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Posts Tagged ‘Government’

Gov’t should have fallback for Pinoys in BPO industry’

January 27th, 2012

Mitos Magsaysay has urged the government to be prepared in case the Business Processing and Outsourcing industry is affected by the United States measure restricting the outsourcing to Americans.

Magsaysay said that Aquino government should have fallback or alternative job opportunities for Filipinos who will most likely lose their jobs should American companies stop their operations in the Philippines.

US President Barrack Obama is more aggressive about bringing back outsourcing firms to the United States and jobs to Americans.

“The government must be proactive in its stance to ensure that the jobs of 800,000 call center agents in the Philippines remain secure and that outsourcing firms remain happy in their stay here in the Philippines,” Magsaysay said.

The lady solon lamented that the government has not been very effective in promoting a strong business environment, letting slip the high cost of electricity and transport which affects their businesses and make them rethink reinvesting in the Philippines.

Magsaysay said that the government should brace for the impact of Obama’s move as it will definitely impact the status of employment and affect the livelihood of millions of families who depend on the sector to earn their income.

She asked where are the promised Public Private Partnership programs of Aquino government as these could possibly provide jobs to Filipinos.

“Where are the PPPs that the President has promised in his SONA? Where are the investments that he was trumpeting following his trips overseas? So far, it has all been lip service and he cannot use transition as an excuse now because he has been in office for almost two years already. What has his administration managed to accomplish in terms of economic growth? And what has it done in the years since this administration assumed office? So far, nothing, except prosecute those who oppose his administration,” Magsaysay said.

She added that whether or not BPOs will leave because of the current state of employment in the United States, the government needs to institute a back up plan for the possible displacement of BPO workers.

“The President’s handling of negative news is atrocious. He seems to be wearing blinders and earmuffs when it comes to receiving unfavorable information. He goes on the defense and dismisses these and does nothing rather than taking action and becoming more proactive. When the threat becomes a reality, we are left ill equipped to deal with its consequences and it is the Filipino people who suffer,” she added.

Source:http://www.journal.com.ph/index.php/news/national/22602-govt-should-have-fallback-for-pinoys-in-bpo-industry

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UK government is rewriting the outsourcing rule book

November 9th, 2011

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Changes in the way the government buys IT services were reflected in the latest figures from TPI, which revealed that the number of outsourcing contracts signed by the UK public sector in the first half of this year was 70% higher than the same period last year, whereas the total value of these contracts was 47% less.

Similarly, the number of public sector outsourcing contracts awarded in continental Europe increased by 70%. However, in contrast to the UK, the total value of contracts also grew by 40% on last year.

Research from TPI revealed this was the result of the restructuring of existing agreements in the UK, whereas continental European public sector organisations were adopting large outsourcing projects for the first time.

Demanding better value for money

Steve Tuppen, UK president at IT benchmarking company Compass, which is part of the same group as TPI, said he expects more contract re-evaluation in the near future.

“With the recent change in government in the UK and accompanying public sector funding shifts, outsourcing activity has been re-evaluated,” he said. “Service providers now recognise the need for providing better value for money. Although these same providers have previously offered cost reduction and changes to their delivery models, it is only now pressure to reduce costs across the public sector has heightened that authorities are taking a step back to evaluate outsourcing activity and have the clarity to review the objectives, targets and outcomes.”

Tuppen predicted that the extensive restructuring of outsourcing contracts in the public sector will result in more innovative agreements and service integration. “Looking ahead, we expect to see an increase in the standardisation of public sector outsourcing contracts and increased use of multisourcing, both of which will result in a strengthening of service, as well as greater flexibility,” he said.

Government adopts new ways of outsourcing

He said there are already some examples, but he expects many more in the near future.

The recent contract awarded by the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) in its IT transformation plan is one example. The contract was split into five lots, with HP, IBM, Capgemini and Accenture sharing deals. This would not have been split into five in the past.

Tuppen said the standardisation of IT services and contracts will move control to the centre of government and improve governance.

