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Archive for May, 2010

Informationweek analytics new research shows nearly a third of business technology professionals hav

May 23rd, 2010

InformationWeek Analytics today announced the release of its latest IT outsourcing research report. InformationWeek Analytics provides IT decision-makers with real-world perspective based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, business and technology assessment and planning tools, and technology adoption best practices gleaned from experience. The report author, Mike Healey is the president of Yeoman Technology Group, an engineering and research firm focused on maximizing technology investments for organizations.

Research Summary:

Outsourcing is a key part of every modern IT group, but is still an area in need of improvement. Twenty-nine percent of the 530 business technology professionals in the InformationWeek Analytics 2010 Outsourcing Survey have fired a vendor within the last 12 months. The growth of cloud computing, outsourcing of high-end skills, and dissatisfaction with the results in some conventional outsourcing segments all point to the need for better outsourcing management. In this report, we identify outsourcing trends and management practices among organizations using outsourced services.

Findings:

– Nearly 6 of 10 IT shops outsource some critical function–management,
engineering or development. However, nearly one-fourth keep executive
and management functions in-house but look to outsource everything
else.

– With end user support and development of customer-facing applications,
more than half of survey respondents say outsourcing has delivered
lower quality. However, cloud computing and SaaS get more favorable
reviews, with the majority saying it has delivered better quality and
44% planning to expand use.

– Only 17% say they directly monitor the performance and uptime of all
of their cloud and SaaS applications. A quarter monitor only
mission-critical items and 59% rely on their vendors to monitor
themselves.

– Cloud computing extends vendor relationships further than ever for
some companies, and customers must stretch their management practices
to cover it. According to business technology professionals,
unforeseen costs, communication problems, and lack of industry
expertise are three leading concerns to evaluate before selecting a
partner.

“By far the largest block of poll respondents, 35%, came from companies with 10,000 or more employees,” says Lorna Garey, Content Director of InformationWeek Analytics. “These are the people on the front lines of outsourcing, and they presumably have good-size IT staffs. And yet well more than half don’t directly monitor the performance and uptime of their cloud applications. But relying solely on the vendor for SLA monitoring is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”

InformationWeek Analytics is a subscription-based service, offering peer-based technology research. Its site currently houses more than 900 reports and briefs, and includes a dedicated area where technology professionals can access complete issues of InformationWeek Magazine. More than one hundred new reports are slated for release in 2010. InformationWeek Analytics members have access to:

– The full InformationWeek Analytics library of reports
– Peer based research and analysis to guide buying and implementing
decisions
– Over 20 technology and IT business categories
– New reports launched every week
– Signature reports, such as the InformationWeek Salary Survey,
InformationWeek 500 and the State of Security report

Source:http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=399714&Itemid=32

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Viteb offers value for money when Outsourcing web designing work to India

May 23rd, 2010

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Viteb Solutions is complete web solutions providing company racing top gear in the offshore outsourcing market. The company is offering an elaborate web services including authentic web design and development, e-Commerce solutions, Search Engine Marketing and Optimization and much more.

The company has several satisfied clients under its belt from various countries such as Australia, U.S., U.K., Canada, and other European countries. The company has a distinguished wing to offer its offshore outsourcing partners with affordable and quality services. The web designing and developing assignments are done by Viteb professionals with utmost creativity and technicality but in a cost effective way.

Viteb Solutions is also well known in the offshore outsourcing market for providing value for money. Viteb understands your need and converts your idea into reality with its dexterous ability to perform efficiently. The professionals at the company conjugate with the clients and analyze their needs and concerns and starts working on the project right from the scratch. The company has treated client satisfaction to be its top most profit and it makes every effort to earn it.

The company is expanding in leaps and bounds and has been successful in achieving worldwide appreciation and acclaim for its ethical web design outsourcing services. Viteb can truly be called a one stop shop for IT services as it not only provides ace quality web design and development services but it also offers the top class online marketing. The company does not simply provide you with unique website on the internet but also enables you to create a brand in your business with their efficient internet marketing strategies.

