Industry news

Oracle has launched its Data Integration Suite to combine traditional data-integration capabilities with an array of middleware and tools for constructing a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Data Integration Suite costs $60,000 per CPU for a package that bundles Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle/Hyperion Data Relationship Manager with the company's BPEL Process Manager, enterprise service bus, application server, business-to-business engine and business rules engine, according to a statement.

"This is really Oracle attempting to go a long way toward providing a credible alternative to IBM Information Server," said James Kobielus, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc.

The Co-operative Group continues to strengthen its green credentials with the launch of a night-time energy-saving programme for the IBM Electronic Point Of Sale (EPOS) operations in its 2,200 food stores.

The launch marks a further green innovation for The Co-operative following the switch to renewable sources for the electricity for its mainland food stores. The introduction of the “Wake-up on LAN” programme will enable tills, receipt printers, customer and operator screens, chip and pin devices and barcode scanners that are currently left on overnight to be switched off automatically when stores close and to be powered up again the following morning before they reopen for business.

These include 7,500 till units, 7,500 receipt printers, 15,000 customer and operator screens, 7,500 chip and pin devices and 7,500 barcode scanners. The Group says it will save 1.68 million kilowatt hours of energy per annum by using the system, which has been developed by the Group’s in-house IT team who worked in collaboration with IBM to re-engineer the Group’s InControl store end-of-day batch process system.

Savings on its energy bills are expected to be around £120,000 per annum along with a reduction of 722 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The introduction of the programme will also significantly prolong the life of the hardware, and therefore reduce the environmental impact still further by less frequent renewal. Implementation starts this month and is expected to be completed by the summer.

Mark Hale, Director of IS Food Retail, said: “The re-engineering of the EPOS system so it can be shut down at night clearly underlines The Co-operative Group’s continued commitment to the environment and to finding new ways of saving energy.”

Janine Cook, Director of Retail Store Solutions, IBM UK Ltd, commented: IBM has a commitment to developing products that reduce consumption of energy, and working with The Co-operative Group we’ve helped them release savings they can plough back into their business.”

The Co-operative has set itself a target of reducing energy use at all its premises by 25% by 2012.

US banking giant Citigroup has temporarily halted the sale of its business process outsourcing (BPO) unit in India, according to local press reports.

India's Economic Times reports that the sale of Mumbai-based Citigroup Global Services - formerly known as e-Serve International - has been halted as Citigroup reviews its operations after being badly burned in the credit crisis.

Speculation that Citigroup was looking to sell off the Indian unit came to the fore in July when it was reported that the US bank had shortlisted three bidders - Genpact, Firstsource and WNS.

A $700 million deal with Genpact was close to completion but a fall in the stock market led to the sale being cancelled, says the Economic Times report.

Citigroup Global Services employees about 8000 people in Mumbai and Chennai. The US bank took over the BPO unit in 2004 by acquiring the 55.6% it didn't already own in the business.

Repair work has started on one of three broken undersea cables providing data services to parts of the Middle East and Asia and a repair ship was expected to reach a second cable on Tuesday, reports Reuters.

Undersea cable connections were disrupted off Egypt's northern coast last week when segments of two international cables were cut, affecting Internet access in the Gulf region and South Asia, and forcing service providers to re-route traffic.

A third undersea cable, FALCON, was reported broken off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Friday and Indian-owned cable network operator FLAG Telecom said on Tuesday a ship had reached the location and repair work had started.

IBM today announced it will establish the first Cloud Computing Center for software companies in China, which will be situated at the new Wuxi Tai Hu New Town Science and Education Industrial Park in Wuxi, China.

The center will offer emerging Chinese software companies the ability to tap into a virtual computing environment to support their development activities. It will be established through an agreement signed today between IBM and Wuxi Tai Lake Industry Investment and Development Company Limited.

IBM will work with Wuxi Tai Lake Industry Investment and Development Company Limited; the Wuxi municipal government; and its business partners to build the China Cloud Computing Center, which will be a shared facility providing each software company in the park with its own virtualized computing resource. For example, a company will be able to use the allocated resource for designing, developing and testing its software products. Such virtual environments can replace the traditional data center model, in which each company owns and manages its own hardware and software.

Companies in the park will be able to access these common services provided by the center at any time -- just as they use utilities and other shared services. The technologies being offered to the community include IBM Rational software development tools, WebSphere Application Server software and DB2 database software running on IBM System x, System p and BladeCenter servers. IBM Tivoli systems management software will manage the cloud computing environment.

The two year effort, valued at approximately $27 million, will significantly enhance PECOS and enable state governments to voluntarily adopt it as the Medicaid enrollment system for all providers and suppliers. PECOS is already the established system of record for Medicare providers and suppliers.

