As many as 500 million micro-entrepreneurs are currently struggling to finance and develop their projects ^[1]. Capgemini, Sogeti and MicroWorld have collaborated to design a digital platform that, for the first time, links up micro-entrepreneurs with micro-lenders within companies. Within just a few weeks of its launch with several pilot Group entities, the Capgemini-Sogeti microcredit platform has mobilised hundreds of team members to finance over 250 projects in Peru, Senegal, Lebanon, Tadjikistan and Cambodia. Now rolled out to all over 115,000 Group employees, the site will provide the Group with the opportunity to support micro-entrepreneurs and to make a real contribution to the fight against global poverty by fostering micro-entrepreneurship.

The micro-credit platform enables sums of money from as little as 20 euros upwards in interest-free loans to be lent to micro-entrepreneurs around the world. Each lender is able to measure the real impact their loan is making at any time during the term of the loan. Once the loan has been repaid, the lenders may either withdraw their money or reinvest it in other projects. Capgemini employees are also able to create communities of lenders by inviting their colleagues, friends and family – or even clients – to join them in financing micro projects.

http://capgemini.microworld.org
http://sogeti.microworld.org

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

About Sogeti
Sogeti is a leading provider of professional technology services, specialising in Application Management, Infrastructure Management, High Tech Engineering and Testing. Working closely with its clients, Sogeti enables them to leverage technological innovation and achieve maximum results. Sogeti brings together more than 20,000 professionals in 15 countries and is present in over 100 locations in Europe, the US and India. Sogeti is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cap Gemini S.A., listed on the Paris Stock Exchange.
For more information please visit www.sogeti.com.

About PlaNet Finance
PlaNet Finance is a leading international solidarity organisation with the mission to alleviate poverty through the development of microfinance, therefore increasing the unbanked and under-banked’s access to financial services. PlaNet Finance offers a full set of services to 200 microfinance institutions. The organisation is supported by renowned public donors such as the World Bank, the European Commission or AFD, and also by many foundations (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Orange Foundation, Citigroup Foundation, etc.). Based in Paris, PlaNet Finance’s international network conducts activities in close to 80 countries around the world.

About MicroWorld
MicroWorld is an internet platform that allows individuals and businesses to finance the projects of micro-entrepreneurs around the world by making online loans. Born in 2010, the website offers a marketplace of online financing, news and insights on the microfinance field, and a place where lenders can organise their lending activity within an online community.
MicroWorld is run as a social business - combining a strong social mission with business methodology - whose aim is to
promote the growth of microcredit in developing countries. The social business model is designed to maximise social
impact through efficient, sustainable, and scalable business practices. Financed by private funds, MicroWorld gives its
profits directly the microfinance NGO, PlaNet Finance

Press contacts:
Capgemini
Christel Lerouge
01 47 54 50 76
christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

MicroWorld
Anne Sophie Mondaud
06 19 90 01 26
asmondaud@microworld.org

Sogeti
Therese Sinter
+46 703 61 46 21
therese.sinter@sogeti.com

What is the Format?

You will start by learning the basics of programming and databases on distributed environments using the Java programming language. Then you will extend your understanding and skills of the system development life cycle covering areas such as planning, requirements, analysis, design, testing, deployment and support. After this, you will be trained in one or more specialist 3^rd party products. This will be complemented with appropriate financial business knowledge and professional skills training.

To find out more download the document and visit our Software Developer Advanced Apprentice page.

The new system will be implemented by Capgemini UK, the council’s prime systems integration partner, working with ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd whose Workforce Management Platform provides the basis of the solution. Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, and ClickSoftware is the leading provider of automated workforce management and optimisation solutions for the service industry.

Councillor Anthony Negus, Cabinet Member for Housing, Property Services and Regeneration, said: ‘The transformation has been designed around tenants’ feedback. Their greatest concern is about repairs and maintenance and the reliability of the work. A good deal of work has gone into creating a new workforce maintenance system that will not only help improve customer service, but also promote greater collaboration and efficiency across the housing department.

‘We will be able to better respond to tenant needs, for example by offering greater choice and certainty about appointment times, and by making sure that the majority of jobs are successfully completed on a first home visit.’

The new workforce management solution will enable the council to provide a more responsive service to tenants in areas such as repairs and maintenance, while improving staff productivity by aiming to ensure that its 300 field workers have the right skills and tools to complete each job first time, and with optimum routing from job to job. ClickSoftware’s enterprise mobility solution is a crucial component of the project. Deployed on mobile devices it will allow the seamless channeling of relevant information, at the right time, between enterprise systems, field and dispatch staff. The project is a key part of the council’s Landlord Transformation Programme which aims to increase tenant satisfaction levels from 74 to 90 per cent by 2014.

Crucial information relating to appointment times, customer details and property assets can be delivered direct to each worker’s mobile device, whenever it is needed. The field operatives will also be able to capture relevant information and update work progress, passing the data seamlessly to the council’s enterprise systems for future reference.

‘We are delighted to be working with Bristol City Council,’ said Hannan Carmeli, President and COO of ClickSoftware. ‘Public sector organisations across the world are under pressure to reduce costs without sacrificing service levels. Business mobility and workforce management technology strike at the heart of this challenge and we are therefore confident that such projects will be of interest to municipalities around the world.’

The new solution will also improve the response to emergency situations and provide management with visibility of performance against objectives.

‘Implementing this exciting new solution for the housing department is one of our first major projects in our long-term contract with Bristol City Council, and we will be harnessing our extensive experience of UK local government to ensure that it is completed successfully, on time and within budget’, said Chris Riches, Account Director for Local Government at Capgemini UK.
Councillors will be monitoring the success of the project with a view to rolling out ClickSoftware across all relevant council departments as a single Workforce Management Platform.

About Capgemini
With over 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

About ClickSoftware
ClickSoftware is the leading provider of automated workforce management and optimisation solutions for every size of service business. Our portfolio of solutions, available on demand and on premises, create business value through higher levels of productivity, customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. Our patented concept of ‘continuous planning and scheduling’ incorporates customer demand forecasting, long and short term capacity planning, shift planning, real-time scheduling, mobility and location-based services, as well as on-going communication with the consumer on the expected arrival time of the service resource.
As the pioneers of the ‘W6’ concept more than 30 years ago, we have perfected solutions for solving a wide variety of problems on Who does What, for Whom, with What, Where and When. The combination of proven technology with educational services helps businesses find the right balance between reducing costs, increasing customer satisfaction, employee preferences and industry regulations/legislation. ClickSoftware’s solutions manage over 200,000 resources in service businesses across a variety of industries and geographies. Our flexible deployment approach, breadth and depth of solutions and strong partnerships with leading CRM/ERP  vendors and system integrators makes us the number one choice to deliver superb business performance to any organisation. The company is headquartered in the United States and Israel, with offices across Europe, and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.clicksoftware.com. Follow us on Twitter.

Safe Harbour Statement
This press release contains express or implied forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other U.S. Federal Securities Laws. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those statements regarding the expected benefits to ClickSoftware’s customers from using ClickRoster. Such “forward-looking statements” involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those projected, including those discussed in the “Risk Factors” section and elsewhere in ClickSoftware’s annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2008 and in subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as otherwise required by law, ClickSoftware is under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any such obligation to) update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Press contacts:
For Capgemini:
Tom Barton
Capgemini UK plc
Tel.:+44 (0)870 238 2491
Email: tom.barton@capgemini.co.uk

For ClickSoftware:
Chris Quinn
Marketing in a Box
Email: Chris.quinn@marketing-inabox.com
0796 101 7007

Capgemini’s Sponsored Degree Programme is designed to help us attract the brightest and the best. We offer a five year programme that combines study for a BSc in Computing and IT Practice, on-the-job training on live client software development projects and the opportunity to gain a Level 4 Diploma in Professional (IT) Practice.

Not only will you have gained many industry recognised qualifications and some invaluable work experience, but you will be student debt free.

The study, entitled “Managing the Change to e-Mobility,” shows that while demand for electric vehicles is growing across all modes of transportation and provides exciting growth opportunities for automotive companies, it also creates a need for existing business models to be overhauled. Capgemini highlights the need for a ‘new network’ to be deployed to bring together established and new stakeholder players (such as e-mobility and IT providers, and battery charging/changing services) to shape the industry with innovative products and services. Historically, past technological changes, such as the move from typewriters to personal computers, from mobile to smart phones, have shown that some formerly successful companies were not prepared for change, and their disappearance highlights patterns of failure that the automotive industry must avoid.

To read the full article on ConsultantNews, please click here: Capgemini: Transition in automotive sector is extremely complex

Related News:

• Press Release: Capgemini global study calls on automotive sector to take measures to ensure stable future for established players 
   

The study, entitled “Managing the Change to e-Mobility,” shows that while demand for electric vehicles is growing across all modes of transportation and provides exciting growth opportunities for automotive companies, it also creates a need for existing business models to be overhauled.  Capgemini highlights the need for a ‘new network’ to be deployed to bring together established and new stakeholder players (such as e-mobility and IT providers, and battery charging/changing services) to shape the industry with innovative products and services. Historically, past technological changes, such as the move from typewriters to personal computers, from mobile to smart phones, have shown that some formerly successful companies were not prepared for change, and their disappearance highlights patterns of failure that the automotive industry must avoid.

