Industry news

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), the organisation responsible for tax collection in Uganda, has chosen TCS to design and install a new integrated tax administration system.

The new system will manage all domestic taxes and duties for the URA, including income tax, value-added tax, withholding tax and other excise duties. The URA hopes the system will increase the level of tax compliance in the country whilst broadening the tax base and providing efficient services to Uganda’s tax payers.

Under the terms of the agreement a suite of applications will be developed for effecting and monitoring key activities of tax administration such as registration, returns, payments, assessment, tax-payer accounts, audit, compliance, objections, appeals and investigations.

Approximately £5.8 million of funding has been raised to pay for the system from such sources as the Department for International Development in the UK and the respective governments of the Netherlands, Belgium and Uganda.

N Chandrasekaran, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director of TCS, said: “With our strong domain expertise in executing tax administration systems for various tax authorities across the globe, TCS will assist Uganda Revenue Authority in business process re-engineering, capacity building and change management to improvise and optimise the business process’ execution jointly with URA management. The new integrated system will reduce IT and operational costs and processing cycle times, while improving fiscal transparency and financial accountability”.

T-Mobile Netherlands has selected the Netherlands arm of Capgemini, to migrate its legacy billing platform to a new LHS model.

The system migration forms part of a strategic merger program between T-Mobile Netherlands BV and Orange Nederland NV and is designed to provide greater flexibility whilst reducing the company’s total cost of ownership.

Capgemini will be responsible for the integration and migration of the legacy system to the new platform. The project will be delivered cooperatively onsite in the Netherlands, in Paris and offshore in India. LHS, a long term partner of Capgemini, will provide the required customization and the necessary professional services to support this implementation as a subcontractor to Capgemini.

Gerrit Dekker, Executive Vice-President Information Technology at T-Mobile Netherlands BV, said: “This is a multi-faceted project, with great impact on our organization; billing is, after all, one of telecom operators’ core processes. Because of this, transparency and mutual trust between the parties is, to us, paramount.”

Humberside Police have signed off on a seven-year contract extension with Unisys, a global ITO provider.

Under the terms of the deal, which extends an existing three and a half year relationship, Unisys will work to support and extend the capabilities of CIS4, the fourth incarnation of the Humberside’s Criminal and Intelligence System.

The CIS4 system works by combining vital information from units responsible for crime, intelligence and domestic violence whilst interfacing with command and control and customer relationship management software. A web-based portal gives officers single-point access to relevant and up to date information.

To date the project involved the migration of 1.4 million crimes, 1.2 million people, and six million intelligence notes, de-duplication of between 500,000 and 600,000 records and population of the integrated database with cleansed legacy data.

Graham Dawson, head of Information Services at Humberside Police, said, “CIS4 is an extremely important project for the Force and for public safety. This program sits at the hub of our operational capability, and we are pleased to draw on Unisys expertise in justice solutions and support services”.

Unisys will support CIS4 primarily in the UK, with an additional support team based offshore at the Unisys global sourcing operations centre in Bangalore, India. This makes Humberside Police the first UK force to use an offshore support model.

EquaTerra has launched a new tool designed to enhance the management of outsourcing arrangements and lower governance costs. The system, called Governance WorkPlace™, was developed in conjunction with Microsoft.

The tool was developed by the company in response to an increase in sourcing activity and the subsequent need to manage service providers and contracts as effectively as possible. The system works by providing an enterprise-wide management view of all its internal business processes, enabling managers to proactively govern either shared services or outsourcing. By doing so EquaTerra boasts that the tool can reduce the cost of managing outsourcing relationships by 1% a year.

Mike Beals, EquaTerra’s Managing Director for the new tool, commented "We find that clients have developed multiple spreadsheet systems for each individual outsourcing relationship for verifying, managing, monitoring and reporting that are not automated or scalable. Organisations are spending a lot of money and time becoming spreadsheet jockeys rather than making business decisions, especially during the early months of the relationship when critical issues need timely resolution”.

The National Trust has signed a new ten year customer management contract extension with Vertex, the global provider of BPO and CRM services.

Vertex has managed the National Trust’s outsourced membership services since November 2004. The deal extension will see Vertex continue to manage and deliver end-to-end customer services for the Trust’s membership of over 3.5 million people.

The new agreement means there will be approximately 170 Vertex employees working on the contract across two sites in the North West. The multi-channel operation services, customer care and membership queries received via the Trust’s website, email, telephone and post.  It also deals with banking, print and fulfilment provision for many of the Trust’s various marketing campaigns from a specialist site in Warrington.

Andy Copestake, Finance Director for the National Trust, commented:  “We are looking to further developing our long term strategic relationship with Vertex where we can together take full advantage of the experience, skills and enthusiasm of our people to deliver a first class service to all our supporters.”

The turbulent market is driving cost-based outsourcing, but transformational outsourcing is in for the long-haul, says EquaTerra

Economic volatility may trigger further business process transformation in the financial services sector according to new research from EquaTerra, the business advisory firm.

The research reveals that financial services firms are changing strategy in response to opportunities and threats created by globalisation. Additionally financial services outsourcing buyers have become more focused on cost avoidance and are looking at outsourcing as a means to defer or amortise investments in new IT.

However, the research found that long term outsourcing is still viewed as a strategic tool and a way of enabling business process improvement and innovation.

As a result, EquaTerra expects demand for financial services outsourcing to grow at a more rapid pace, (seven to eight per cent annually over the next five to seven years), in response to both current market challenges and opportunities.

Stan Lepeak, EquaTerra’s Managing Director of research, said: “Financial services firms understand they need to reduce complexity across the board to lower costs. A growing need to customise new product and service offerings to capitalise on emerging markets is adding urgency for operational innovation.”

Winterthur Life, a leading European insurer, has signed a contract with CSC worth over £30 million to develop a cross-business administration system.

Under the terms of the agreement, Winterthur Life intends to standardise its information technology platform for the administration of its individual and group life insurance business, enabling the company to react to the market swiftly and efficiently.

Bombardier Transportation, a global leader in transportation solutions, has signed off on an ITO contract with CSC worth over £680m.

The seven year contract marks an extension of an existing agreement that began in 2002. Under the new agreement, CSC will continue to provide Bombardier Transportation with a range of infrastructure outsourcing services including desktop, service desk, network and application management services. The deal will see CSC provide support for more than 20,000 users at sites across 33 countries around the world.

André Navarri, President of Bombardier Transportation, said: “This renewed agreement with CSC will ensure that our employees have quality IT services and support, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from anywhere in the world”.

Outgoing BT CEO Ben Verwaayen has used the platform at an international conference to lambast business for failing to "get" environmental issues, despite the fact that business has a key role (perhaps the key role) to play in sustainability.

"I think carbon is the new currency. Whether we like it or not, we will get regulation, legislation and taxation, unless we do something ourselves," Verwaayen said to a reporter at the recent INSEAD Leadership Summit 2008 on global citizenship.

India's Tata Communications has signed an equity joint venture with China Enterprise Communications Ltd to acquire a 50 percent stake in the Chinese firm for an undisclosed amount.