CGI Federal, Inc., a wholly-owned U.S. operating subsidiary of CGI Group Inc., today announced that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has chosen CGI to implement CMS’ Provider Enrollment Chain and Ownership System (PECOS) One-Stop-Shop release.

One-Stop-Shop represents the first information technology initiative to process Medicare and Medicaid business transactions at the national level since Medicare’s and Medicaid’s inception in 1965. In conjunction with the states, One-Stop-Shop will create a consolidated provider enrollment form to establish a common basis for much of the data collected while at the same time providing the flexibility, if necessary, to support state specific data that can be seamlessly integrated into the system. “While time and money will be saved as a result of increased operational efficiency, a major value to CMS, the states, providers/suppliers and US taxpayers will be a reduction in Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse,” said Dave Collignon, Vice-President, Public Sector Health, CGI.

“CMS has been a customer of CGI since 1998 and we are pleased that they are continuing to partner with us to help improve Medicare and Medicaid program efficiency,” said George Schindler, President, CGI Federal. “CGI brings its healthcare program expertise at both the national and state level to this important effort. CGI’s business is satisfying clients and this opportunity is an affirmation of the quality of work that CGI delivers to CMS. We look forward to continuing to support CMS through One-Stop-Shop and our other initiatives.”

Accenture will provide South West Water with customer-care and billing services and manage South West Water’s back-office operations under a 10-year outsourcing agreement the two companies signed recently.

Under the agreement, Accenture will help South West Water enhance its technology, business processes and workforce performance to improve service levels for its customer base in Devon, Cornwall and parts of Dorset and Somerset counties in England while controlling service-delivery costs.

South West Water will leverage the process models, training methods, applications and assets developed by Accenture Utilities BPO Services, which provides similar services to more than two dozen utility clients in North America and the United Kingdom.

“We are delighted to have chosen a partner whose strategic objectives to deliver high-quality, cost-efficient customer services and collections align so closely with our own Pure Service objectives, said Monica Read, customer service director of South West Water. “We believe our partnership with Accenture will deliver an enhanced customer experience and a reduced cost to serve, confirming to our customers our commitment to provide them with the quality service they expect at the right price.”

Keith Mueller, managing director of Accenture Utilities BPO Services, said, “Utilities like South West Water, with plans to become high-performing organizations, are taking the initiative to modernize, innovate and seek the most efficient and effective ways to deliver outstanding services to their customers. We will be creating a UK showcase of the processes, technology and performance models Accenture Utilities BPO Services has developed and refined over the years with utility companies around the world and share these with South West Water and other utility clients.”

Genpact has announced a multi-year BPO deal with Ceridian Corporation, a leader in payroll processing, human resources management and employee benefits and assistance programmes.

Genpact will provide finance and accounting services, transactional business support activities, and information technology outsourcing to Ceridian, which provides payroll processing and human resource solutions to more than 110,000 organisations. Ceridian will have the benefit of operating within a Genpact Virtual Captive™ model, which will enable Ceridian to drive substantial business impact through its partnership approach with Genpact. The Genpact-Ceridian centers initially will be set up in Juarez, Mexico, and Jaipur and Kolkata, India. Other locations in Europe and the Philippines are being evaluated.

“Ceridian has enormous expertise in its field,” said Genpact President & CEO Pramod Bhasin in making the announcement. “We are pleased to apply our process excellence and re-engineering capabilities to help Ceridian be even more competitive in the marketplace.”

Mike Shea, Ceridian’s executive vice president for Quality & Service Operations, commented, “We believe we have a good cultural fit with Genpact. We looked at other providers and chose Genpact because of its customer centricity, process focus, and people values. We look forward to a very productive association.”

With risk avoidance, assessment and management rising high on the corporate agenda for 2008, offshoring is certain to be one area that is closely examined, along with HR (see separate article). This predicates a need for 'risk intelligence'. Historically, the UK has been risk averse, while the US has adopted more of a 'portfolio' approach, whereby any failures are more than counterbalanced by the greatest successes. Signs are, however, that the US again sees the West as wild, and has begun circling the wagons.

Nevertheless, the global information technology and business process outsourcing market is approaching $500 billion and investments in outsourcing and offshoring have never been higher, or more critical to organisational success. To help companies address the associated risks and maximise the value of their outsourcing and offshoring strategy, Deloitte has published a whitepaper, The Risk Intelligent Approach to Outsourcing and Offshoring.

Deloitte identifies several trends that have increased outsourcing and offshoring risks:

• Companies rely on other parties and/or offshore entities not just for specific projects and back-office functions but more often for core business processes.

• Increased competition for global talent has contributed to shortages of qualified talent.

• Regulatory developments have increased exposure to liability for malfeasance or misfeasance; in some cases, senior management and the board can be held accountable for non-compliance associated with operations of organizations hired to serve the interests of the company.