Based on its 40 years of experience providing solutions for automotive companies, Capgemini recommends the following core areas of focus when it comes to managing e-mobility change:

• Encourage an ongoing innovation process and move away from established structures. 79 per cent of respondents agreed that innovation, business flexibility and strong partnerships outside of the existing automotive ecosystem are essential in order to succeed. For example the traditional car manufacturer Daimler was founded in the eighteen hundreds, but in 2011 it launched a successful electric car sharing service called ‘Car2Go’ in Texas, USA.
• Clearly define the company’s present and future positioning in relation to the competition. Survey respondents were split on whether they expect to see the emergence of an entirely new competitive structure (cited by 47 per cent) or a continuation of traditional competition among known organisations (53 per cent).
• Embrace new partners. Seventy per cent of executives expect new partnerships from different industries to be important for e-mobility. For example, weak OEMs who establish strong partnerships can flourish alongside new OEMs from emerging markets.
• Identify the real benefit of the new technology for the customer and develop products and business models that support it. More than half of respondents said customer requirements are drivers for the technology change and 52 per cent believe e-mobility is a customer need. Organisations must be prepared to quickly adapt to customer demands as they shift.

The global survey was conducted in late 2011 with 66 automotive industry experts completing a two-part online questionnaire about e-mobility to gain insights into the current situation faced by the automotive industry, and the future prospects for the use of electric vehicles.

“Data from the study supports the widely held view that e-mobility will be the most important technological development in the automotive industry in recent years. It will demand fundamental changes to existing business models, and expertise from other sectors outside of the traditional automotive space,” said Kai-Olaf Dammenhain, Study Director from Capgemini. “To fulfill consumers’ new mobility needs, automotive companies must come to terms with the idea of integrating the car and services as part of a bigger system instead of focusing just on vehicle manufacturing. Only companies that consciously adapt will maintain their dominant market position and continue to play a major role in the growth of the industry as a whole.”

For more information, please read the executive summary: http://www.capgemini.com/insights-and-re sources/by-publication/managing-the-chan ge-to-emobility--capgemini-automotive-st udy-2012/

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About Capgemini’s Automotive Practice
Capgemini’s Automotive practice serves 14 of the world’s 15 largest vehicle manufacturers and 13 of the 17 largest automotive suppliers. More than 3,000 automotive specialists generate value for companies through global delivery capabilities and industry-specific service offerings such as Integrated Lead Management, B2C Web Strategy, Service and Parts Management, Supplier Transformation, Optimisation of Dealer-Focused Operations, Electric Vehicles and e-Mobility Services, Application Outsourcing for Automotive OEMs and Global Emerging-Market Sourcing.

For more information: www.capgemini.com/automotive

Press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Ellie Turner
Weber Shandwick for Capgemini
Tel.: +44 (0) 207 067 0534
E-mail: CapgeminiEMEApr@WeberShandwick.com

The latest quarterly figures from e-skills UK (the Sector Skills Council for our industry) show the number of advertised vacancies for IT staff rising for the sixth quarter in a row to reach 105,000.

At the same time the count of IT people in or out of work seeking a new job declined to a new low of 95,000.

That shortage of 10,000 people is against a backdrop of employment of IT staff across all sectors reaching a new record total of 1,093,000.

These numbers are supported in my own experience by much anecdotal or informal feedback from CIOs across sectors.

Even in today’s business climate, there is often a need to recruit IT people with specific high-demand skills (SAP, Oracle, Google analytics, SharePoint and several others), and this remains a challenge.

However for the CIO facing delays and bottlenecks caused by skills shortages, recruitment is not the only option: there is also the training or reskilling of existing personnel in the newer technologies required.

But sadly, according to the latest available statistics, when it comes to staff training, the UK IT sector is failing to sparkle.

Figures published by e-skills UK show that only 23 per cent of UK IT staff had received job-related education or training in the previous quarter, significantly lower than the 27 per cent reported for the UK workforce as a whole.

What makes these numbers especially disappointing is that today, learning new skills is easier and more cost-effective to organise and achieve than ever before.

That’s because of one important but often-overlooked factor, the phenomenal development in recent years of online learning.

Development not simply in the number and variety of courses available, but in techniques and effectiveness.

No longer does online learning mean simply a few slides piped down the wire, as perhaps was the case five years ago.

Interaction is now a key feature, so that students can delve for more detail on specific areas of content, get instant help if stuck, question their instructor and discuss ideas and solutions with their fellow students, who might be anywhere in the UK or even around the world.

Such interaction can be more effective than face-to-face learning, given that a lot of bright IT people are happier to express views and questions online than to pipe up in a classroom.

Experience in my company shows that today’s Facebook generation responds well to online learning opportunities.

Indeed we have seen huge expansion of take-up (of the order of 30 per cent plus per annum) in recent years, either by managers nominating their staff for courses or people applying on their own initiative and with their manager’s support.

All of which goes to prove the sheer effectiveness of online learning.

Once you also factor in the sheer cost effectiveness of this approach, plus the fact that online learning can take place anywhere, any time using mobile devices, while travelling.

You can see why it is becoming more popular. In our case we have invested significantly in providing not just technology courses but also online training in those managerial topics that any ambitious IT professional needs to know, such as team leadership, time management, budget control, effective communications and many others.

Virtual learning is being rapidly incorporated into our training programmes, business and technical, including those from our internal university.

Traditional classroom-based training continues to thrive within our university near Paris, but our university e-learning team in India has delivered over 100 e-learning and mobile learning modules specific to our company, interactive and designed with our collaborative style in mind.

These modules are now rated just as highly by our learners as classroom training and represent 33 per cent of the global curriculum mix. 

As a result, on any given e-learning course we often find students in the UK, India and the US, for example, working together online, interactively and in real time despite time-zone differences.

You may feel that getting to grips with the expanding world of online learning is not a priority.

But, there is an easy way in, by working with a professional online education partner.

It is a route we use to supplement our internally generated e-learning curriculum, working with a company specialising in online training, assisting us in providing both industry-standard modules and courses tailored to our specific needs.
There are a number of case studies showing just how effective online learning has become for many employees including IT professionals.

The US Air Force, for example, reckons it has achieved outstanding results, while saving $39m (£24.7m) over the past five years, by moving to e-learning, with a major focus on network maintenance and security, and with 96,000 registered users in 350 locations worldwide.

Here in the UK we have seen a very significant shift among some of our leading business schools and the Open University, towards online learning.

That, plus experience within my own company and my knowledge of what our contemporaries and clients are doing, convinces me that online learning has a key part to play.

Related Links:

• Business in the Community: Transforming communities through business-led initiatives
• Announcement: New Higher Apprenticeship and Sponsored Degree Scheme for Birmingham
• In the CIO magazine: Happy New Year for the CIO on a tight budget

The “bring your own device” phenomenon is forcing a change in thinking for enterprises, Mulholland said, as two environments are developing — inside IT and outside IT. Typically back-end activities operate inside the firewall, while front-end people and activities operate outside the firewall, yet people nowadays want to be able to use smartphones and tablets for both personal and work tasks.

This has led to a situation in which workers are increasingly going outside IT to buy services. Mulholland quoted a Gartner prediction that up to 35 percent of IT expenditures will be outside the IT department by 2015. Other industry analysts like IDC have placed the figure higher.

Because of this, IT faces a huge “re-integration project” to bring together the inside and outside services in a rational way, Mulholland said, adding that the transformed enterprise needs to focus on the productivity of people and innovative business models.

The key to doing this “re-integration project,” according to Mulholland, is governance, and the industry really lacks a good cloud governance model, meaning that many businesses are already in trouble. However, enterprises shouldn’t let that get in the way of progress. Mulholland advised, “If business wants something radically different from you, don’t try to stop it. Try to understand it and take control of it.”

To read the full article on ZDNet, please click here: The transformed enterprise

Related Links:

• Thought Leadership: The Government Cloud
• The CTO Blog: Ten Game-Changing Technology Shifts for 2012
  
  

Christophe Lacroix, SAP Alliance Lead for Capgemini, said: “We believe our leaders positioning by Gartner is a result of our dedicated endeavors to exceed client expectations. It fully recognises our capabilities to drive technical expertise and innovative software lifecycle services in support of SAP® solutions successfully into the European market, with high client satisfaction.”

Capgemini has nearly 11,500 practitioners focused on SAP solutions globally and provides application lifecycle services in support of SAP solutions, including on-premise, on-device and on-demand projects to thousands of clients worldwide. It has developed best practices, global tools, templates and accelerators supported by solution centers, such as its Crescent center for the Consumer Products, Wholesale and Retail market. Capgemini serves its clients end-to-end along the entire application lifecycle comprising design, build, run and innovate by providing licensing, implementation, hosting, system maintenance and management under one contract.