Another example of a new way to outsource is demonstrated by the structure of a civil service pension administration. My Civil service Pension (MyCSP) was announced earlier this year as the first example of a government body spun out into a mutual and partnered with a private sector company. MyCSP will administer 1.5 million civil servant pensions. It will be owned by three groups: the 475 staff, the government and a private company that will run the service.

All final bids from the four short-listed companies are now in. Capita, Wipro, Xafinity and JLT are the final four bidders, after 14 bids were received initially. The private sector partner will use its expertise to run the service, and will become a shareholder and be paid for running the contract. Like any other outsourcing contract, the private sector partner will have to compete to win the contract after five years.

John Worthy, technology partner at law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse, said deal structures are changing, with a move away from public sector mega-deals. He said the public sector is also showing an appetite for mutualisation as well as shared services. “We have seen a number of public sector deals that are being promoted as having potential to become mutuals.”

He added that there will be much more multisourcing in government, with risks spread across a group of suppliers.

Mark Lewis, head of outsourcing at law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, said the introduction of a mutual to run government administration functions is a “potentially enormous development”. A number of these types of deals have been announced, and they are public/private partnerships.

Shared services, where a public sector organisation supported by an IT supplier offers a service to organisations with similar requirements, is also a growing trend. The NHS Shared Business Service, which provides NHS trusts with back office systems, is an established example, but it could go much further, said Lewis.

Commercial opportunities for government

New models for outsourcing are not new and have been muted before. The Labour government under Gordon Brown commissioned former civil servant Gerry Grimstone to find ways to raise money. The plan recommended the creation of massive public sector companies, out of administration departments, that would eventually be floated on the stock market. They would compete with big public sector service providers such as Capita in providing administrative services.

At the time, Grimstone told the Financial Times that there are lots of things in the public sector that are akin to business activity. “We are just embarking on what could turn out to be a radical piece of work on identifying business activities within government and corporatising them,” he said.

Lewis at Berwin Leighton Paisner, said there is great potential for public sector organisations to share back office services. “For example, HR is HR, and although you might want a small core team of your own, the processes are the same.”

Robert Morgan, director at sourcing broker Burnt-Oak Partners, said the government “could and should” be giving this serious consideration.

“If you put all the civil servants’ payroll administration in a shared service, for example, it would be the largest BPO [business process outsourcing] deal ever seen,” he said.

Morgan said this could be a good way for the public sector to reduce its workforce significantly without incurring huge costs and providing the workers with continued work in a private organisation with the same benefits.

The public/private partnerships model, which is on the agenda, works for the public sector because the supplier will take on the capital investments and the supplier will benefit from the business and a share holding, he said.

Source:http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/11/08/248397/UK-government-is-rewriting-the-outsourcing-rule-book.htm

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Government to create employment through outsourcing

August 10th, 2011

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Over 100,000 graduates would be employed annually in the next three years to help with the digitisation of government data in the Ministries, Agencies and Parastatals (MDAs), Cleopas Angaye, director general of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has said.

Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja at the opening ceremony of the first annual national conference on outsourcing, Mr Angaye said the federal government was aware that the outsourcing industry, enabled by the will and partnership of the public sector, would create over 500,000 jobs in the next few years.

“For example, the digitisation of government data in the MDAs is a monumental task which must be undertaken for the eventual and seamless implementation of the next phase of our e-government programme.

“Such a task alone would require the employment of over 100,000 graduates annually for the next three years. You may be wondering how this figure is obtained. It is simple. There are over 400 MDAs in the federal government. Each MDA would require the services of over 10 information technology staff for just the digitisation of all the files and documents in their registries,” Mr Angaye said.

He explained that if about 25 states follow the example of the federal government, Nigeria would have employed 100,000 graduates working for Nigeria information technology services companies by next year.

Mr Angaye also said a culture of service should be at the heart of the transformation agenda of government, adding that information technology is the single most important factor that could transform the country from a developing economy to the first world.

