HART of Outsourcing

Innovation is often a bricolage

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:13:05 GMT

Necessity is the mother of invention. And when the City of London decided it had a litter problem, it turned to some rather inventive outsourcers to solve it. There are many definitions of innovation outsourcing. The NOA innovation Steering Committee,...

Cop shop outsourcing loophole must go

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:33:50 GMT

It seems quite simply absurd that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) does not have jurisdiction over outsourced workers that guard detainees in police stations. These people are working within police stations, working alongside policemen, doing police-like work. The notion...

Kickstarting the Economy

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:51:57 GMT

Unemployment stands at 2.57 million, and it would seem that the government has no clear plan on how to get people back to work. An austerity plan is one thing, but getting folk back to work is vital. Employment wise,...

Silicon Roundabout gets Googled

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:44:28 GMT

The sun’s out, I’m just back from an excellent relaxing holiday, and there’s some great news for the UK IT sector. Happy days! I was positively delighted to hear that Google have taken out a building at the so-called 'Silicon...

Let the private sector guide the schools ICT curriculum

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:27:30 GMT

Exam results are out again and, for the IT sector, make for disturbing reading. It’s not the actual results that are the real problem - it’s the worryingly low number of runners and riders. This summer, a paltry 4,002 people...

Schools and the Private Sector: A Marriage of Mutual Convenience

Martyn Hart — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:29:58 GMT

Under the Coalition government, more academies will be opened than in the first 8 years of the programme. More than 1200 schools have now applied to become academies - publicly funded independent schools, free from local authority and national government...

Why Santander & New Call Telecom came back to Blighty

Martyn Hart — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:55:39 GMT

As India teeters on the brink of double-digit inflation, Santander and New Call Telecom announce that they are bringing operations back to the UK. While this job creation is excellent news for the people of Burnley, Liverpool, Leicester and Glasgow,...

Lloyds TSB's route back to the black

Martyn Hart — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:04:24 GMT

As he unveiled his strategic review, Lloyds TSB chief executive António Horta-Osório said “This bank is losing money. We have to get this bank supporting the UK economy, we have to get this bank profitable and we have to repay...

The perils of client ambiguity

Martyn Hart — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:12:38 GMT

I was told that in his engaging, thought-provoking presentation at the EOA conference last week, Carlos Flores Ramirez, Vice-President & Country Manager at NIIT Technologies Limited, said that a large percentage of IT outsourcing contracts do not deliver the success...

Is offshoring the answer?

Martyn Hart — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:32:21 GMT

In the last week, we’ve seen outsourcing hitting the headlines again, as the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union refused to rule out strike action over Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) plans to offshore 200 jobs to India. The jobs in question are...

Can you cope with multi-sourcing?

Martyn Hart — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:30:36 GMT

I have already used these pages to spell out the advantages and disadvantages of multi-sourcing in light of changes to the way contracts were being sourced, following the decline in ‘mega-deals’ and the government’s £100 million contract cap. It seems...

Why suppliers should not be outsourcing scapegoats

Martyn Hart — Wed, 25 May 2011 18:03:27 GMT

Of all the rumour and, in some cases, intrigue surrounding outsourcing in the public sector, one of the most interesting has been the recent saga surrounding the provision of services for the NHS, which has come under fire from no...

Is the government biting its nose off to spite its face?

Martyn Hart — Thu, 12 May 2011 11:06:01 GMT

It’s been a tough week for those of us with a vested interest in the outsourcing industry - and not just because of the difficulty of returning to work after the recent spate of Bank Holidays. Instead, those who had...

Outsourcing: changing the face of business

Martyn Hart — Fri, 06 May 2011 08:58:25 GMT

I was extremely interested to see research published this week which suggested that Britain’s outsourcing industry is now almost as big as the financial services sector. The study, released by Oxford Economics on Tuesday, highlighted the fact that the outsourcing...

Cloud computing - is there a silver lining?

Martyn Hart — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 09:56:06 GMT

I’m often asked what the future of outsourcing is, and, as difficult as it can be to accurately predict what’s going to happen without using a crystal ball, it’s certainly worth considering the value that cloud computing is able to...

Outsourcing training takes a slice of the pie

Martyn Hart — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:58:49 GMT

There is no doubt that we have seen a huge increase in outsourcing deals in recent years, especially since the Government Spending Review was announced, as more businesses look to outsourcing to achieve success on a shoestring. But how much...

Government ICT policy: throwing the baby out with the bath water?

Martyn Hart — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:44:59 GMT

As I suggested in last week’s blog, it seems as though the wind of change is blowing hard through public sector procurement processes at the moment - and large suppliers of outsourcing are feeling the full force of the gale....

What's wrong with reducing cost and increasing efficiency?

Martyn Hart — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:37:19 GMT

In recent weeks, we’ve seen a number of initiatives from the government aimed at making it easier for organisations in the private sector looking to supply services to the public sector. Indeed, by pledging to support growth in enterprise, and...

Outsourcing suppliers: are they really all fat cats?

Martyn Hart — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 01:47:40 GMT

This week’s episode of Channel 4’s current affairs documentary series, Dispatches, raised a number of interesting points around whether outsourcing suppliers in the private sector are the true beneficiaries of the government’s spending cuts. But did it miss the point?...

Encouraging enterprise growth ahead of the budget

Martyn Hart — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 09:25:00 GMT

It’s that time of year again, as pens are sharpened, teeth are grated and everyone wonders if and how they will be affected by the budget announcement. Of course, we’ve already seen a significant amount of belt-tightening as a result...

Visa fraud puts the spotlight back on outsourcing

Martyn Hart — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:44:32 GMT

At a time when a sustained period of unemployment is proving problematic for organisations all over the world, the news of charges faced by Infosys Technologies over tax and visa fraud has posed new questions about the way the outsourcing...

Big Society: big trouble for public sector workers?

Martyn Hart — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:44:02 GMT

In recent weeks, we’ve seen the Prime Minister fiercely defending his Big Society project against criticisms that it is just a ‘cover’ for spending cuts. Mr Cameron’s claim is that the initiative is aimed at building what he calls a...

The Drive towards transparency

Martyn Hart — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:13:24 GMT

In recent times, we’ve seen remarkable progress made on public sector transparency in this country, a development which has been helped by the government’s decision last week to announce that it is launching a new website for procurement contractors looking...

Indian prison workers in outsourcing

Martyn Hart — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:42:04 GMT

I was recently asked to comment on a report in The Guardian which highlighted a scheme in India aimed at turning inmates at a high-security prison near Hyderabad, into ‘outsourcing providers’ for local firms - and eventually, it is hoped,...

The private sector to the rescue ...

Martyn Hart — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 10:04:47 GMT

If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that 2011 will see government departments moving outsourcing rapidly to the top of their list of priorities. Indeed, we’ve already seen a number of private organisations bidding for public sector...