About the Magic Quadrant
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organisation and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.
All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

Press contact:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

 [^{1] & [2]} Gartner Inc.: “Magic Quadrant for SAP Application Service Providers, Europe,” Gilbert van der Heiden / Khalda de Souza / Christopher Ambrose, 14 December 2011

I got into accountancy by default. I started a banking course at Loughborough University, but I found the lectures dry, especially for someone with no banking experience. Accountancy was the only course I could switch to without wasting my first year.

For my third year I did a placement at Coopers and Lybrand (now PwC). I loved the company, but detested being an auditor. Back then there was no technology, and I was in the bowels of a building with a pencil and an A3 sheet ticking off invoices. The day I qualified I transferred to corporate finance, which was starting to get interesting. For five years I followed the market. I worked on contested takeovers with a partner called Richard North who worked for people like Jimmy Goldsmith on all these exciting deals. When the market dipped I did a stint working in corporate recovery, which was also a fantastic experience.

When I started in the City in 1985 women were in the minority. But now there is a huge pool of female talent, a lot of it buried. We’re all guilty of talking about women on boards as if we’re a novelty. It can feel tokenistic. But until we address the issue of getting more women into the management pipeline, it will be tough to change.

In 1993 I was working in M&A, specialising in PLCs and shell companies, when an entrepreneur who had floated and sold a business and wanted to do it again approached us. I helped him find a shell and then we reversed two businesses into it and took the whole thing onto the full market. It meant they had three businesses but no central management. The chairman asked me to join as company secretary.

The next step for me at Coopers was partner, so I was reluctant to leave. But I went on a secondment and loved working as a principal rather than an advisor. We were buying and selling companies and the banks were queuing up to lend us money. Then the City took against mini-conglomerates, so we restructured into an operating company around the old lighter brand Ronson.

We did that in January 1996 and 21 days later a fire destroyed the business. As we were a lighter brand you can imagine the headlines. A factory in Newcastle went up in flames taking out all our stock. We had planned to turn Ronson into an aspirational brand. We were putting the name on all sorts of products. But we had no stock, no accounting system and then the bank put us under best endeavours to repay immediately all the money we had been due to repay over seven years.

We had no money and couldn’t wait two years to settle with the insurance companies, so we took a thumping hit to settle quickly. Even after a heavily discounted rescue rights issue we didn’t have enough, so we also bought in an investor. That was the beginning of the end because we didn’t get on with the investor. The 18 months after the fire were tough. The finance director left and I found myself doing cashflow and bank flow. The dream we had for the brand was shattered. In the end we had to say goodbye to it.

Frazzled by that experience, I had decided to join Ernst &Young when Capgemini offered me a dull-sounding job as company secretary and director of administration. I met the CEO, Tony Robinson, who asked why I’d applied. I told him I wasn’t going to accept so he offered me a different role. That was 14 years ago. Six months later I became finance director. After a couple of other senior roles, I became chairman of the UK business in January last year. I am executive chairman overall, but CEO of the outsourced applications division, the biggest part of the business.

It will be tough for the next couple of years. Many companies in the UK have a lot of business in the public sector. They are shifting their portfolio to the private sector, which means fierce competition and that affects margins. You have to be careful that you don’t price things in such a way that it isn’t beneficial for you or the client.

HMRC is our biggest client. We manage most of its IT estate, it accounts for 45 per cent of our business. We lead an ecosystem at HMRC. Behind us are 140 suppliers, from the small to large subcontractors like Fujitsu. This model allows us to access niche skills, while small companies benefit from our ability to take on liability and complexity.

At HMRC it is critical that the IT works, otherwise its front-page news. Our reputation is at stake. And now, thanks to Twitter, everything is totally transparent. You have to be obsessed with delivery and quality.

Being an accountant is a good basis for a business career. Look at how many people in senior positions have a financial background. When I do talks at schools I always tell the pupils that they are probably not going to be Sir Richard Branson or win the lottery or X-Factor. If you want to earn a decent whack, do a professional qualification. It’s the only way for near-guaranteed financial security.

We’ve just launched a junior apprenticeship, for young people aged between 16 and 18. They get five years of work experience and come out with a full degree, but without any loans to pay off. Education will increasingly be funded in this way, and employers and universities will work together to produce graduates fit for the workplace.

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CFOs who move into the CEO’s chair develop their careers so they have the skills to do so. Christine looks on a CFO’s work as a stretching from a chief accountant role to COO: “I was always comfortable doing an operational CFO role.”

• Get an external perspective

“As CFO, don’t lock yourself away in the back office and become buried in the detail. Be very much the right hand of the CEO,” says Hodgson. “Learn about the external market by interacting with the whole supply chain.

“A really good CFO is one that’s visible externally. He or she is not just a person who is recording what’s going on, but is a person who is out there being involved in negotiations and client relationships. “Build a top team around you so that it gives you the headroom to become more externally focused.”

• Understand the business’s operating model

“CFOs are well placed to become CEOs because they have a good grasp of all aspects of the business,” says Hodgson.  

• Build a top team around you

“If you don’t have a strong team, you’ll never be successful in any role,” says Hodgson. “Surround yourself with very clever people who are going to challenge you and be self-motivating. Feel comfortable about having people around you who want your job – don’t feel threatened by it.”

• Become a great communicator

“As CEO, externally, you are the ambassador for the brand and internally you are the one that should be rallying the troops in good times and bad,” says Hodgson. “So communication becomes a much bigger part of your role than it would have been before.”

• Be a strong leader

“The biggest single difference in moving from CFO to CEO is that, suddenly, everything stops with you,” says Hodgson. “Initially, that can be slightly unnerving and a little bit lonely. But you become comfortable with it.”

• Acquire the decisive gene

“As a CEO you need to be decisive, but you won’t be good at being decisive unless you listen to all sides of an argument,” cautions Hodgson. “You need to know when you’re wrong and how to make adjustments. However strong your team is, there will be days when things go wrong and it will ultimately be your responsibility. You must have a very steady nerve, otherwise it could become overwhelming.”

• Become a people person

“Try to nurture talent and be a supportive leader,” says Hodgson. “That doesn’t mean you’ve got to be soft.”

To read the full article on Financial Management, please click here: 8 ways to… move from CFO to CEO

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• Double victory for Capgemini UK at ‘Everywoman in Technology’ Awards
  
  

So what are the challenges retailers face this year to ensure their online sales grow?

Even though the idea of multichannel retail is not new, retailers still have their work cut out in building a multichannel strategy.

“Retailers have to implement technology into existing stores to become multichannel,” he said, citing technologies such as smart screens, in-store tablets and the use of near-field communications (NFC) technology for contactless payments.

Effectively embracing a multichannel model is all the more important given that online-only retailers are gaining ground on multichannel retailers year on year.

Multichannel retailers saw growth of 25 per cent in the first half of 2011 but growth was only 14 per cent in the second half of the year, compared with online-only retailers which saw growth of 11 per cent in the first half of the year and 13 per cent in the second half.

This reflects a trend among consumers who are leaning towards the lowest cost option over the ease and familiarity of a high street brand, according to IMRG and Capgemini.

One retail channel that is small but growing is the mobile channel. The Index shows that mobile commerce grew from 0.4 per cent in Q1 of 2010 to 3.9 per cent in Q3 2011.

To read the full article on Computing, please click here: Analysis: What challenges do online retailers face in 2012?

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail
  
  

Communicate. Early and often: But even before that, David cautioned, “Get your homework done before you even engage the consumer.” If you set the expectations very clearly, he said, as San Diego Gas & Electric did when it communicated about the benefits of its smart grid projects-efficiency, cost benefits, and outage benefits-it’s a matter of “proving the benefits of what we said was going to happen when we started upgrading our infrastructure.”

To read the full article on Intelligent Utility please click here: TOP 11 consumer engagement IDEAS

Related Links:

• Industry Overview: Utilities

• Ben Page (CEO, Ipsos Mori)
• Lee Bryant (MD Europe, Dachis Group)
• Nina Barakzai (EMEA Privacy Counsel, Dell)
• Richard Sedley (Commercial Director, Foviance)
• William Long (Counsel, Sidley Austin)
• Windahl Finnigan (Head of User Experience & Creative, Capgemini)

Date: 17th February, 9.30 – 11.30
Venue: Capgemini, 40 Holborn Viaduct , London EC1N 2PB, 8th Floor
Nearest tube: Chancery Lane

The event is open to anyone, and of course, Capgemini people absolutely welcome. Visit the Schedule page and find the events that you would like to attend.

Further details here.

He says there is now a category of “super consumers”, or “influencers” and warns that traditional CRM (customer relationship management) approaches, can be incapable of interpreting or even spotting the different signals from these multiple customer contact points and new stakeholders.

“Businesses require a social CRM approach that enables them to capture insights and manage the customer relationship successfully by [taking advantage of] the ‘viral’ nature of the medium,” he says.

Chris adds, “It has been well known for many years that acquiring customers costs far more than retaining customers,” he says, “but organisations seem to have been geared up to winning customers rather than keeping them. They seem to rely on inertia to keep customers.”