The NITDA DG added that universal access to information technology has translated into a vibrant services industry and a buoyant economy.

Speaking for the minister of science and technology, Ita Ewa, the NITDA boss said the development of any nation is proportionately linked to its investment in science and technology.

“At the knowledge realm, we are among the brightest in the world. All that is required is the coordination and redirection of the abundant skill and inventiveness of our youth. Outsourcing offers a clear opportunity to tap this skill for wealth creation and diversification of our economy,” he said.

Efficient services

Oladapo Afolabi, head of the Civil Service of the Federation, who declared the meeting open, said the federal government is committed to providing an enabling environment to drive efficient and effective services, encourage citizens’ participation in governance, reduce government operational cost, and promote professionalism and competitiveness in the conduct of government business.

The event, he stated, will “create an avenue through which information technology capabilities can be explored to assist the current administration in its efforts to entrench the culture of service delivery in MDAs of government and to encourage them to create an enduring platform with which to interface with the public more efficiently.”

Source:http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5738422-146/story.csp

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How to cut government’s IT waste

August 3rd, 2011

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Two documents emanating from Whitehall within days of each other last month – the Open Public Services white paper, and the Cabinet Office Guidance for Offshoring – point to an escalating level of outsourcing in government support services.

Last week, another document – the provocatively entitled Government IT – A Recipe for Rip Offs, was scathing in its opinions on how government lacks the requisite expertise to handle such deals, alleging that it is paying massively over-the-odds for IT services.

Sandwiched in between these documents was a report from the National Audit Office that told us, despite spending roughly £275m on training in 2009-10, the government had no accurate data on the timings, costs and benefits (if any) of its skills development programme. If government manages its IT outsourcing deals in the same equivocal fashion, it is no surprise that there has been a repugnantly thoughtless waste of exasperated taxpayers’ cash.

I do not agree that the problem lies with the government lacking its own expertise in IT; it does, however, lack expertise in outsourcing. Currently, too much power rests in the hands of the procurement teams, who are naturally inclined towards adversarial negotiations. Their focus is driving down costs, which is what they see as making the most of the available budget. When the contract is signed, they move on, with never a retrospective glance. More deals to be done, more opponents to joust with …

The consummate outsourcing deal is about relationship building. Buying power needs to be placed in the hands of those using the service on a day-to-day basis. Only the users can successfully manage changes, issues and disputes – including the cultural challenges of working with another organisation from a different sector. Users are perfectly placed to monitor, review and renegotiate service level agreements throughout the life of the deal. To get the most of an outsourcing deal, empower the people it affects the most.

Benchmarking is the other major IT challenge facing government departments. I am of the opinion that no government contract costing more than £ 1m a year should be signed off without a clearly defined, rigorous benchmarking programme.

In order to analyse value-for-money, major projects should use an independent organisation to benchmark the deal. Benchmarking needs to incorporate a detailed normalisation process, employing a wide range of parameters, to allow for like-for-like comparison against other outsourcing contracts. This is essentially an outsourcing exchange rate mechanism, enabling you to review spending against a peer group of highly-complex, seemingly disparate, outsourcing deals; helping you test your provider not merely against other government department projects, but the IT marketplace as a whole.

If your project is seen to be under-performing, then there are consequences for your provider: it would have to improve scope and quality of services, reduce costs, or maybe even provide a refund. Imagine the sensationalist headlines that would create.

The basis and methodology for normalisation should be open and transparent – there should be no secrets, no ‘black box.’ Currently, there is no internationally recognised formula for benchmarking and normalisation. A ‘normalisation’ of normalisation processes – a global code of IT benchmarking – could make deal comparisons clearer. This, in turn, could drive up standards and make the marketplace even more competitive.

All of this would be truly in keeping with the key teachings of the Open Services white paper: transparency of information and freedom to choose the best provider for the job.

Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/government-computing-network/2011/aug/02/government-it-waste-national-outsourcing-association

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CeBIT 2011: Government does need a Cloud Strategy

June 2nd, 2011

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The lack of a common definition of what constitutes a ‘Cloud’ service is one of the major reason government agencies require a federal Cloud strategy, according to the Australian Government chief information officer, Anne Steward.
Speaking at CeBIT 2011 in Sydney, Steward argued that given the high number of vendors offering so-called Cloud services to government aformalised Cloud strategy was very much needed.
“There have been some questions: why bother having a cloud strategy – what is really different?” she said. “There are two valid reasons: one is to have some clarity around just what is Cloud… with no disrespect to any particular party there has been a lot of ‘do I have a Cloud service for you’…
“[And the other is whether] it is just another form of procurement? Yes, but it is about having a consistency of approach in what we do, similar processes which are repeatable, and making sure as we procure and utilise these services that we are clear and the partners are clear in terms of what [Cloud] is. It is not just a new outsourcing service with a new glossy name. It is an important one.”
Steward said the Federal Government was already making use of the Cloud in areas such as supporting the data.gov.au environment. The Australian Tax Office, Treasury and the Australian Bureau of Statistics are also known to be using Cloud. “We take a tactical and strategic approach to the Cloud and that is our informed policy decision,” she said.
Steward’s Cloud caution follows similar comments from CeBIT participants. According to NICTA research leader, Anna Liu, said there were a number of risks not yet taken into account by Australian IT leaders.
“There are a number of risks I’m hearing about, things like vendor lock-in and security issues, that will take time,” she said at CeBIT 2011. “[CIOs] have to establish what the working relationship between the outsourcer, Cloud platform provider and your business is.”
Department of Finance and Regulation policy and planning division first assistant secretary, Glenn Archer, said the hacking of Sony’s PlayStation Network made him “wary” of marketing claims from Cloud vendors.
“Research firm Longhaus published research this week which clearly suggested Cloud vendors have some way to go to live up to the claims in their marketing material,” Archer said. “We need to not only think safe but feel safe. I don’t feel safe and that level of security isn’t there yet.”
Location-based data
Steward also flagged location-based data as a major area of government activity and as a means for adding more value to the vast volume of existing government data.
“It is all well and good to have a whole heap of information out and available but it is more meaningful to see ‘where’ the data is,” she said.
“Government does have a vast amount of information but perhaps as a result of stove-piped programs in the past it is often stored in many formats, or across agencies, or as a result of machinery of government changes it is often hard to locate or without a geographic reference or the appropriate metadata attached.
“Linking information to location means it can better used, analysed, and displayed in a geographic context which enables the user to see not only ‘where’, but ‘why’ and ‘how’ and ‘when’.”
While location-based data could greatly assist in achieving productivity gains and in service delivery, Steward said for this to occur all data had to be “reliable, open, re-usable and of a robust nature”.
To achieve this, the government was moving to better coordinate agencies in their capture, collection and management of information to cut down on duplication of data and effort, Steward said.

Source:http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/388749/cebit_2011_government_does_need_cloud_strategy/

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Two BPOs in dock for breaching SEZ norms

March 4th, 2011

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Police complaints have been filed against one British and one Indian BPO for causing a cumulative loss of Rs 2.8 crore to the Indian government
A cheating case involving a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company run by British nationals at Kharadi’s Special Economic Zone (SEZ) has thrown up similar cases of how those benefiting from government’s schemes for SEZ have duped the government itself as well as those they employed.

The Central Excise authorities in Pune have lodged a complaint against two BPOs in as many days while a British national has registered a case against an Indian firm claiming he was made to sign some cheques under duress.

Central Excise dept’s complaint

Superintendent with Central Excise department Yogesh Kumar K P Nayak (49) lodged a complaint with the Yerwada police on Wednesday saying that a director and two partners of Epitome BPO allegedly duped Government of India of Rs 1.50 crore in the last six months.

Following this, the police booked the director of the BPO Darren Leh, Rayon Wellmons and Joy Rajvinder Kaur Bens, all residents of United Kingdom. Leh and Wellmons are currently staying at Wadgaon Sheri.

