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September 24, 2008
Top Stories
UNISYS CEO TO RESIGN AT END OF YEAR...Unisys Corporation announced that Joseph W. McGrath will step down, with the concurrence of the board of directors, as president and chief executive officer, effective by year-end 2008. McGrath has served as chief executive officer since 2005. The company said the board of directors and McGrath agreed that a change in leadership would best enable Unisys to move forward on accelerating execution of the company’s strategy. McGrath will continue to lead the day-to-day operations of the company until a successor has been identified.
ARICENT GETS NEW FUNDING...Aricent, a global innovation, technology and outsourcing company focused exclusively on the communications industry, announced the signing of definitive agreements for new funding from existing investor KKR and a new investor, based in Bahrain, The Family Office. Aricent plans to use the investment capital to accelerate the momentum of engagements with leading infrastructure, application and service providers worldwide, as well as expand the company’s business activities in the Middle East.
SOFTSERVE ACQUIRES UKRAINE FIRM...SoftServe, Inc. has just announced the acquisition of business intelligence services and ETL specialist Alvion Ukraine, a transaction that adds significant technical expertise and new market opportunities to the leading multinational software development and consulting company leveraging the superior technology education and human resources of Ukraine. SoftServe aims to add to its resource pool the top-notch talent and experience in the areas of web development and online analytical processing that would help in servicing the global customers more efficiently.
Posted by jbowles at 07:24 PM
New Business
Perot Systems Corporation has been awarded an extended contract with athenahealth, Inc., a leading provider of internet-based business services for physician practices. The new five-year agreement further strengthens and extends the seven year relationship between the two companies. The agreement calls for Perot Systems to provide business process services relating to revenue cycle and clinical data capture services.
Convergys Corporation announced that a leading health care provider, a Fortune Top 150 company, has renewed and expanded its existing contract for Convergys’ industry-leading relationship management solutions for another 30 months. Convergys will continue and expand the world-class customer service it currently provides to the client’s extensive network of health care professionals. Convergys estimates the value of the contract to be about $54 million.
Posted by jbowles at 07:24 PM
International News
HP announced it has signed a five-year technology infrastructure agreement with Syngenta, a world-leading agribusiness. Under the terms of the agreement, HP will use its Adaptive Infrastructure as a Service solution to transform Syngenta’s current infrastructure-based services into subscription services aligned to Syngenta’s business processes. The service will be delivered from HP’s next-generation data centers in Isle D’Abeau, France, and Alpharetta, Ga.
Unisys Corporation announced that its Netherlands subsidiary is implementing a next generation foreign check processing solution for Rabobank, one of the largest financial services providers in The Netherlands. The new solution will allow the bank to process up to 200 foreign-based checks per minute. Under the terms of the contract, Unisys will modernize Rabobank’s existing check application system to achieve a more secure, cost-efficient payment platform to handle all the bank’s checks originating in foreign countries.
NIIT Technologies Ltd, the global IT services provider headquartered in New Delhi, has been awarded a global sourcing contract by American Safety Insurance Services, Inc., the Atlanta-based program manager for American Safety Insurance Group, a provider of specialty property and casualty insurance products for small and medium enterprises. As part of the agreement, NIIT will provide migration, configuration and customization support for ASI’s suite of mission critical applications. The work will be performed collaboratively in an onshore - offshore model between India and the United States.
Posted by jbowles at 07:23 PM
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Posted by jbowles at 07:22 PM
September 17, 2008
Top Stories
MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES EMBRACING LEARNING SERVICES OUTSOURCING...Although labor cost savings is a factor, companies – particularly large, multinational firms – are outsourcing employee training to retain focus on strategy and achieve tangible business outcomes, according to a new Everest Research Institute study. The Institute’s study, Learning Services Outsourcing (LSO): Accelerating the Learning Curve, examines a “quietly” growing but strong market in which companies adopting LSO typically gain more than 15 percent direct cost savings and, in some cases, savings in excess of 30 percent. Even more significant, companies are using LSO to produce tangible business results, such as quicker time to market. The study includes analyses of the LSO market and key business drivers, buyer trends, transaction characteristics and buyer case studies. An analysis of the supplier landscape is also available.
BT EXPANDS HP CONTRACT BY $660 MILLION...BT has signed a $660 million contract amendment with HP to extend the transformation of its technology environment, reinforcing BT’s ability to meet customer needs today and into the future, while delivering significant cost reductions. The contract extends the companies’ current agreement for the next 7.5 years, whereby HP will continue to provide, deploy and support BT’s servers and storage. Under the agreement, HP also will continue to deliver Service Desk and End User Services to a population in excess of 100,000 users across BT in the United Kingdom.