To read the rest of the article on FT.com, please click here: Customer must be king in the web world

Related Links:

• Service Overview: Customer Service
• Industry Overview: Retail

“This award recognises the collaborative efforts between Pegasystems and Capgemini to support the implementation of a customer service centre solution that brings together a deep understanding of customer requirements, with core banking process expertise and leading edge technology to drive sustainable benefits for a Tier 1 bank and its customers,” said Anirban Bose, Vice President and North America banking business unit head, Capgemini Financial Services. “We are confident that by leveraging our joint global delivery capabilities and Capgemini’s banking centre of excellence other banks will be able to leverage assets from these customer centric initiatives this year.”

Capgemini was recognised by the Pegasystems’ Partner Excellence Award in Customer Centricity as a result of its work in helping organisations identify cost-effective ways to improve their overall customer experience through comprehensive technology implementations and support services.

“The partners that we have recognised with this year’s Excellence Awards have achieved outstanding results by providing our customers with innovative solutions that have enabled them to transform their business processes to drive loyalty and identify and implement additional revenue opportunities,” said John Barone, Vice President of global strategic alliances at Pegasystems.  “We congratulate all of this year’s awards recipients, as they have demonstrated excellence in their Pega projects over the past year.”

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore^® , its worldwide delivery model.

More information is available at www.us.capgemini.com

About Capgemini’s Financial Services Global Business Unit
Capgemini’s Financial Services Global Business Unit brings deep industry experience, innovative service offerings and next generation global delivery to serve the financial services industry. With a network of 17,000 professionals serving over 900 clients worldwide, Capgemini collaborates with leading banks, insurers and capital market companies to deliver business and IT solutions and thought leadership which create tangible value.

More information is available at www.capgemini.com/financialservices.

Rightshore® and Collaborative Business Experience^TM are trademarks belonging to Capgemini

Capgemini Press contact:
Cortney Lusignan
Weber Shandwick
Tel: +1 212-445-8192
E-mail: clusignan@webershandwick.com

A new year has revealed old challenges for the retail sector, and not for nearly two decades have I seen economic conditions as tough as they are on today’s high street. However, I am looking toward 2012 with optimism because of a trend I trailed back in September 2011’s column: Total Retail.

Total Retail is an extension of multi-channel retailing, going beyond a smooth interchange of data and intelligence between click and mortar operations to merge multichannel supply chain, marketing and sales into one continuous shopping experience.

The explosion of mobile-based platforms, such as smart phones and tablets, is changing the retail market – we no longer need to walk to a shop or turn on our laptop, we can now buy a product while sat on the bus with our mobile phone. Shopper’s in-store can now browse the virtual shelves of the online store, as well as browse the shelves of various competitors.

Multichannel is now the norm and this was reflected in 2011 Christmas sales, with £7.9 billion spent online during December, showing strong 16 per cent year-on-year growth, according to the e-Retail Sales Index figures that we at Capgemini analyse on behalf of IMRG. Within this analysis, there were two revealing trends that I believe will come to define 2012 as a tipping point for Total Retail.

The first trend is the ubiquity of mobile devices and the influence of mobile phone payments. Over 10 per cent of our hits and 4 per cent of e-retail sales in the UK currently come via a mobile device, and this is set to boom as mobile devices increase in penetration and mobile payments becomes mainstream.

Although the technology is relatively young, we have seen household names such as McDonalds and Starbucks, which already accept contactless mobile phone payments, incorporate location-based services into their overall marketing strategy; bridging the gap between the virtual market place and the high-street.

The introduction of QR codes has to date been a dominant part of this movement, allowing retailers to commercially track consumers, provide ticketing and in-store labelling, as well as develop effective loyalty schemes. The inclusion of NFC in more and more phones, removing the need for a clumsy photo interface, will boost this still further. Mobile phone manufacturers have caught on to this growing market, with the likes of, Android and Nokia producing devices equipped with the technology; I am confident that Apple will soon follow.

A second trend driving Total Retail is the expansion of services allowing customers to order online and collect from their local store; luring shoppers back to the high-street and giving online retailers a physical presence for the first time. ‘Click and Collect’ has been a part of multi-channel retail propositions for nearly a decade and for some retailers, like Argos, they now make up 50 per cent of their e-retail sales. Debenhams has recently invested in in-store kiosks, branded Debenhams Extra, which is a new service that enables customers to access product information, check stock levels, and order and pay for goods while on the shop floor.

Customers can enjoy a new, diverse shopping experience with universal access to information and an infinite shelf – a convenient alternative to trawling around a shop in pursuit of a shop assistant, or waiting in line when the tills are busy. The idea of convenience shopping has been further developed by Collect+ – a parcel services company with a network of over 4,500 corner shops – that allows online shoppers to buy online and collect their purchases from their local newsagent.

The concept of a ‘Total Retailing model’ has encouraged retailers to embrace social platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, as an attempt to drive customer loyalty and increase conversion rates. ASOS, the UK’s largest online-only fashion and beauty store, is a great example of this. The retailer leads the way in many respects to online, with a section of its website dedicated to its ‘ASOS community’ – a socially diverse, interconnected hub of internet communicators and shoppers, with fashion blogs, forums, and viral marketing driving conversation and customer loyalty. A smart move for the retailer, with increased sales profiles, strong online position and growing customer base, ASOS has an evident edge over its competitors.

Today’s shopper is information-rich, choice-saturated and penny-conscious. Consumers are fickle, offering products they want is simply not enough – retailers need to go above and beyond to attract and retain customers – they need to adopt Total Retail.

Forecast figures released by the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index predict that e-retail will continue to grow by a further 13 per cent in 2012. With this in mind, it is crucial that retailers take advantage of technology and consumer trends to ensure they deliver real value. The winners this year will keep their finger on the pulse, and their decisions based on the demands of their customers who will be merging the in-store and online shopping experience.

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

On average, the CRR found British shoppers bought 39 items online in 2011, spending an average of £1,435.

The figures say that Internet shopping accounts for 12% of the total retail spend in the UK.

Online shopping search engine Kelkoo estimates the sector will grow by 14% in 2012.

To read the full article on Yahoo Finance, please click here: UK Consumers Top Online Spending League

Also read the article on Orange News.

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

Audio equipment, laptops and other electronic items were the most popular things bought over the internet during the festive period.

“Strong online sales over Christmas went some way towards rescuing the performance of the year as a whole,” said Capgemini’s Chris Webster.
To read the full article on MyHermes, please click here: Christmas sales boost UK web performance

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

To read the full article on EFYTimes, please click here: Tesco Strengthens Its Global Focus On Sustainability

Related Links:

• Press Release: Tesco strengthens its global focus on sustainability with Capgemini
• Solution Overview: Sustainable IT

To read the full article on The Telegraph, please click here: Most retailers survived Christmas - but did their profits?

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

“Strong online sales over Christmas went some way towards rescuing the performance of the year as a whole,” said Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini. “During 2011 we saw continued pressure on sales as shoppers became more savvy in looking for bargains.”

To read the full article on The Telegraph, please click here: Online Christmas shopping jumped by 16.5pc

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

We’re not there yet, but it’s not unthinkable that before too long will we eventually reach a point where more sales come from online and digital channels and high street stores will cease to be a major sales channel.

They will instead be emporiums for brand engagement and locations to pick up items bought via click and collect with a token sales offering.

While high street retailers are working on delivering integrated bricks and clicks operations to satisfy consumer demands, in a future when sales is no longer the main purpose of high street shops, it will be more common for online only retailers to appear on the high street as part of a brand marketing strategy, rather than a sales operation.

EBay dabbled with a pop-up store in December and it has long been rumoured that Asos.com, beacon of pure-play online retail, is looking at opportunities for the brand to have a physical presence on the high street.

As a sales channel it makes no sense at all for the online business, which today (19 January) reported 46% total growth in the last three months of the year, but as a place for the brand to live and breath and engage with consumers, it would add another string to Asos’s already strong bow, as well as allowing the retailer to offer customers a click and collect option.

In 2011, click and collect was the talk of the town. It was on the lips of every major retailer as they looked at ways to integrate digital channels with physical stores and offer shoppers more convenient ways to buy and receive products.

To read the full article on Marketing Week, please click here: The future of stores is not in sales

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

According to the IMRG index, e-retail now accounts for 17% of the total UK retail market and is likely to increase with the rise of mobile commerce and following high sales of tablet computers in the last year. Its figures also showed December sales were strong, rising by 16.5% during the month to a record £7.9bn. But the growth came despite a slowdown in spending on clothes. Sales in this category grew by just 12% in the month, compared to growth of 40.5% in December 2010. Faster growth came in the health and beauty category, (up by 63%, compared to the previous December), in home and garden (up 45% on last year) and in accessories (up 46%). Travel continued to show slower growth, coming in at 4% improvement in December on the previous year, but down by 11% on the previous month.

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini, said: “Strong online sales over Christmas were even more impressive since they built on a 25% year-on-year growth from 2009 to 2010. During 2011 we saw continued pressure on sales as shoppers became savvier in looking for bargains and this continued in the run up to Christmas.

“The rapid rise of mobile in 2011 will continue into 2012 as consumers became familiar with shopping via tablet devices and smartphonest, some taking advantage of their recent Christmas presents. This changing landscape will open up a myriad of opportunity for retailers including the integration of stores into the multi-channel world and the potential of new capabilities like location based markerting services.”