According to the complaint, the three booked persons had got into an agreement of Rs 94 lakh with the government in which the company had promised to follow the rules laid down.

The government had relaxed certain fees for the BPO’s investment in the SEZ. The company was expected to export services which would have earned the Indian government foreign exchange.

The complaint says the company was in profit of Rs 4.21 lakh because government relaxed its fees. But the company allegedly did not pay salaries to its employees, rent and other fees. In this way, the company allegedly duped the central commerce department of the government.

Leh’s complaint

On Wednesday, Leh lodged a police complaint against one Pravin Mutha and five others claiming that he was duped. Epitome BPO had hired the services of Mutha’s company to source an office in Kharadi SEZ. But Mutha’s company owed a rent of Rs 30 lakh to the SEZ and Mutha allegedly hid this fact from Leh.

When Leh came to know of this, Mutha and his associates allegedly forced him to sign a cheque for Rs 30 lakh by keeping him in confinement at Kharadi and threatening him with dire consequences.

Complaint against another BPO

Nayak lodged another case with the police stating that one Dilip Parmar, a resident of Surat in Gujarat, started a BPO company at Kharadi SEZ after getting into an agreement with the Government of India.

Parmar started the BPO company Royal Tell Infosolutions and took benefits of the government schemes. He also earned profit, but did not pay salaries of its 120 employees, his rent was also pending. Including the unpaid salaries and rent, the amount goes up to Rs 1.31 crore in the last one year.

Source:http://www.punemirror.in/article/2/201103042011030406084843ce12820a/Two-BPOs-in-dock-for-breaching-SEZ-norms.html

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They look for better prospects through BPO jobs

January 1st, 2011

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Namaskar! Mera naam Arti Uniyal hai. Main aapki kya madad kar sakti hoon? Coming from the rural background of Rudra-prayag district in Uttarakhand, Uniyal has mastered the art of advising on the troubleshooting steps in chaste Hindi to the customers of the Videocon DTH service from her business process outsourcing (BPO) centre here where she has been working for the past year.

Uniyal is supposed to finish the call in just four minutes. Like scores of young boys and girls, who mostly come from humble rural background, Uniyal is appearing for her Bachelor of Arts’ final examination and wants to become an Indian Administrative Service officer. She earns a handsome pocket-money of Rs 4,200 per month to support herself as she lives in a rented accommodation just close to the centre at Sahastradhara Road.

At the Adi BPO here nearly 500-600 young girls and boys work round the clock to outsource to the customers of leading companies like Videocon, Tata and others. “Nearly 90 per cent of workforce come from rural backgrounds. The basic qualification to work in our centre is just 12th standard and one fluency in Hindi,” said Sanjay Mohan, the centre head of Adi BPO. Adi is not the only BPO centre which is outsourcing to the top-notch companies; Spanco, Sparsh and Astra are the others which had setup centres in Dehra Dun during the past two to three years. The hallmark of these centres is they are mainly outsourcing to the Hindi belt in the northern region of the country.

Radha Kumari (20) is currently pursuing Bachelors in Technology from a private institute here. She is doing the BPO job to gain experience in the IT industry which she claims would boost her job prospects in the future. “If I have to get a job in Bangalore or Mumbai, this job will help me a lot,” she says.

However, there is another breed of boys and girls who work in BPOs like Astra which outsources primarily to foreign firms. They get better perks because they have a command over the English language. “This is just to pass my time. I am looking forward to a job in the US,” said Ajay Sharma, a young worker. The BPO industry has mainly seen growth in Dehra Dun. Other areas have yet to see the BPOs mushrooming. Unlike the governments in states like Rajasthan, which have doled out incentives like capital investment subsidy for enticing BPOs in rural areas or Tier-III cities, the Uttarakhand government is yet to take such initiative.

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/they-look-for-better-prospects-through-bpo-jobs/420294/