• Piracy, security breaches, and theft of information can erode brand value, intellectual property, and other intangible assets, in which companies have heavily invested in recent years.

• A volatile political environment or infrastructure limitations in some popular offshore locations can preclude effective and efficient operations.

• Outsourcing relationships often morph into de facto partnerships, albeit without the analysis, reporting, visibility and control that typically characterise true partnerships.

"To deal with such complex and dynamic risks, companies must employ a risk-intelligent approach to guide decision making throughout the outsourcing/offshoring life cycle," said Mark Layton, global leader for Deloitte's Enterprise Risk Services practice. "Aligning objectives, risks and controls throughout the outsourcing/offshoring lifecycle enables organisations to identify, assess, prioritize and mitigate outsourcing/offshoring risks at the right stage."

Deloitte identifies the following critical stages within the lifecycle of an offshoring/outsourcing relationship and addresses in detail the most important risks around each:

• Strategic assessment: Deciding whether, why and how outsourcing/offshoring may support your business strategy.

• Business case development: Analysing expected cost savings and other financial and operational benefits of the initiative.

• Vendor selection: Choosing a vendor according to criteria related to the strategic assessment and the business case.

• Contracting: Negotiating a contract that captures the needs and expectations of both parties, and addresses compliance and risk factors identified in the previous three stages.

• Service transition: Managing the migration, or initiation, of the service in the vendor or offshore location. Monitoring the ongoing performance and risk of the relationship according to the contract and service level agreements as well as for the attainment of strategic objectives.

"Many outsourcing and offshoring initiatives fail to live up to their potential or the expectations of the parties. Even worse, a fair number of them fail outright, leading the company to either pull the operations back in house or to start anew in the search for a reliable, mutually beneficial partner. A Risk Intelligent approach can help organizations realize the expected benefits and improve relationships among constituents impacted by outsourcing/offshoring," said Peter Lowes, Outsourcing Advisory Services leader, Deloitte.

You won't be seeing President Bill Gates any time soon. The Microsoft chairman was in London this week as part of what seemed to be a farewell tour from his current role as he steps down from the company he founded to focus on his eminently respectable philanthropic interests.

Asked if he would ever be tempted to stand for President, he laughed: "I'm certainly not going to do it. I do work with politicians... I enjoy doing that... but my role is being full-time with the Foundation. There's a lot of reform and improvement that, by being off on the side and working with governments and development agencies and filling our unique role, I think that's the highest impact. But running for an election, worrying about the next election? I don't think I'll get into that."

That said, he did run a humorous video about his last day at the office which featured him pestering Hillary Clinton about being her running mate for vice president, and phoning Barrack Obama – who pretended not to know who Gates was (“Bill who? Bill Shatner from Star Trek?”). There were no similar pleas to Mitt Romney or John McCain – but then again it was a Republican administration that set the Justice Department hounds on Microsoft in the first place.

Leadership 'takeaways' were surprisingly thin on the ground at the £200-a-head CRM event. However, on the subject of ongoing investigations into Microsoft, his best advice to business leaders was: “Don't get sued – especially by your own government. And especially if it's unjust!”

Gates was adamant that Microsoft's longstanding dominance of its markets did not stifle competition. "People do have lots of choice in these things. [You can] choose to user older versions, choose to use alternative things. There are tons of things out there. [In the business space there's] IBM, Oracle, lots and lots of companies. [Competition] is there, it just doesn't get covered as much."

There were some pearls of wisdom on the ethics of doing business with certain regimes, notably China, and those central African states where human rights abuses are currently rife. His stance: it's better to be alive than to be free.

He argued that while technology could help to drive innovation – for example, the internet allowing individuals to view a wider world than their own – it was not his job, nor Microsoft's, to try to use it to force through democracy. Although people have short memories in politics, arch-rival Google had come to the same conclusion only recently. In business, perhaps, it too is better to be trading than to be free.

Nevertheless, Gates insisted that change would come in its own time and that refusing to get involved with dubious regimes was not necessarily going to assist them. Telling a poor African that he cannot have malaria medication, but he will soon have a vote would not have any positive impact, he rationalised. “It's always better to be alive,” he said.

That said, Gates is prepared to talk politics to promote the work of his Foundation. After hooking up with David Cameron at the World Economic Forum in Davos, this week he was nipping round to Number 10 for tea and photos with Gordon Brown.

It's well known that Gates had enormous influence over Tony Blair. In fact, it's suggested by some Whitehall insiders that Gates was indirectly responsible for the advent of the monstrous NHS National Programme for IT, having reportedly encouraged Blair to think big in terms of NHS IT modernisation. The paymaster for that ongoing nightmare was one Gordon Brown.

Smile, please!