To read the full article on Internet Retailing, please click here: UK shoppers spent more online in 2011

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini says: “Strong online sales over Christmas were even more impressive since they built on a 25% year on year growth from 2009 to 2010.. During 2011 we saw continued pressure on sales as shoppers became savvier in looking for bargains and this continued in the run up to Christmas. The rapid rise of mobile in 2011 will continue into 2012 as consumers became familiar with shopping via tablet devices and smartphonest, some taking advantage of their recent Christmas presents. This changing landscape will open up a myriad of opportunity for retailers including the integration of stores into the multi-channel world and the potential of new capabilities like location based markerting services.”

To read the full article on The Retail Bulletin, please click here: Happy Christmas for 2011 Online Sales

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

Speaking this morning at an event organised by trade body the IMRG, leading retail brands including John Lewis and Reiss said that while social media was a great customer service and engagement tool, its utility as a sales channel was still unproven.

To read the full article on New Media Age, please click here: Multichannel retailers prioritise mobile over social commerce 

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

The UK is the second largest global market for e-commerce after the US and takes 30% of the European market share, said IMRG.

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini, said all retail growth in the UK was now coming through digital channels.

He said rich content, such as videos, would be a driver to growth for retailers in 2012, along with consumers using more tablets and mobile to browse and make purchases. Having a strong multi-channel offering with full system integration will also be important for retailers this year, Webster said.

To read the full article on Computer Weekly, please click here: Online sales reach record £7.9bn in December

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

According to research by Capgemini, the retail consultancy, a record £68bn was spent online in 2011, up 16% on the previous year.

Online shopping accounts for 17% of the total UK retail market and is likely to increase with the relentless rise of mobile commerce. Growing numbers of retailers are launching or expanding online businesses, leading Capgemini to predict that total online retail sales will jump by 13% in 2012 to reach £77bn.

Capgemini’s Chris Webster said: “Strong online sales over Christmas went some way towards rescuing the performance of the year as a whole. During 2011 we saw continued pressure on sales as shoppers became savvier in looking for bargains. The influence of mobile is set to build in 2012 as consumers become familiar with shopping via tablet devices and smartphones, thanks in part to slicker websites and gadgets.”

To read the full article on Guardian.co.uk, please click here: Online retail sales soared in December even as high street struggled

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

E-retail now accounts for 17 percent of the total UK retail market. Online shopping is likely to increase with the rise of mobile commerce and the huge number of tablet devices sold throughout 2011, industry experts said.

Chris Webster, head of retail and vice president of Capgemini, said strong online sales over Christmas were even more impressive since they built on a 25 percent year-on-year growth from 2009 to 2010.

“During 2011 we saw continued pressure on sales, as shoppers became savvier in looking for bargains and this continued in the run-up to Christmas.”

To read the full article on International Business Times, please click here: UK Online Shopping Races Ahead

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

Sales were up by 16.5 per cent on the previous December figures, with the Index value reaching a record high.

While high street stores continue to suffer, retailers can remain competitive by making use of all available technology to push online sales to even higher levels, said Capgemini head of retail and consulting Chris Webster.

Webster said the use of mobile, tablet devices and smartphones by online shoppers has continued to increase and that retailers need to consider these different devices used by customers when devising their online marketing strategies.

To read the full article on V3.co.uk, please click here: Retailers gear up for multi-channel shopping experiences

Related Links:

• Press Release: Strong finish to 2011 for online sales
• Industry Overview: Retail

A total of £68 billion was spent online in 2011, which resulted in the Index increasing by 16%. For 2012, IMRG and Capgemini predict the Index will record a further 13% growth, with total e-retail sales estimated to be worth £77 billion by year end. The December figures show that online retailers had a successful Christmas, mirroring the high street success reported by the British Retail Consortium of 2.2% growth. e-retail now accounts for 17% of the total UK retail market and is likely to increase with the rise of mobile commerce and the huge numbers of tablet computers sold last year.

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini says: “Strong online sales over Christmas were even more impressive since they built on a 25% year on year growth from 2009 to 2010.. During 2011 we saw continued pressure on sales as shoppers became savvier in looking for bargains and this continued in the run up to Christmas. The rapid rise of mobile in 2011 will continue into 2012 as consumers became familiar with shopping via tablet devices and smartphonest, some taking advantage of their recent Christmas presents. This changing landscape will open up a myriad of opportunity for retailers including the integration of stores into the multi-channel world and the potential of new capabilities like location based markerting services.”

The Christmas sales and 16.5% year-on-year growth on December 2010 represents a strong recovery on the 11.2% year-on-year growth reported in November. It is still below the growth levels seen 12 months ago (25% year-on-year growth December 2009 – December 2010), but demonstrates that the online market still offers a very positive growth opportunity. That said, the average growth rate throughout the first half of 2011 was in the high teens, but dropped to the low teens in during the second half. This slowdown is due to sales in the travel sector slipping as well as a disappointing second half for the clothing sector which saw a decline in year-on-year growth from 40% in December 2010 to just 12% in December 2011.

Furthermore, a number of well-known fashion brands at the mid- to low-end of the market reported poor sales in their recent trading statements while luxury brands are turning huge profits. This is partly due to the spending power of middle-income Britons being squeezed by rising inflation and low wage increases while high net worth individuals continue to earn and spend.

This is also apparent in the travel sector as, while growth has declined, the average purchase has increased from £731 in 2010 to £850 in 2011 reflecting higher costs for flights and resilience in luxury holidays for high earners.

Online-only versus multichannel

Online-only/ catalogue retailers are gaining ground in year-on-year growth as high street / multichannel experienced a decline in the second half of 2011, dropping from 25% to 14% growth. In comparison, online-only retailers’ sales rose from 11% in the first half of 2011 to 13% in the second half, reflecting a flight toward lowest cost options in contrast to previous preferences for the ease and familiarity of a high street brand.

James Roper, CEO of IMRG, said: “The December results are incredibly impressive as the growth for the same period in 2010 was 25%, meaning it had to climb from a very high base. Despite the fact that consumers are finding themselves with less and less disposable income, the e-retail market keeps defying the general retail trend to record double-digit growth. Online is such an integral part of the shopping experience now that it generally plays at least some part in most purchases, whether through research and comparison or social media and product reviews. We are forecasting growth of 13% moving into 2012, lower than our estimate for 2011 but it would still be an extremely positive performance given the economic climate and the fact that the online market has reached a degree of maturity now, meaning it can offer a really key contribution to help drive the economic recovery.”

Industry quotes
Jonathon Brown, Head of Online at John Lewis comments: “December was a great month for johnlewis.com and online sales for the five weeks to 31 December 2011 were +29.7% across the site. This was boosted by more favourable weather (compared to last year), and we capitalised on this by having a fantastic offer for our customers in the run up to Christmas and also in our Clearance that went live on Christmas Eve at 5pm.  We saw record breaking sales across all of our directorates and more customers than ever coming to johnlewis.com to plan, choose and buy their perfect gifts for Christmas.

“Fashion had an outstanding month with sales +40% on last year with womenswear boosted by a strong Clearance offer and record sales from a number of our brands. Home was incredibly strong throughout the month delivering sales increases +50% on 2010. Within Home our seasonal offer proved to be a real hit with customers as Christmas trees, decorations and hampers were top choices as well as all the products you need to make the perfect Christmas - from tableware to cutlery and food preparation all showing strong sales.

“Finally, our Electrical and Home Technology department had a strong month delivering sales +25% on last year. IT especially, and even more so iPads, proved to be top of customers Christmas lists. So, a tremendous Christmas and a great start to Clearance saw the best December we (johnlewis.com) have ever had and set us up well for a tough market in 2012.”

Dan Mountain, CEO at Buyagift comments: “Buyagift.com achieved online business to consumer sales growth of 10.2% in December 2011. Given the tough market conditions we were delighted with these results.  The new Buyagift.com web site (launched in October 2011) achieved a conversion rate of 10.92% in December 2011 (up from 8.54% in Dec 2010).

“We are very fortunate that our business is continuing to thrive in these tough times.  Our view is that this growth is driven by a combination of our strong on-line reputation, “Best Price Guarantee”, industry leading special offers and the continued change in consumer purchasing habits (from high street to on-line).  Our new mobile trading platform (m.buyagift.co.uk) is also performing well and accounted for 21.4% of our overall traffic in the month.”

Gwynn Milligan, MD of Cocosa comments: “Cocosa has had a record breaking Christmas, with our online sales up 125% year, we broke daily and weekly sales records. We have cleared all of our stock that went into sale, so that with investment in our people and the business, and the unwavering support we have from our chairman, this ensures that we are best placed for this growth to continue.

“Our targets are both ambitious and achievable, and as we continue to gain momentum, our customers, our branded partners and our people, sit at the heart of our success.”

Andrew Tse, MD at Purely Gadgets said: “Sales for December have grown year-on-year, only single digits of 4% but it was a strong December in 2010, despite the snow and shortened month. This year supply problems have hit what would have been a stronger December and Q4 if not for supply interruptions in Thailand affecting hard disk drives and popular DSLR cameras.