The company is soaked in web designing and developing since many years and has acquired fair understanding of the international market. Hence, geographical boundaries do not really matter to them in delivering the clientele with work of international standard.

Source:http://www.sbwire.com/news/view/45123

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BPOs embrace ‘onshore’ outsourcing to boost business

May 23rd, 2010

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Having successfully serviced American and European clients from India for almost a decade, BPOs are now strengthening their ‘onshore’ presence in these countries to tap new opportunities.

Offshore outsourcing is the practice of hiring an external firm to perform some business functions in another country at lower costs. When the work is done in the same country, it is referred to as ‘onshore’ outsourcing.

BPOs have traditionally delivered solutions out of locations like India, the Philippines and Vietnam to offer clients low-cost, but high-quality services.

But now, business process outsourcing (BPO) firms are also strengthening their onshore presence to tap new opportunities in the healthcare and financial services space.

“The BPO industry earlier was almost everything offshore unlike the IT sector, which always maintained a strong onshore presence. For BPOs, offshore will continue to play a critical part because of the cost and quality advantage,” Patni senior vice-president and global head BPO Sanjiv Kapur said.

“But from a BPO perspective, it is changing from a 95-97 per cent offshore model to a 70-75 per cent offshore model, with 25 per cent of the work being done onshore,” he added.

A strong footprint in the home country will also help the BPOs, as certain types of jobs have to be carried out onshore, like underwriting or acturian valuation.

“As you get into more mature relationships, certain parts of the work have to be done onshore. Certain sectors like healthcare and insurance might also require a certain part of the work to be carried out in the same country,” Genpact chief operating officer N V Tyagarajan said.

Patni’s recent contract win from Universal American saw the BPO major acquiring CHCS Services (a subsidiary of Universal American), giving it access to a 200-person facility in Pensacola, Florida. Recently, it had also acquired another such facility in El Paso, Texas.

Genpact’s contract with Walgreens, earlier this year, saw Walgreens shifting its accounting processes and jobs to Genpact, while the BPO major acquired the Danville facility of the drugstore chain.

Customers are not just looking for cost savings, but also how the service provider can grow and change to suit the customer’s future needs and demands, industry experts say.

While margins might be lower compared to an offshore setup, the strategy pays off in the long-term in terms of more contracts.

“The success of this onshore strategy is evident in some of the customer wins that we are getting. Rather, during the slowdown, this has helped us get business and kept us in deals that otherwise would not have been possible to win,” a spokesperson of Firstsource said.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/BPOs-embrace-onshore-outsourcing-to-boost-business/articleshow/5965421.cms

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Tags: BPO offshore Onshore

Air crash highlights India’s infrastructure

May 23rd, 2010

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The crash of an Air India aircraft in the southern city of Mangalore at the weekend killing 158 people has underscored fears about the country’s fast growing airline industry and the infrastructure that supports it.

India’s worst air crash for a decade took place when a Boeing 737-800 plane, budget flight IX-812 from Dubai to Mangalore, overshot its landing and plunged down an embankment at the end of the runway.

It was still not clear on Sunday what led to the British pilot flying Air India’s budget airline service misjudging his landing so badly. India’s aviation ministry, however, moved quickly to defend the pilot’s record.

“The pilot had 10,200 hours of flying experience. Of these, he had 7,000 hours as a pilot in command and had over 2,000 hours on a Boeing plane. He was also familiar with Mangalore airport and had flown in and out several times,” said Praful Patel, India’s aviation minister.

The aircraft’s black box, which has been recovered, is expected to supply some answers about what caused the calamity in good weather conditions.

Mangalore, a fast-growing Indian coastal city associated with India’s IT outsourcing industry, is known for its difficult “table top” landing strip. The runway gives little margin for error. After a heavy landing the Air India flight broke in half and pitched down a ravine at the end of the runway.

India’s rush to growth has been reflected by its deregulated and expanding airline industry. With more people opting for domestic air travel over rail a number of budget airlines have sprung up, flying to destinations all over India.

