incomes of £400,000 and in January this figure rose to £500,000.

Ben Krempel, Converso’s Business Development Director, said the success has come from a jump in demand for outsourced services ranging from customer service management through to telemarketing, loyalty and up-selling campaigns. The success is also attributed to a consolidation and growth of services being provided to existing customers.

He commented, “In the past six months our pilot campaigns have been very popular allowing organisations to trial the effects of outsourcing first. Due to the success of these projects many of these have now turned into long-term business. We have also seen a trend from established customers to use more and more outsourced services particularly as internal resources are stretched.”

The Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund has signed a 5.5 million Euro application management outsourcing contract with Steria.

Under the terms of the agreement Steria will manage and further develop a number of Statens Pensjonskasse’s applications and interactive systems over the next four years.

"We are facing large development assignments in conjunction with the pension reforms. Equipped with the right application management system that is being handled by an experienced and robust player, our employees can concentrate on the project and on developing the pensions system of the future," said Cathrine Devold, Director of IT at Statens Pensjonskasse.

Greenwich council has signed a £6m IT contract with Logicalis, an international solutions provider, to upgrade and implement a Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) over the next seven years. The new IT network is set to support innovative e-services for the benefit of citizens and visitors to the London 2012 Olympics.

The network implementation will take place over the next 12-18 months and will involve the migration of over 10,000 employees to the new voice and data network. The network will also support Greenwich Council’s local home and remote workers.

Cllr Peter Brooks, Deputiy Leader of Greenwich Council, commented, “The decision to outsource the day to day operational maintenance of the network will enable us to focus on delivering applications and services that streamline existing processes.”

Cllr Brooks also said that the demand for council services during the Olympics would see a “significant increase” and that Greenwich Council wanted an IT partner to help meet the challenge the Olympics will bring.

Greenwich could be a hotspot for Olympic visitors as Greenwich Park has been proposed as a site for equestrian events. However there is an ongoing environmental campaign against the use of the World Heritage Site as a venue.

You’ve probably already had your mailbox swamped with highly amusing Friday anecdotes but we all know what you’ve all really been waiting for, it’s the sourcingfocus.com weekly roundup!

Great news for Aviva on Tuesday as they pinned down a $1 billion contract with EDS. As part of the deal 300 Aviva employees are set to be transferred to EDS. Not such great news for the EDS employees who are now facing possible pay cuts due to cost reduction measures announced by its parent company HP.

Apart from the cost cutting at HP and EDS, the week has been broadly positive for the world of outsourcing. EquaTerra reported that interest in outsourcing has risen by 9 percent in an annual study.

As part of their ‘Outsourcing Service Provider Performance and Satisfaction Study 2008-09’, six percent of participants (all UK organisations) said they would be looking to outsource more in 08-09. The main reason for choosing outsourcing were the pressures of the downturn. Well, every cloud has a silver lining.

With Slumdog Millionaire winning eight Oscars India has never been in the media spotlight so often. However, Hollywood films are not the only thing putting India on the map. In the equally glamorous world of outsourcing, India is soaring above the rest with 89 percent of respondents in the EquaTerra report outsourcing their ICT services there.

More good news came in from Northern Ireland in the shape of 900 new jobs being created by gem, a Belfast BPO firm. Downturn? What downturn?

Geraldine Fusciardi, Sales and Marketing Director of gem, spoke to sourcingfocus.com and explained that gem and Invest Northern Ireland, who are investing in gem’s new delivery centre, hope to make Northern Ireland a more attractive location for UK outsourcing.

The week also saw the launch of 2009’s Outsourcing Black Book which, surely to the ire of many, brings offshore risk back to the fore. Sourcingfocus.com asked the experts what they think in ‘For whom the bell tolls’.

That brings us neatly to the end of the week. Looking back over it I am awash with Slumdog Millionaire-esque positivity. Let’s see what next week brings…