“The areas of note for us have been an exceptionally good September, where we hit the right audiences with back to school, back to university and technology for the student campaigns. Our continued focus on website content including videos and hot exciting products has driven a £ spend per visitor double the industry average and a basket value that is consistently higher than the industry.”

Russ Carroll, UK MD of Shopping.com, comments, “The Christmas rush came later this year, partly due to the fact that retailers offered delivery as late as two days before Christmas Day. It’s likely the recession also played a part as consumers held out for the sales in a bid to find the best bargains. Clothing experienced consistent e-retail growth in 2011 and this is something we expect to see continue well into 2012.”

Notes to Editors

About IMRG
IMRG (Interactive Media In Retail Group) is the industry body for global e-retail. Formed in 1990, IMRG is setting and maintaining pragmatic and robust e-Retail Standards to enable fast-track industry growth, and facilitates its community of members with practical help, information, tools, guidance and networking. Consumers can be confident when dealing with IMRG Members because all have committed to operate using methods that are Honest, Decent, Legal, Truthful and Fair, and have undertaken to not bring the industry into disrepute. The strength of IMRG is the collective and co-operative power of its members.

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About the ‘IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index’
The IMRG Capgemini Index, which was started in April 2000, tracks ‘online sales’, which we define as ‘transactions completed fully, including payment, via interactive channels’ from any location, including in-store.  These sales are predominantly internet-based today, but the Index remains ready to record e-retail sales conducted via whatever interactive channels the market may embrace in the future.

Around one hundred e-retailers now regularly contribute data to the IMRG Capgemini Index, including; Airport Parking & Hotels Ltd, Amara, Arcadia Group (Burton, Top Man, Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Wallis, Miss Selfridge), Ask Direct, ASOS.com, Bank, Berry Bros & Rudd,  Binends.com, Blacks, Boden.co.uk, Boohoo.com, Boots Direct, Boutique to You, Brandosa.co.uk, Brora, Buyagift.com, BuyItDirect.co.uk, Carphone Warehouse, Charles Clinkard, Charles Tyrwhitt,  Clarks, Cloggs, Cocosa, Co-operative Travel, Crocus.co.uk, Dabs.com, Damart, Debenhams, Ethical Superstore, Figleaves.com, Firebox, First Choice, Freemans Grattan Holdings, Furniture123, Game, Gameplay, Gamestation, Getting Personal.co.uk, Greenfingers.com, Home & Cook, House of Fraser, JD Sports, J D Williams, John Lewis Partnership, Ladderstore.com, Lastminute.com, LK Bennett, Lookfantastic.com, Lyco Direct, M and M Direct, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Millets, Naked Wines, NaturalCollection.com, New Look, Next, Peacocks, Perfect Handbags, PetPlanet.co.uk, Philip Kingsley, PIXmania, Prezzybox.com, Purely Gadgets, QVC, Redfoot Revolution, Richer Sounds, Sainsbury’s, Scales Express, Schuh, Scott, Shoe-Shop.com, Shop Direct Home Shopping (Additions, Great Universal, Kays, Littlewoods, Empire, Woolworths, Very, Isme), Serenata Flowers, Size, Sofa and Home, Sunshine.co.uk, Tesco.com, The Fragrance Shop, The Health Supermarket, The Natural Store, TUI UK, Turton Wines, Waitrose, Warehouse, Wilkinson Hardware & Wynsors World of Shoes.

[1] Calculation by 7.9 billion, divided by adult population of UK (50,893,318)

http://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explo re?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_to tl&idim=country:GBR&dl=en&hl =en&q=uk+population

“I think every director of finance has probably got a soap box they sit on about how hard done by their local authority is but, certainly in the London context, Havering’s level of funding compared to other boroughs is very low. I think we’re perceived as that green and pleasant part of London,” he says.

Despite these difficulties, Havering signed a deal with Capgemini in May 2010 for £2.9m and went live with the first phase of the project in April 2011.

The council expects to save £15m over the next five years through the project, with estimated cost savings of £1.5m annually following the first phase of the process. This will rise to £2.5m once the whole project is completed in April 2012.

To read the full article on the Guardian.co.uk, please click here: Havering council’s £3m back office transformation aims to end paper chase

Related Links:

• Press Release: Havering Council transforms with Capgemini to win big cost savings
• Industry Overview: Public Sector

To read the full article on The Little Green Mag, please click here: Tesco strengthens its global focus on sustainability with Capgemini

Related Links:

• Press Release: Tesco strengthens its global focus on sustainability with Capgemini
• Solution Overview: Sustainable IT

To read the full article on Retail Gazette, please click here: Tesco unveils F&F franchise model

Related Links:

• Press Release: Tesco strengthens its global focus on sustainability with Capgemini
• Solution Overview: Sustainable IT

Capgemini’s participation is focused on promoting the new pricing model for the Defence Collaboration Programme (DCP).

Tesco has set itself a goal of being zero carbon by 2050, creating a challenging task of accurately and efficiently measuring and managing energy usage and carbon emissions from its worldwide operations. It chose Capgemini to provide a specialist managed service for energy and carbon data management to support its in-house sustainability team and its ecoGovernance model in achieving these objectives.

Under the new contract, Capgemini will be responsible for the collection, processing and reporting of energy and carbon emissions data from Tesco operations worldwide.  Tesco will retain control of the overall process while the data quality checking, consolidation, processing, reporting output and technology system administration will be managed by Capgemini.  In addition, managers across the Tesco global network will receive support in matters of sustainability data from Capgemini’s dedicated BPO Sustainability Centre of Excellence.

Ben Day, Climate Change Manager of Tesco, said: ‘We chose Capgemini because it was able to provide us with a proven, ready-to-run solution. We were attracted by its ability to provide the required support, its understanding of energy and carbon data management issues and its specialist skills with the CA Technologies ecoGovernance sustainability tool set. We expect to see an immediate improvement in the efficiency and capacity of our carbon footprint measurement and reporting process.’

By outsourcing the regular sustainability data management processes to Capgemini, Tesco’s own sustainability teams expect to have greater freedom to focus on strategic issues and to strengthen the company’s leadership in the sustainability area further. Capgemini’s integrated capability in sustainability, business process and technology removes the data management burden, and enhances the rigour and efficiency of the process.

The Capgemini BPO Sustainability Service can be configured to incorporate CA Technologies’  leading ecoGovernance software to comprise a complete managed service. The Sustainability BPO service is part of Capgemini BPO’s wider Supply Chain Management BPO services since it is Capgemini’s firm view that all ‘Future Supply Chains’ must take account of sustainability.

Peter Walsh, Head of Sustainability for Business Process Outsourcing at Capgemini said: ‘We are delighted to be providing this service to Tesco, which confirms the value and global reach of our BPO sustainability managed service. Tesco have set ambitious carbon reduction targets and we believe Capgemini BPO’s unique managed service for sustainability data will play an important role in helping them reach their targets in the most reliable and efficient manner possible. ‘

Tesco is one of the world’s largest retailers, with half a million employees, serving millions of customers each week.

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Capgemini press contact:
Tom Barton
Tel: +44 (0)870 238 2491
Email: tom.barton@capgemini.com

To read the full article on ComputerWorld UK, please ckick here: Tesco in giant store and e-commerce software upgrade 

This article in also available on the PCAdvisor

Related Links:

• Press Release: Tesco strengthens its global focus on sustainability with Capgemini
• Solution Overview: Sustainable IT

The retailer, which has 500,000 employees, will use Capgemini’s ecoGovernance model to provide a specialist managed service for energy and carbon data management to support its in-house sustainability team.
Under the contract, Capgemini will collect, process and report on energy use and carbon emissions from Tesco operations worldwide, with Tesco retaining overall control of the process.

To read the full article on ComputerWorld UK, please ckick here: Tesco picks Capgemini to boost green drive

Related Links:

• Press Release: Tesco strengthens its global focus on sustainability with Capgemini
• Solution Overview: Sustainable IT

Related Links:

• Adult Social Care: An Overview

She accepts Capgemini must do more itself to adopt new technology in this area and that the company’s existing onboarding process is effective - but very traditional. “We have formal onboarding two days at a time throughout the year, where people learn the background to the organisation, talk about silly acronyms and see presentations by senior people,” Brown says. “Ultimately, onboarding must meet both sides’ objectives and for us we need people to be effective with our clients as soon as possible. If it takes three weeks from when they join, that is a cost; if it takes three days, because a lot of the work was been done before they start, then that is much more effective.”

To read the full article on HR magazine, please click here: Onboarding: the fast track to staff productivity

Related Links:

• Solution Overview: HR
  

   

Working with Capgemini, we have transformed our back office from being a largely paper-driven bureaucracy into a focused, modern and efficient business model - saving millions of pounds in the process,” said Andrew Blake-Herbert, the council’s director of finance and commerce.

Capgemini’s head of local government Calum MacLeod described the recent restructuring as a “transformation” and paid tribute to the council’s leadership. He cited the scheme’s success as proof savings can be made without having any impact on essential front-line services.