3FORWARD LAUNCHES INDIRECT SALES OFFERING...3forward, a Dallas-based growth services firm specializing in sales, marketing and alliances for IT services and outsourcing companies, has introduced new Indirect Sales offerings to help position IT Providers for increased revenues from the global outsourcing market. IT outsourcing is one of technology’s largest markets, currently estimated at $162 billion annually in the US and $517 billion globally. Despite its size, many niche or specialized Solution Providers find it difficult to penetrate this market because buyers often require capabilities and scale beyond what they alone possess. 3forward’s Indirect Sales Models create alternative paths to the outsourcing market by aligning IT Providers with global suppliers and leading outsourcers.
BPO MANAGEMENT ACQUIRES HEALTHAXIS...BPO Management Services Inc. will acquire Healthaxis, one of the industry's longest serving providers of ASP hosted healthcare IT solutions and BPO services, dating back over 30 years. As a result of the transaction, Healthaxis will become the Healthcare division of BPOMS, complementing BPOMS' existing operations for Human Resources Outsourcing (HRO) consulting, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), and IT infrastructure outsourcing (ITO). Healthaxis is an innovative provider of technology-enhanced, integrated business process solutions and services, including claims and benefit administration applications, web-enabled software solutions and outsourced claims related services for health benefit administrators and health insurance claims processors.
Posted by jbowles at 07:06 PM
New Business
Perot Systems Corporation has been awarded an extended contract with athenahealth, Inc., a leading provider of internet-based business services for physician practices. The new five-year agreement further strengthens and extends the seven year relationship between the two companies. The agreement calls for Perot Systems to provide business process services relating to revenue cycle and clinical data capture services.
Convergys Corporation, a global leader in relationship management and a preferred solutions provider to the Federal Government, announced that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a federal corporation created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, has awarded Convergys a contract for its customer management solutions. Convergys will provide customer service in English and Spanish for participants whose benefits are held by PBGC. This award will require Convergys to manage the contact center operations, catalog its operating procedures, and provide ongoing consulting on customer management solutions.
WNS (Holdings) Limited, a leading provider of global business process outsourcing (BPO) services, announced a multi-year contract to provide healthcare revenue cycle management services to EBI LLC (a Biomet Inc. subsidiary, d/b/a Biomet Trauma and Biomet Spine). Under the five-year agreement, WNS will deliver service level improvements utilizing high-end analytics to optimize collections and order processes.
Posted by jbowles at 07:04 PM
International News
Godiva Chocolatier, Inc. has signed a services agreement for IBM to manage Godiva's information technology (IT) infrastructure. The five-year agreement was signed on June 24, 2008. Through this agreement, IBM will support Godiva's offices in the United States; London, United Kingdom; Brussels, Belgium; Hong Kong, China; Tokyo, Japan; and Taipei, China as well as stores in North America, Europe, Japan and the Pacific Rim. IBM will provide data center services including support for IBM PowerSystems, Storage, service desk, security, messaging and data network and business continuity and resiliency services.
Sal. Oppenheim jr. & CIE., Europe's leading private bank, has extended its information technology (IT) outsourcing contract with EDS for five years. Financial terms were not disclosed. The contract extension covers the management of Sal. Oppenheim's existing IT infrastructure at all locations. Since 1997, EDS has managed and operated the entire Sal. Oppenheim IT infrastructure. EDS is responsible for managing workplace services at Sal. Oppenheim, which includes local employee support, voice, video and information services for more than 2,200 users.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed a five-year global contract with Ericsson the global supplier in telecommunications, to deliver application maintenance and development services for Ericsson's internal IT operations. TCS has been selected as one of the two strategic partners that will deliver application maintenance services to Ericsson and a preferred supplier for application development services, said a press release.
Posted by jbowles at 07:04 PM
Alliances
SAS and Wipro Technologies, one of the world’s largest IT service providers, have announced a global partnership. Together, the two companies will deliver BI and analytics software solutions to meet increasing global demand across various industries. The initial focus on banking and financial services, telco and retail will expand over time. Today’s announcement formalises joint efforts by SAS and Wipro over two years. Under the agreement, SAS and Wipro will strengthen Wipro’s Global Center for Excellence on SAS. This dedicated center, located in Kolkata, India, develops innovative solutions, processes and technology frameworks and builds competencies in BI, data integration and analytics. The center’s more than 300 trained SAS consultants will increase to more than 700 in 2009.
Posted by jbowles at 07:02 PM
Advertising Information
Outsourcing Alert reaches 50,000 key decision-makers a week. For advertising information and rates, contact Peter Bowes. Tel: (508)668-6908 or send an email.
