Telstra chief technology officer, Hugh Bradlow, has called on businesses to outsource their core ICT functions to specialised companies, including Cloud operators, in order to get with the 21st century.

“The way that we have done ICT in the 20th century is not the way we need to do it for the 21st century,” Bradlow told attendees at a lunch for the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia.

Businesses risked falling prey to forthcoming “disruptive” technologies without doing so, such as increases in telecommuting, changes in videoconferencing technology and context-sensitive computing.

Instead, he urged businesses to outsource those ICT functions considered core, either specialist organisations or Cloud operators where possible.

“We have to run security for organisations,” Bradlow said. “We have an operational security group who specialise in this type of thing of 300 to 400 people and it’s very hard for organisations to replicate that.

“But we can serve people that out of our Clouds with the same capability at a margin, which makes it much more cost-effective for the organisation you’re securing.”

Bradlow’s push comes as Telstra itself looks to outsource back-office and support staff through ‘Project New’, a $290 million business revitalisation project announced by chief executive, David Thodey, at the telco’s yearly financial results briefing last year.

The company’s continued efforts to cut fat and remove superfluous internal division has reduced a staff count once more than 50,000 internal employees to around 34,000.

Though outsourcing and Cloud migration strategies have resulted in companies like Jetstar whittling their resources to as little as five in-house staff, others – like maintenance services company the Programmed Group – maintain in-sourcing is required to lower costs and retain intellectual property.

Jetstar CIO, Stephen Tames, told Computerworld Australia that the budget airline’s IT outsourcing strategy, which has been in place since the company was first erected as a Qantas subsidiary, had on-flow effects to the wider group’s investigation of business service outsourcing.

Tames was also focused on developing the strategy as an “IT-as-a-service” approach, delivering the same capabilities to franchisees of the airline’s brand across Asia Pacific for a fee.

Telstra’s view on outsourcing also appears to have influenced its application platform strategies, with Bradlow likening the telco to shopping centre conglomerate Westfield.

“Westfield makes it money out of the enabling environment: The buildings, the airconditioning, the parking, the road; I’m able to draw some analogies between what we do with network capability, quality of service and those types of things and that enabling environment,” he said.

The mentality differed to that of European carriers, which had attempted to control the application store environment established by mobile phone manufacturers by establishing its own wholesale application catalogue, one which is yet to be considered successful against the likes of Apple or Google.

Bradlow thwarts emergency services’ call for spectrum

Bradlow also joined the throng of telco industry players opposing the possible use of 700MHz spectrum for emergency services use.

The Police Federation of Australia in December called for the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to set aside two 10MHz bands in the 126MHz of the spectrum, set to be auctioned as part of the digital dividend in 2013, for use by law enforcement and emergency services.

However, its call was thoroughly lambasted by the communications industry, with Communications Alliance chief executive, John Stanton, labelling the proposal a “policy fumble of gothic proportions” at the recent Commsday Summit in Sydney.

The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association also called for “urgent” talks on the issue.

Bradlow this week said the proposal by the police association made no sense.

“That, to my mind, would be an absolute disaster because spectrum is the scarce resource and to give to an organisation that has part-time use and can never afford a network with the capability, the size and capacity we can by sharing it across the entire population seems to be a big waste of resources,” he said.

“We are working on solutions that would allow the emergency service organisations to share our network and to get the information they need in emergency situations. That is the most viable way forward both for their customers – us – and for them, by pooling that investment we’ll get the best outcome.

Source:http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=6199742F-1A64-6A71-CE42B06D445EA20D

Teething problems have hit the newly outsourced Indian passport and visa service centres, expected to cater to around 300,000 applicants in a year, Gulf News has learnt.

Many residents who had to wait for hours complained about the poor quality of service, such as delays and ignorance of the staff. When contacted, the two Indian diplomatic missions said that the delays were mainly due to technical glitches and that the issue was being sorted out.

On March 16, the Indian diplomatic missions announced that the management of the Indian Passport and Visa Service Centres, which has been under Empost since 2009, would go to a new agency BLS International.

BLS started operations on April 6. They handle the collection and dispatch services of Indian passport and visa applications and are in charge of answering all queries related to their service through their number 04-3594000.

Standard

“The services rendered by BLS International for the renewal of passports and other services is not up to the standards,” Hariette D’Cunha, a resident who went to the BLS centre in Abu Dhabi two days ago for passport renewal, said.

Empost had been providing good services without any hassles, she said. “They seem to be inexperienced and unable to manage the services.”

D’Cunha said that she reached the centre at 6pm on Tuesday only to be turned away since there were already too many people waiting. The next day her family returned and had to wait from 2pm until 9.30pm, she said.

M.K. Lokesh, the Indian Ambassador, told Gulf News that the Embassy was working with BLS International to sort out the problems.

“About 90 per cent of the problems related to the services have already been sorted out,” he said. The ambassador said the visa issuance has been going smoothly. “There are some teething problems related to the passport services but we are making all efforts to sort them out soon,” Lokesh said.

“There were about a hundred people standing outside the centre since morning when I visited the centre. … the staff at the centre was clueless,” said Mahmoud, a resident who had gone to the Bur Dubai centre.

Data upload: Official explains glitch

An Indian embassy official said that the glitch was related to difficulties in uploading some data fields into the system. “It will also take some time for the staff to become well-versed in dealing with the rush,” the official said. Despite repeated attempts, BLS officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Compared to Empost, which was the previous service provider, BLS is offering the services at a 25 per cent reduced rate. In addition to the passport fee, the service charge for passports have been reduced to Dh9 from Dh12 and for the visa to Dh37.50 from Dh50.

Source:http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/community-reports/problems-at-outsourced-indian-passports-visa-centres-1.792769