To read the full article on Outsourcemyproject, please click here: Council hails cost savings following back-office transformation

Related Links:

• Press Release: Havering Council transforms with Capgemini to win big cost savings
• Solution Overview: Outsourcing
• Industry Overview: Public Sector

SIX Telekurs has performed well with respect to its global manual data production. As part of its strategy and ongoing efforts to remain a high-quality and efficient data provider, it will place more emphasis on its existing data production centres in Poland and India, which are operated by Capgemini. In the last few years, these data production centres have grown successfully. SIX Telekurs recently renewed and enhanced its outsourcing contract with Capgemini for these centres, which will ensure a long-term partnership andputs even more focus on quality, efficiency and continuous process improvements.

To read the full article on Finextra, please click here: SIX Telekurs renews Capgemini outsourcing contract

Related Links:

• Solution Overview: Outsourcing

Andrew BlakeHerbert, Group Director of Finance and Commerce at the London Borough of Havering, said: ‘Working with Capgemini, we have transformed our back office from being a largely paper-driven bureaucracy into a focused, modern and efficient business model - saving millions of pounds in the process. The first tranche of savings resulting from this transformation is already in the bank. Over the next five years we expect to save at least £15 million in back office cost, helping us protect frontline services for local people while managing large reductions in Government funding. We don’t know of any other local authority in the UK that has successfully managed such a wide-ranging change programme in such a short space of time.’

To read the full article on Sourcing Focus, please click here: Havering Council Transforms with Capgemini

Related Links:

• Press Release: Havering Council transforms with Capgemini to win big cost savings
• Solution Overview: Outsourcing
• Industry Overview: Public Sector

Presuming that the growing number of online-capable devices as well as the unprecedented usage of them in our daily interactions has turned the internet from a rather static medium into a vivid social network, we should be able to identify key properties as a systems architecture. While online users (bear in mind that your smartphone might make you one of them) are exhibiting a stronger desire to display offline activities on the net, recently promoted sharing features have amplified the potential of this content to be passed along and multiplied within an instant. This fact, combined with the tendency of complex systems towards sudden transition to qualitatively different states, has resulted in eruptions of digital opinion waves that are almost impossible to predict at that scale. And here comes the clue, consumers are, consciously or not, discovering their say in this process, following the motto: “small actions can have great impact if leveraged properly.”

Where exactly does the retail payments industry fit in here now? I argue that these developments mean exciting times are ahead, because what we are seeing with payments is nothing less than its conversion into a deeply digital and increasingly social medium itself. Indications here for are the gaining popularity of venturing into the mobile space (M-Pesa, Osaifu-Ketai and more recently GoogleWallet to name but a few), the creation of digital currency value chains/platforms (Zap, Dwolla, PayPal X) and even more revealing, the merging of payments technology with loyalty programs, location-based offers as well as social media (Foursquare, Facebook). This presents us with a unique opportunity to alter the still largely commodity-oriented perceptions of the industry and embrace the possibility of becoming a connecting factor for consumer interactions. It is consequently time to stop wondering whether the recent changes in retail payments are here to stay and begin exploring the vast terrain of newly developing social payment networks.

Coming back to where we started, there is more to be learned from looking at the behavior of complex social networks. Although it is still largely impossibly to predict the behavior of such systems, we do have a remedy at hand. The best way to get a feeling for the response patterns (a.k.a. consumer behavior) in a digital world is to engage with it. Understanding the nature of change in the supply-demand relationship is of utmost importance.

It is within this spirit, that I am calling on all of us to find ways of turning payments into social messages, with the ultimate goal to form a more perfect union with the consumer.

Thomas Berndorfer is an international business consultant focusing on the creation of business models for innovative retail channels. As the founder of the Capgemini Mobile Payments Community he has in-depth experience in the application of state-of-the-art consumer technologies to create added value for enterprises.

Related Links:

• Publication: World Payments Report 2011

The deal, signed in March 2011, has automated finance, payroll, HR and procurement functions cutting costs by £1.5m per year, with yearly savings expected to rise to £2.5m once the second phase is completed in April 2012. This will include the implementation of a performance management process, staff training, recruitment and project costing.

To read the full article on Computer Weekly, please click here: Havering council to save £2.5m per year with ERP deal

Related Links:

• Press Release: Havering Council transforms with Capgemini to win big cost savings
• Solution Overview: Outsourcing
• Industry Overview: Public Sector

The first phase of the transformation project, completed in just ten months, encompassed the majority of back-office functions at Havering including finance, payroll, HR and procurement, and has resulted in a significant reduction in paperwork and bureaucracy. A multiplicity of complex procedures has been replaced by simplified and standardised business processes based on proven international best practice. The project also involved migrating the Council from ageing earlier-generation IT systems to the latest Oracle enterprise-wide suite of business applications, custom-designed for UK local authorities.

Andrew BlakeHerbert, Group Director of Finance and Commerce at the London Borough of Havering, said: ‘Working with Capgemini, we have transformed our back office from being a largely paper-driven bureaucracy into a focused, modern and efficient business model - saving millions of pounds in the process. The first tranche of savings resulting from this transformation is already in the bank. Over the next five years we expect to save at least £15 million in back office cost, helping us protect frontline services for local people while managing large reductions in Government funding. We don’t know of any other local authority in the UK that has successfully managed such a wide-ranging change programme in such a short space of time.’

Capgemini was selected as transformation and IT partner following a rigorous competitive bidding process. Its success stemmed from its proposal to deploy its t-Gov (Transform Government) methodology, which relies on proven techniques and templates to accelerate local government transformation programmes and to systematically eliminate or minimise the risks inherent in major change. Other factors in the choice of Capgemini were its excellent references from other UK councils, its in-depth understanding of the challenges facing Havering, its collaborative style of working and its Rightshore® global delivery model which aims to provide the right combination of cost, quality and expertise.

A key feature of the transformation is the deployment of shared services to Council staff across all departments, bringing more efficient and productive ways of working and providing faster and better information flows within and between departments.  The new IT facilities aim to empower staff at all levels and are especially important for senior staff as Havering moves towards a smaller and leaner management team, with fewer managers having wider responsibilities and multiple skill sets. Support for decision making has been  considerably improved, with monthly paper documentation replaced by overnight online reports providing up-to-the-minute data.

Havering also plans to make its new systems available to other public sector bodies, including health, education and police authorities as well as other councils, in London and beyond, on a commercial shared services basis, generating an additional return on the Council’s investment.

Calum Macleod, Head of Local Government at Capgemini UK, said: ‘Transformation is a hugely over-used word but this is exactly what Havering have achieved for their back-office. There are always challenges in a major project like this and we’d like to pay tribute to the Havering leadership team for driving this project through the Council. Our work with Havering proves once again that very significant savings can be made in the local authority sector without sacrificing front-line services, and indeed while strengthening those services. Our t-Gov approach, which leverages our Lifecycle Services for Oracle Applications, is currently being implemented at a number of other UK councils and we look forward to announcing results as successful as those that have been achieved at Havering.’

Capgemini was awarded “Oracle Global Applications Partner of the Year” for their innovative t-Gov solution at Oracle Openworld 2011. Details at:
http://www.capgemini.com/news-and-events /news/capgemini-receives-oracle-partnern etwork-specialized-global-partner-of-the -year-award-for-oracle-applications/

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organization, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore^®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore^® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Press contact:
Tom Barton
Capgemini UK plc
Tel.:+44 (0)870 238 2491
Email: tom.barton@capgemini.co.uk

To read the full article on The Manufacturer, please click here: IT in manufacturing – Opportunity ahead

Related Links:

• Industry Overview: Manufacturing
• Global Service Line: Business Information Management

IMRG and Capgemini are set to announce results of total Christmas online retail sales on January 19th 2012, and the growing health & beauty sector is expected to have contributed to a year-on-year sales increase.

Last year, the companies’ e-Retail Sales Index indicated that £6.8 billion was spent online in December 2010, a 25 per cent rise compared to the previous Christmas period.

To read the full article on Retail Gazette, please click here: High-end brands boost Feelunique’s Christmas sales

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online Christmas season slow to start
• Industry Overview: Retail

Speakers

Andy Mulholland, global Chief Technology Officer & corporate Vice President, Capgemini Group

Session Title: Are Clouds a Game Change? IT says no; Business says yes!

Date: Wednesday 25 January
Time: 12.05 pm - 12.30 pm

Mark Skilton, global director, Strategy, Global Infrastructure Services, Co-Chair Cloud Computing Work Group, The Open Group Stream: ‘Cloud and virtualisation infrastructure and platforms’

Session Title: ‘Cloud Computing - Time for Delivery. The question is not “if”, but “how, when and where”.

Date: Wednesday 25 January
Time: 14.55 pm - 15.20 pm

Register here to attend the event.

According to Leibel, manufacturers in industries like medical devices and aerospace will use embedded wireless chips and other telematics to track the performance of their products and provide warnings for when products should be serviced. “Larger wireless and 3G networks around the world are allowing for this,” he said.