Domestic traffic has tripled over the past five years, and intense competition both domestically and internationally has taken its toll on the finances of the national carrier Air India.

Air India has been forced to embark on a round of cost-cutting to try to improve its financial performance, after suffering a severe cash crunch last year.

The infrastructure surrounding the air industry is struggling to catch up. Hyderabad, Delhi and Bangalore have new airports but many across India are antiquated.

The rapid expansion has highlighted safety and security standards.

European aircraft builder Airbus has predicted India will be the fastest growing air travel market for the next 10 years.

Manmohan Singh, Indian prime minister, postponed an event at his residence to celebrate the first anniversary of his second term in office “as a mark of respect to those who perished in this tragic incident”. He authorised Rs200,000 in compensation for the dead and Rs50,000 for the injured.

Remarkably, there were eight survivors of Saturday’s crash. Indian television interviewed survivors, who said the tyres had burst when the plane made a hard landing before crashing into trees and exploding. Boeing said it was sending a team of engineers to the crash scene to provide technical assistance to the investigation at the invitation of the Indian authorities.

In India’s last major plane crash, 61 people were killed when a Boeing 737 aircraft belonging to the domestic airline, Alliance Air, crashed into a residential area near the airport in the eastern Indian city of Patna in July 2000.

India’s worst aviation accident occurred in 1996 when two passenger planes collided in mid-air near New Delhi with the loss of all 349 on board both flights

Source:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d5d617a4-665f-11df-aeb1-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss

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Tags: Air India IT Outsourcing

Impact executives announces the results of the global harvey nash CIO survey 2010

May 23rd, 2010

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The opening Harvey Nash CIO Survey Event took place at The Mayfair Hotel in London on 12th May. The event was the first in a series of launch events planned to celebrate the 2010 CIO global survey.

Over 160 CIOs, IT leaders and media gathered at the Mayfair hotel in London to discuss and debate the findings of the survey as well as enjoy Harvey Nash key note speakers share their views on the CIO industry.

Now in its twelfth year, The Harvey Nash CIO survey is one of the world’s most established and respected reports on IT Leadership – demonstrating the company’s dedication to contributing to the IT industry in which they serve.

The 2010 report titled ‘New Decade New Opportunities’, is more insightful and expansive than ever before with an incredible 2,655 respondents from every corner of the globe investing their time, experience and opinions into helping produce the 2010 CIO Survey.

The report gives an extensive and detailed view into CIO performance over the last year and forecasts what the future holds for them in relation to a recovering economy, changes in government, and the dynamic consumer demands of the new decade.

The report indicates that as the global economy recovers from recession CIOs are going through a transformation in response to the fragile economic environment.

According to most respondents, technology played an important role in the survival of many organisations during the last 12 months, resulting in a wide spectrum of priorities and challenges for CIOs across all organisations. During the toughest times of the recession many CIOs demonstrated their ‘recession busting’ ability and proved the value of IT services to drive down costs whilst keeping businesses flourishing.

Despite the fact that CIOs are becoming more strategic, with over half of this year’s respondents being rewarded with a place on the operational board, in order for real growth and advancement in a post recession world the new decade demands new skills and a new mindset of the IT leader. Communication and influencing skills, innovation, and a true business orientated nature which ensures real engagement with the business and drives strategies to the bottom line will become key skills which separate talented CIOs from the rest.

Respondents of the survey also demonstrated a heavy reliance on IT outsourcing during the recession to remain cost effective and responsive to their organisations needs. The report shows that whilst India remains the domain provider of IT outsourcing services its dominance is waning and there is a growing trend for European CIOs to allocate projects to Eastern European providers.

The demand for Interim Managers within the IT arena is increasing, the flexible nature of Interim Management and the legacy that senior Interims are able to effectively leave behind within a finite timescale is much sought after increasingly.

Further CIO report launch events are scheduled to take place in Birmingham, Leeds, Dublin, Edinburgh, Zurich and Amsterdam over the next four weeks.

