India is far ahead in competition in terms of now cost effectiveness and quality of service. It is the top choice for outsourced jobs. A report prepared by advisory firm EquaTerra, the Outsourcing Service Provider Performance Study, researched senior company figures with regards to outsourcing. As per the report, most UK businesses that are keen on outsourcing its IT jobs have India as a top priority. They choose at least one provider from India. According to a survey conducted by 320 of the UK’s top IT spenders, India ranked the highest in terms of customer satisfaction.
Almost 57 percent of UK organizations outsource their work to other countries. The most preferred choice for them is India. Phil Morris, managing director of EquaTerra for Europe, foresaw a growth in the UK outsourcing of IT and business processes in the coming decade. He said that UK did not have too many trained workers to satisfy the demand. More people in the UK would be interested in a management training course rather than a standard customer service one. On the other hand India offers all the economic advantages that companies in UK are interested in. thus India is the preferred choice. Work outsourced to China represents a mere 5 percent of the pie. Cost is a major factor in the outsourcing decision. But flexibility, service quality and customer satisfaction also are decisive factors.
O2, owned by the Telefónica group, announced that all its customers in the Czech Republic, Ireland, Germany, Spain and the UK can enjoy price cuts in excess of 40 per cent if they want to use their phones for emailing or surfing the web in other European countries. UK customers can experience a price reduction of 57-80 per cent.
The benefits of these cuts can be enjoyed by all individual customers, irrespective of the fact whether they are on a prepay deal or a contract. The cuts will be applicable before July 2008. Previously, contract customers had to pay a tariff between £6 and £7.05 per megabyte of data depending on the country concerned. Prepay customers had to pay around £15 per megabyte. As per the new scheme, both groups will be paying just £3 per megabyte. If the customers choose a data bundle, they can expect an even better deal. The charges for text messaging while in roaming has also undergone a sea change for prepay customers. The rate has been slashed from 49p to 25p per message.
An official spokesperson for Vodafone said that customers did not prefer to be charged on the basis of megabyte. Thus it charges a flat rate of €12 per day irrespective of the fact how much data is used. An official spokesperson of T-Mobile said that it did not have any plans to follow O2’s gesture. Instead it provides 31,000 wi-fi hotspots worldwide.
The UK-based commercial energy provider Electricity 4 Business has secured financial support from Belgium’s KBC Bank. Morgan Stanley has agreed to handle its electricity trading activities. This is a wise move made by the company. The commodity cycle is now in favor of asset-light retailers. Thus all new entrants will require deep pockets in order to survive and flourish in the aggressive UK market.
Electricity 4 Business intends to serve around 100,000 end users with an average annual spending of GBP4,500. The Milton Keynes-based company has 400GWh on its trading account. This volume is expected to rise between 2TWh and 3TWh in the recent future. The main challenge for E4B is how to obtain customers and power volume sensibly in an unstable wholesale market scenario.
E4B is trying to emulate the strategy followed by Electricity Direct. The company has targeted a particular buyer segment. It insists on upfront direct debit invoice payments in order to curtail the cost and to ensure regular flow of cash. E4B is geared to combat the slide in the wholesale power market. The company must know exactly when to get out of the game if it wants to prosper.
The Manchester-based N Brown is the home shopping retailer that is popular for catering to fuller figured women. It is in news for defying the market slump and registering out of expectation sales figures and confirming that it would comfortably meet their yearly profit targets. It reported a 14 per cent jump in sales in the 20 weeks to January 12. The shares in N Brown reportedly rose 25.5p to 233.75p and is considered the best rise in the FTSE 250 in early dealings. The shares have been slumping at 40 per cent since May based on the forecasts of weaker consumer spending.
N Brown officials confirmed that the sales growth had occurred all across its product ranges including ladies clothing. This rise was achieved inspite of the postal strike last October. The company attributes this increase to rise in average spends as well as improvements in their product ranges. N Brown is expected to make £71.3 million of pre-tax profits in the 12 months to February 29. This is a 12 per cent rise from their performance last year.
It also reported that sales from new customers in the second half of the year were up by 30 per cent. The sales growth was consistently spread across all its four product groups – ladies wear up by 15%, footwear up by 11%, men wear up by 9% and home and leisure up by 14% compared to the previous year.
Bank of America is in an advanced stage of negotiations with California-based Countrywide Financial regarding a buy out. The deal can save America’s largest mortgage lender the embarrassment of going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The federal law restricts any bank from acquiring anything that can elevate its share of US deposits above 10 percent. If this deal is through, then the bank has the capacity of enhancing its reach staying within the limits of the law. There is no surety that the deal will be through but the verdict will be out soon. The market value of Countrywide had gone down to around $3bn before the news of talk being held came out. The moment the news was out, the shares shot up by almost fifty percent.
Countrywide has been struggling to rise above its bad patch. It has been criticized by the financial sector regarding certain lending practices of the company. They were also accused of creating the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Bank of America will definitely take into account all the liabilities of Countrywide before striking a deal. The bank has a history of buying out distressed assets, since it bought La Salle from ABN Amro last year.
In a deal worth about 1 billion, Emap, the multi-brand media major has agreed to sell of its B2B business unit completely to Eden Bidco, a joint entity of Guardian Media Group and private equity firm Apax.
The news infused life into Emap shares as they surged by 22 percent almost touching the break up price. The sell also ends all speculation about Emap’s B2B business unit, probably one of its most successful divisions.
It was earlier rumored that Emap would function as standalone specialist publishing and events group after the sale of its other media assets. According to a company release, shareholders will be paid 470 pence in cash for each Emap Share by Eden Bidco.
Taking into consideration other two week old sales agreements by Emap for its radio and consumer magazine units to Heinrich Bauer, the total valuation for Emap touches around 2 billion. This puts the payout figure to each shareholder at 931p per share.
But the price fetched by Emap is on the lower side as analysts had estimated the combined value of Emap at about 2.2 – 2.3 billion. As per reports, this could also be due to the turmoil in the UK media market because of downturn in consumer spending and hence advertising spends slowdown.
Sainsbury’s, which is Britain’s third-largest supermarket group, quoted that its sale has risen by at least 4.3 percent. This news was music to the ears of the retail sector and was effective in calming the concerns of investors. The retail major announced that it has reached its goal of 2.5 billion pounds of additional sales about three months ahead of what it had expected. This announcement lead to solid trading at Germany’s Metro, which boasted of a 10 percent rise in group sales. Thus the forecast that Europe’s supermarket groups will emerge winners during Christmas was proved right.
Sainsbury realized that food retail is till date one of the most defensive places in the retail sector. Thus it had taken the decision to speed up its non-food business selling toys, homeware, electricals, and clothing. This helped in having a positive impact on margins, Marco-Tobares said. King said the improvements made to Sainsbury’s business during its three-year recovery meant it was “well equipped to perform in this challenging environment”. He said he remained confident he could deliver its growth plans.
Shares of supermarket leader Tesco rose by 1.3 percent and WM Morrison Supermarkets had a 3 percent increase. Asda, which is part of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was also happy with their Christmas sales.