Government-owned Outback Stores has signed a whole-of-business IT support deal with Territory Technology Solutions to aid its mission to offer affordable, nutritious food to remote indigenous communities.

The not-for-profit organisation, which reports to the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, was set up in the lead-up to the Australian Government’s Northern Territory Emergency Response Bill (the ‘intervention’).

The intervention was a controversial policy that, among other things, gave the Government greater power to ensure welfare payments were spent on basic needs (food and housing) in remote indigenous communities.

Outback Stores operates a chain of small retail supermarkets in 25 of the most remote communities in Australia, on behalf of their indigenous owners. It is tasked with ensuring food security in these areas.

Each store contains one or more point-of-sale (POS) terminals, from where sales data is aggregated in a back office system on-site and transferred over satellite or mobile (Telstra Next G) networks to Outback Stores’ Darwin head office in an overnight batch process.

This network has been secured using WatchGuard appliances on-site connected to a core router in Darwin.

Territory Technology Solutions previously provided telephony, printers and security technologies to Outback Stores, but under a revised tender signed this month it will replace Sydney-based IT provider Source IT to provide an end-to-end service which also includes servers, desktops, network management and support.

The outsourcing allows Outback Stores’ two internal IT staff to focus on higher-level support for POS applications and hardware.

Outback Stores chief executive officer Steve Moore said many of these communities were so remote, it would be uneconomical to fly out technical supplies or support resources. Instead, store merchants tended to freight any faulty equipment back to Darwin.

The reliability of the IT infrastructure was thus “absolutely vital” to the operation, he said.

“Technology gives the Darwin office access to the store systems to monitor sales, communicate with managers and help us with price controls,” he said.

Moore said Outback Stores needed to maintain “price integrity” across the 25 stores despite any fluctuations in wholesale prices for fresh fruit and vegetables week by week.

Changes were downloaded to the stores daily to “ensure we aren’t charging too much or too little in a given store,” he said.

Moore said that about a third of Outback Stores branches were commercially unviable, another third barely viable and a final third readily able to turn a profit.

The company measures its success on how little money is required to subsidise the unviable stores, and conversely how low it can drive margins on healthy food in the profitable stores.

“We are not so concerned about lower margins on coke and cigarettes, but lower margins on things like fruit and veg means better access to affordable, healthy food,” he said.

Source:http://www.crn.com.au/News/278195,outback-stores-outsources-the-it-shop.aspx

BSE-listed IT outsourcing services provider LGS Global Ltd, which is in a reverse merger with digital marketing solutions company Ybrant Digital, is looking to raise up to Rs 1,500 crore through a variety of instruments including Singapore Depository Receipts (SDRs), Global Depository Receipts (GDRs), foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) or other equity-linked instruments. LGS is also looking to increase its borrowing capacity to Rs 1,500 crore and be able to mortgage assets for a similar amount, according to a filing.

In a surprise move in August this year, the two companies entered into an all-stock deal valued at nearly Rs 2,500 crore, with a swap ratio of six shares of LGS for every share of Ybrant. The company is also shifting base from Hyderabad to Chennai as it feels that the new location ensures a more stable and business-friendly environment and also offers better manpower and developed infrastructure, among others.

The funds are being raised for expansion, potential acquisition, long-term working capital and capital expenditure requirements of the company and its subsidiaries. Hyderabad-based Ybrant, which has raised over $100 million in equity and debt from investors like Oak Investment Partners and GE Asia Pacific Capital, has been a fairly aggressive player in its inorganic bets.

In the past five years, Ybrant has acquired and integrated seven businesses across the globe, the latest being Israel-based Web 3.0, in which Ybrant acquired a minority stake in June in an all-cash deal. Late last year, it had acquired Internet and search portal Lycos, a US-based subsidiary of Daum Communications of Korea, for $36 million in a stock deal.

The share price of LGS Global closed at Rs 79.35 per unit on Wednesday, up 0.57 per cent. Incidentally, the share price of the company has shot up nearly 60 per cent in the past three months since the deal was announced.

Source:http://www.vccircle.com/500/news/it-outsourcing-services-firm-lgs-global-looks-to-raise-rs-1500cr

Organizations looking to trim their bottom line have accomplished that goal by outsourcing some or all of their IT needs, new research reveals.

In a study by CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the IT industry, nearly half of the surveyed businesses and organizations that rely on outside providers for at least some of their IT services said they have been able to trim their expenses by at least 25 percent. Thirteen percent said they’ve slashed annual IT expenditures by at least 50 percent.

The remaining half also reported at least some savings in their annual IT costs.

“This is compelling evidence that managed services, even when implemented on a small scale, can deliver significant cost savings, freeing up cash for other business needs,” Carolyn April, director of industry analysis for CompTIA, said in a statement. “More importantly, these savings are accomplished without impacting the availability and reliability of the technology solutions the company relies on to conduct business.”

While cost savings are the top factor in deciding to turn to outside IT providers, more than half of those surveyed said they’re doing it in large part to free up internal IT staff for work on projects that are revenue-generating for the business.

Overall, the study reveals that 89 percent of those outsourcing some of their IT needs are satisfied with their experience. Performance and up-time, agreeable contract terms, a secure environment and the flexibility to easily and quickly add new services all contribute to their satisfaction, the survey shows.

The majority of those surveyed plan to go even further with outsourcing; more than 60 percent said they plan to increase their spending on outside IT services over the next two years. Network administration, website hosting, maintenance and help desk, IT support and security— like firewalls and anti-virus issues — are among the IT needs that companies intend to move to outside providers.

CompTIA’s Trends in Managed Services study is based on surveys of 400 IT and business professionals involved in IT decision-making and 364 IT channel firms in the U.S.

Source:http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/outsourcing-it-1931/