Printable Edition Click Here  :  Subscribe   :   Page  13  : News   :  July 2006    Go to page:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16           Previous Page      Next Page

Hedra becomes accredited supplier to UK public sector     Hedra has been awarded framework agreements in 17 of the consulting and solutions service areas of Catalist, the highest award of framework agreements to date. That accreditation covers a wide range of business and technology consulting services, together with end-to-end solutions provision. As an accredited supplier Hedra will compete with 8-15 other suppliers in     each Catalist service area for annual orders expected to exceed £500m.    The Catalist brand has been designed to unify all of OGCbuying.solutions framework agreements under which suppliers will be able to provide goods and services across the whole UK public sector.    To service the solutions areas, Hedra     leads a major consortium which includes Hewlett Packard, Netstore, CACI, Detica, Valtech, Adobe, Agresso, Compelsysao, Elision, Epic, Hummingbird, Lagan, Open Text and SAP Consulting. Under Hedra’s leadership, this integrated consortium will offer a full range of end-to-end, multi-vendor specialist solutions across the public sector.        Mark Campbell, Hedra’s chief executive, commented: “We were already one of the providers of consulting services through S-Cat, with over £100m of services delivered by Hedra, and this success not only preserves that position but also brings new major solutions opportunities to help fuel our continued growth.”    OGCbuying.solutions     is the trading arm of the Office of Government Commerce and its aim is to achieve savings in the Government’s procurement budget and to oversee and implement the Government’s wider Efficiency Review across the entire public sector.

Wipro acquires Portuguese IT company     of the internal IT department of the country’s leading retail company Modelo Continente, a division of Sonae Group, in 1997.    Enabler provides retail consulting and integration services, mainly around Oracle products. It is a preferred integrator of Oracle Retail (Retek) solutions and provides     implementation and consulting services to 15 global retailers including Tesco, Espirit, Nisa-Today’s, Sonae, Despar, Ava and Debenhams.    It employs more than 300 staff and has customers in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, the Middle East, Spain and the UK. Its revenues reached €30m last year.        About 13% of Wipro’s revenues come from the retail sector. In the United States Wipro provides consulting and IT services to retailers such as Albertson’s, Best Buy, and Nike. With Enabler’s acquisition, Wipro will be able to extend the reach of its retail practice outside the US.    The acquisition is     expected to be completed within a month.    The retail software sector has recently seen a string of acquisitions. Both Oracle and SAP have bought several companies in the retail segment within the past year to get a grip on the lucrative industry.              Wipro has announced its fifth acquisition in six months, saying it would pay €41m ($52.2m) for Enabler, a preferred integrator of Oracle Retail solutions.    The company is to acquire the Portuguese firm, which was spun out

Accenture closes seven-year outsourcing agreement with Unilever     will provide a wide range of HR services from recruitment to payroll processing and performance management.    Financial terms for the seven-year agreement, which is to begin in July, were not disclosed. Media reports estimate the deal to be worth approximately $1bn.        The agreement will cover Unilever’s three geographic regions, namely Europe, Americas and Asia/AMET (Africa, Middle East and Turkey). It is designed to transform the company’s HR operations and functions and lead to more efficiency, lower costs and greater standardisation.     Accenture is also to provide Unilever with a range of learning services.    Unilever, which outsourced its European IT operations to Accenture in April, said it intends to minimise the impact of the contract on its employees by transferring staff to     Accenture, offering early retirement, exploring alternative roles, natural attrition and through voluntary programmes.    The outsourcing contracts are part of a broader effort by Unilever to cut its annual spending by some €700m ($901.2m).        Accenture and Unilever have successfully finalised the terms of a human resources outsourcing agreement, under which Accenture

Consulting Times | Page 13 Previous Page     Next Page