Posted by jbowles at 07:00 PM
September 10, 2008
Top Stories
ACCENTURE SIGNS 10-YEAR DEAL WITH BRISTOL-MYERS...Accenture has signed a new 10-year, $550 million agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb for a range of finance and accounting and application development and maintenance services. The “bundled” services agreement extends a four-year outsourcing agreement the two companies signed in 2004 for application maintenance and accounts payable services and expands the scope to include additional application maintenance services, application development services and global financial support services. Accenture will provide these services to Bristol-Myers Squibb in the Americas, Asia, and EMEA regions in 22 languages through Accenture’s Global Delivery Network, which includes more than 50 delivery centers across five continents.
ACS EXPANDS RELATIONSHIP WITH INGERSOLL-RAND...Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. is expanding and strengthening its relationship with Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR) by committing to a 10-year information technology outsourcing services contract valued at $551 million. ACS, Ingersoll Rand's strategic partner since 2002, will be supporting global data centers for mainframe and midrange processing for the diversified industrial firm's business units. ACS will also be providing domestic and international wide area network (WAN) management and support. ACS' services will be delivered across Ingersoll Rand's network locations in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific.
CONVERGYS CLOSES INTERVOICE ACQUISITION...Convergys Corporation announced the successful closing of its acquisition of Intervoice, Inc., for $335 million in cash or $8.25 per share. Both companies are recognized leaders in their respective domains. This combination provides clients with a suite of solutions, from a single source, that enhances customer and employee interactions and simplifies operations, the company says.
WIPRO LAUNCHES DEVELOPMENT FOR HARMAN...Harman International Industries Inc. and Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited announced the launch of a joint embedded engineering center in India. The new Harman India Development Center will operate from Wipro’s existing Bangalore and Chennai facilities, complementing an earlier agreement which outsourced Harman’s global IT infrastructure services to Wipro. Beginning with about 250 employee resources through this engagement, Harman plans to grow its resource footprint in India to more than 1000 person-years by 2011, significantly strengthening its global engineering capabilities.
OPI NAMES MP OF PROCUREMENT SERVICES...Outsource Partners International, Inc. (OPI), a leading provider of finance and accounting outsourcing (FAO) as well as related services, has appointed Robert Klein as Managing Director, Procurement Services. In this role, he will have global responsibility for the growth and management of OPI's Procurement Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Spend Analytics, and Source-to-Pay consulting offerings.
Posted by jbowles at 07:22 PM
New Business
Spherion Corporation announced its recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) services division has signed a one-year contract agreement with Gerdau Ameristeel, leading mini-mill steel producer and second largest recycler in North America, to provide full end-to-end RPO services. The engagement calls for Spherion to support 400 hires for both exempt and non-exempt positions across all of Gerdau Ameristeel's locations in the U.S. Spherion RPO will concentrate its recruiting efforts in the company's corporate group and key lines of business, including steel mills, rail products and recycling.
Posted by jbowles at 07:22 PM
International News
North Wales Police (NWP), of the United Kingdom, has signed an outsourcing agreement with the UK subsidiary of Unisys Corporation to upgrade, manage and maintain North Wales Police’s email infrastructure over the next three years. The email system is a mission-critical service that the 2,500-member force relies on as one of its primary communication methods across the NWP area. Unisys will use global resources, including support from its US based application management and support teams, to design and build the service.
Perot Systems Corporation has completed the successful roll-out of a Hospital Information System (HIS) in multiple hospitals and Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in Abu Dhabi. In April 2007, the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi engaged Perot Systems to prepare an assessment of the project to help ensure that it would be implemented successfully and ultimately deliver the desired benefits. The goal of the program was to create a system that would provide a comprehensive Electronic Medial Record (EMR) and maximize administrative efficiency. A year later, Perot Systems has successfully overseen the HIS implementation in three PHC locations. The system now provides a comprehensive EMR, supports best practice processes in all hospitals, and enables clinical, operational and financial metric reporting.
Posted by jbowles at 07:21 PM
Alliances
CompuCom Systems, Inc. announced a strategic partnership with Service-now.com, the pioneer of on-demand IT service management software, to deliver Web 2.0-based IT service management technology through efficient implementation and outsourcing services. Service-now.com and CompuCom are leading the charge in promoting on-demand IT service management, based on proven ITIL v2 and v3 processes, to help drive service consistency and automation across IT departments while reducing legacy client/server software implementation and management costs.
Posted by jbowles at 07:20 PM
Advertising Information
Outsourcing Alert reaches 50,000 key decision-makers a week. For advertising information and rates, contact Peter Bowes. Tel: (508)668-6908 or send an email.