Source:http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=399538&Itemid=32

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Cebu Holdings sees more IT investments

May 23rd, 2010

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CEBU Holdings Inc. (CHI) are optimistic more investments in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector will consider Metro Cebu. This, as its flagship project, Cebu Business Park (CBP), was recently given accreditation as a full-fledged information technology (IT) special economic zone.

Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) Director General Leila de Lima presented the certification to CHI president Francis Monera in simple ceremonies last week. De Lima said IT remains a vital pillar in the growth of foreign investments in the country.

“Many companies do not look at just Manila. They look at Cebu. The infrastructure is already here especially if you are an IT park,” de Lima said. “You cannot find an IT park in Metro Manila as big as the ones in Cebu.”

De Lima noted that fueled with continued growth in the IT industry, Peza projects a 15-percent growth in investments in special economic zones in 2010.

The government agency recently reported a 110.37-percent increase in investments in the first four months of the year for P37.65 billion.

President Arroyo signed on May 4 Presidential Proclamation 2053 making CBP a Peza-accredited IT park. The proclamation came after almost a year since CHI filed its application. The company is an affiliate of Ayala Land Inc.

The application to declare the 50-hectare CBP into an IT park grew as the company’s other IT hub, the Asiatown IT Park, is fast running out of available lots. The 25-hectare park just a kilometer away from CBP has already started work on its phase two to accommodate more property developers.

There are an estimated 15,000 employees of BPO and IT-related companies inside Asiatown.

With the park accreditation, IT-related investments inside CBP can get the allowed tax holidays and special tax rates on gross income and other benefits. Non-IT investments can still locate inside CBP but without the said tax incentives.

The CBP, already known as the financial and shopping center of Metro Cebu, plays host to several Peza-accredited IT buildings. Major IT and BPO players like Accenture, Lexmark and Wipro have established facilities in the area.

Monera said with the IT park certification, developers who own property inside CBP may grab the opportunity to construct, in order to lure in locators now that the growth in the IT and BPO industries are in full swing.

“What we had in Asiatown IT Park proved to be a good model. Its progress was much more faster than CBP,” Monera said. “With the CBP as an IT Park, we have enlarged our offering to our investors who could now choose where they want to locate.”

He said both facilities offer telecommunications infrastructure, security and integrated development that provide conducive working but also a lifestyle environment for locators and their workers.

While Asiatown IT Park lots have already been sold out, Monera said the company still has a dozen lots in its inventory at the CBP. He is bullish also that owners of properties will start constructing soon to accommodate the expected investments in the area

Source:http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25521:cebu-holdings-sees-more-it-investments&catid=24:companies&Itemid=59

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Minters Gets Into Outsourcing

May 23rd, 2010

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Australian firm Minter Ellison is to use its New Zealand offices as an outsourcing centre for UK legal work.

The firm will handle employment, sports, corporate due diligence and energy work for UK firms at an estimated 50 per cent saving on City rates.

Mark Weenink, managing partner at the firm’s New Zealand arm, Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, said UK firms are attracted by the firm’s high proportion of English-trained lawyers.

“Half our partnership’s worked in the magic circle, so they’re familiar with UK work,” he said.

Michael Bell, managing principal at outsourcing consultancy Fronterion, said the firm might experience issues around the “scaleability of resources”, adding: “The unique thing about LPO specialists is that they’re process-based. Private practice has the advantage that it understands how firms work and can recruit better talent.”

David Holme, director at legal process outsourcing (LPO) company Exigent, thought the decision by firms to offer LPO services could create internal tensions.

“It’s an interesting move, but it potentially creates a two-tier firm,” he said. “I don’t think lawyers in New Zealand would be too happy about doing outsourcing work for Australia or the UK.

Weenink said the decision to offer the new product line was a reflection of a changing market for legal services.

“A single economic market with Australia is on the horizon,” he stated. “That means that a lot of work will move across the Tasman Sea [to Australia].

“Offering outsourcing is a sensible way of utilising resources. We see a competitive advantage in doing lower-cost work; I don’t see it diluting our brand.”

Source:http://lawfuel.co.nz/news/article.asp?NewsID=1204

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