Posted by jbowles at 07:20 PM
September 03, 2008
Top Stories
CONVERGYS CONSIDERS SPLITTING COMPANY...Convergys Corporation announced that its board of directors and senior management team are evaluating a potential separation of the company’s Information Management business from the remaining parts of Convergys to create two strong, independent, publicly traded companies, each focused on its own set of business opportunities. The board has retained Centerview Partners as its financial advisor to assist in this process. Convergys anticipates that the board of directors and the senior management team will review the results of this evaluation and make a decision during the fourth quarter 2008.
Convergys Corporation also announced that it has accepted all shares that were tendered into its offer to purchase all outstanding common stock of Intervoice, Inc.
TECH MAHINDRA ACQUIRES STAKE IN SERVISTA...Tech Mahindra (TechM), the largest independent India-based IT services provider in the telecom space has signed an agreement to acquire a minority equity stake in Servista, a leading European Systems Integrator. As a part of the agreement, Tech Mahindra will be Servista’s exclusive delivery arm for three years and will also assist Servista in securing more large scale European IT Offshoring business. As part of this strategic partnership, TechM will have the right to nominate a member onto Servista’s board of directors. This deal will drive Tech Mahindra’s expansion into the European market place and will significantly enhance TechM’s business development capability.
IBM INDIA WINS $450 MILLION CONTRACT...IBM India has won a 10-year $450m outsourcing services contract from India-based insurance provider Max New York Life, a joint venture between New York Life and Max India. IBM will provide end-to-end back-end IT infrastructure, which it said will enable MNYL to provide life insurance policies with minimum documentation and to extend its reach in the semi-urban and rural areas. IBM will provide end-to-end back-end IT infrastructure, which it said will enable MNYL to provide life insurance policies with minimum documentation and to extend its reach in the semi-urban and rural areas.
CSC RECEIVES AWARD FOR SWISS RE RELATIONSHIP...CSC announced that it received an FSO Knowledge Xchange (FSOkx) award for its longstanding alliance with Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurers. FSOkx, a knowledge and information hub for outsourcing in the financial services industry, honored CSC with a first-place award in the “Outsourcing Relationship Excellence” category in recognition of CSC’s business process outsourcing (BPO) support for Swiss Re’s Commercial Insurance.
Posted by jbowles at 07:24 PM
New Business
Belk, the nation's largest privately owned department store chain, has renewed its agreement with EDS. With the seven-year information technology (IT) services contract, EDS will continue to manage the voice and data network that connects employees at Belk's 307 retail stores, five warehouses and five offices across the southern United States, as well as to Belk vendors located worldwide. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
A leading provider of group life, health insurance and other insurance products has extended its business process outsourcing (BPO) services agreement with CSC to support a large block of individual life insurance policies recently converted from group policies. The insurer will replace its manual processes and a non-strategic system with CSC’s platforms and services, enabling the company to focus more on its core group products. This competitive win continues a 10-year relationship during which CSC has provided full BPO support, including a customer call center, policy administration and claims services for the client’s group life conversions.
Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. has won a fourth consecutive contract with the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance to manage and operate the state's child support payment processing center. The five-year contract is valued at $127 million and includes four six-month options. ACS is the nation's leading processor of child support payments and has served New York State for 16 years. Under the new contract, ACS will continue providing a full range of customer care services including a call center, and processing services including child support payment receipt, disbursement, billing statements, employer reminders, notice processing, and new hire processing.
Posted by jbowles at 07:24 PM
International News
KBC Group NV, an international financial group with headquarters in Brussels, has selected the Ness Financial Data Enterprise(TM) solution as its consolidated data management platform in a large multi-year agreement. Through a combination of Ness' proprietary software and services, Ness Technologies will provide KBC Group with an end-to-end data management solution.
DGM-Sistemas Lda, an Angola-based information technology company, has awarded a three-year contract, valued at approximately $22 million, to Unisys Portugal to help develop and roll out a new citizen ID card program for the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Angola (Civil and Criminal Identification and Archiving Department). Angola hopes to provide 20 million ID cards to its citizens by 2015 to reduce fraud and modernise the Ministry’s Criminal Registry.
Posted by jbowles at 07:23 PM
Alliances
CompuCom Systems, Inc., a leading IT outsourcing company, announced that it has developed new support and activation capabilities for Intel vPro technology as part of an overall workplace automation strategy. Used as part of CompuCom’s Integrated Infrastructure Management (IIM) solution, this new technology helps reduce IT support costs, enhances security and lowers power consumption.
Posted by jbowles at 07:23 PM
Advertising Information
Outsourcing Alert reaches 50,000 key decision-makers a week. For advertising information and rates, contact Peter Bowes. Tel: (508)668-6908 or send an email.
Posted by jbowles at 07:22 PM