To read the full article on SearchManufacturingERP, please click here: Cloud computing, mobile ERP, analytics expected to gain traction in 2012

Related Links:

• Solution Overview: ERP Optimisation
• Industry Overview: Manufacturing

To read the full article on SupplyChainDigital, please click here: Making procurement a 2012 priority

Related Links:

• Solutions We Provide: Procurement and Supply Chain

In its continuous resolve to reform the justice system so as to ensure that it is more clearly seen as a public service - working for the local community, the UK government introduced competitive tendering for the country’s prison services. Such a competition would help the government deliver multiple objectives: increase in capacity, value-for-money, service/performance improvement, productivity and innovation. In 2009, the then Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, announced plans to open up competition for the management of five prisons. Birmingham and Wellingborough were chosen after being identified as poor performing, publically run prisons, Buckley Hall and Doncaster had previously competed contracts that were due for renewal while Featherstone 2 was a new prison. With bids invited from the public, private and third sector providers, the Ministry of Justice’ (MoJ) competition policy would result in a current operational public sector prison being transferred to private sector management for the first time in England and Wales. This multi-billion pound competition programme was run by the Major Contracts team in the Ministry of Justice who, in January 2010, after a competitive tender process, appointed Capgemini to act as its independent financial and commercial advisor.

The Solution

Capgemini’s consultants worked as part of an integrated procurement team to support and advise the MoJ in four main areas:

• Design of the contractual payment mechanism
• Design of standard and pre-defined financial models
• Design of the financial evaluation methodology
• Delivery of the final financial evaluation and due diligence

The Result

In March 2011, the Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke announced the result of the competition in a statement to Parliament. Birmingham was privatised; Doncaster and Featherstone 2 were also awarded to private sector firms, with Doncaster let under an innovative Payment by Results pilot scheme. Buckley Hall was kept in the public sector and Wellingborough was withdrawn from the competition. In addition to the impressive financial savings generated by the competition, Capgemini delivered the necessary contractual mechanisms to allow the efficient and effective contract management of the 15 year contracts by the MoJ. These include:

• A clear, robust and detailed set of financial models at each prison that underpin the overall price offered by each successful bidder to give the MoJ the necessary transparency and understanding of the contractor’s baseline costs so as to monitor and control future prices
• A payment mechanism designed to allow the overall price to change in response to future service changes without having to be overly reliant on the formal contractual change processes.

In 2009 it was announced that the British Ministry of Justice (MoJ) would be letting the third generation of outsourced Prisoner Escort Custody Services (PECS) contracts for England and Wales. Managed by private sector providers since 1994, the scope of these contracts includes the secure movement of prisoners from police stations and prisons, their safe and secure custody whilst in court and their return to prison. This competition programme was run by the Major Contracts team in the MoJ who, in January 2010, after a competitive tender process, appointed Capgemini Consulting to act as their independent financial and commercial advisors.

The Solution

Capgemini’s consultants worked as part of an integrated procurement team to support and advise the MoJ in five main areas:

• Strategic modelling

• Design of the contractual payment mechanism

• Design of standard financial models for bidders

• Delivery of the final financial evaluation and due diligence

In addition, before the competition started, Capgemini supported MoJ in engaging stakeholders from courts, police and prisons, as well as existing and potential providers, in an open process of exploring how the service could be improved and made more cost-effective. This early engagement was designed to encourage innovation and facilitate new entrants to the supplier market.

The Result

In March 2011, the award of the new PECS contracts was announced, with innovative new arrangements for escorting prisoners within England and Wales forecast to save the Government £261m, a saving of 20% over the life of the seven-year contract.

In addition to the impressive financial savings generated by the competition, Capgemini delivered the necessary contractual mechanisms to allow the efficient and effective contract management of the seven-year contracts by the MoJ. These include:

• a clear, robust and detailed set of financial models for each geographical lot, that underpin the overall price offered by each successful bidder and give the MoJ the necessary transparency and understanding of the contractor’s baseline costs to monitor and control future prices

• a payment mechanism designed to allow the overall price to change in response to future service changes without having to be overly reliant on the formal contractualchange processes

• a streamlined performance mechanism, embedded within the commercial arrangements, that incentivises contractors financially to meet performance requirements.

To read the full article on The Economist, please click here: Too much buzz

Related Links:

• Global Service Line: Business Information Management
• Press Release: Capgemini launches Social Media Management (SMM) managed service to deliver business value from social media

Why SaaS has at last become a big-league pound-stretcher
Some of you will be facing the new year with the challenging prospect of satisfying increasing demands for all sorts of new systems and services, not to mention the inevitable applications backlog.

And doing so within budget limits that are yet again stringent.

Despite which, there are reasons to be cheerful.

One of them is the proof we saw last year that Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is now mature enough to play in the big league, delivering core, business-critical applications for major organisations, and at the same time helping CIOs stretch the IT pound.

SaaS was far from new in 2011.

I have mentioned it a number of times over the last three years, and outlined its benefits in terms of speed, agility, flexibility, scalability, mobility, low total cost of ownership, and ability to support innovation.

I also covered the risks of putting services out in the cloud that were hitherto kept firmly within your firewall.

My advice at the time was to start small, and to gain experience of cloud computing along with the SaaS model by experimenting with less critical niche applications, ones where disappointment wouldn’t necessarily mean high business impact.

It was in my opinion, good advice at the time.

But times change, and it is now clear that even the largest organisations should consider SaaS for at least some of their core applications.

One factor is the massive expansion of offerings, bandwidth and activity in the SaaS space, from established players such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.

Don’t forget services from companies with a shorter pedigree in business IT, such as Amazon and Google), not to mention the huge success of dedicated service providers such as salesforce.com.

Even more significant for you is the sea-change that has taken place over the last year or so in the amount of documented customer experience, from UK companies winning great results from SaaS and others taking the plunge into the cloud for the first time.

Telegraph Media Group, publishers of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, has reported on the success of it new SaaS subscription system, mentioning a positive return on our investment in months rather than years and highlighting the fact that it had achieved a state-of the-art system in just six months, plus other key benefits such as greater speed and flexibility in launching new products.

Also this year, major steel-maker Tata Steel Europe decided to move all its email systems for its 28,000 users to a new SaaS model based on Office 365.

The company was confident of saving over £1 million per year by doing so, but costs were only part of its motivation.

The opportunity to keep abreast of the latest version of the software, without a disruptive and expensive migration every few years, was also important.

Mathieu Clerkx, its Chief Information Officer, said: “This move to an enterprise ready cloud communications platform will significantly improve our ability to respond rapidly to the challenges and opportunities of today’s market place. It will also be a significant contributor to our plans to reduce our overall IT operating costs.”

The public sector too has been rapidly getting the SaaS message.

In 2012 we expect the birth of the UK Government’s G-Cloud program.

Announcing a move to messaging-as-a-service (including email), one UK police service said: “By moving to a pay-per-use structure for our messaging, we are bringing our IT costs into closer alignment with our communications needs as they evolve, and making very important sustainable cost savings at a time when saving money is vital, and with the kind of reliability, security and service quality that our officers and staff demand and need.”

The reasons why 2011 was, and 2012 will be, the year of SaaS, are many.

The sheer logic of buying only those services needed and buying them on a pay-as-you-go basis is hard to refute. This is especially the case for those many organisations foreseeing significant amounts of change in the years ahead.

Another strong attraction is to get a new system up and running quickly and without a massive upfront investment in money or scarce IT resources.

But whatever the motivation, the net result is that SaaS is a concept that has now come into its rightful inheritance as a major player on the corporate scene.

SaaS is no longer limited to niche, non-critical applications in big companies or to general applications within SMEs who either don’t have or don’t want a large in-house IT team.

It is moving into the big league, with big benefits, including big savings, on offer within short procurement and implementation timescales, and at risks increasingly seen as minimal. And that, surely, is reason alone to be cheerful.

Christine Hodgson is Chairman of Capgemini UK

Related Links:

• More from Christine: The good CIO’s guide to business-critical tech

China already represents an important source of revenue for some French state-controlled nuclear companies. French engineering group Areva SA, earned about 10% of its €9.1 billion in revenue in China in 2010. It has contracts to supply China with two reactors and recently signed a partnership with China National Nuclear Corp. to seek to optimise the Chinese company’s existing nuclear plants.

But investing in China’s nuclear development presents a conundrum. China is likely to become a global atomic power, says Colette Lewiner, an energy expert at consulting group Capgemini. “The issue being debated is to what lengths France should go to aid this process.”

To read the full article on the Wall Street Journal please click here: French train China nuclear experts

Related Links:

• Global Service Line: Smart Energy Services

Capgemini’s decision was further supported by Andy McAfee, MIT’s Principal Research Scientist for Digital Business, view that, “analog companies eventually are going to get swept aside by digital companies. It’s my firmest belief about the future of business.”

While Bonnet and McAfee are careful to avoid the S-word, “social” in our discussions because for most executives it still equates to happy hour, social technologies are an important aspect of their research.  Bonnet explains, “it’s becoming a powerful and common word so we’re not fighting it anymore.” Indeed, executives are still terrified of their employees wasting time on social activities, but the visionaries are embracing social as a competitive differentiator.

Here are 5 major reasons why:

• The company’s innovation culture is weak

Does your product or service trigger a yawn or a smile? Are you producing products that quickly resonate with your target market?  Do you have a list of hundreds or better thousands of customers that will buy anything you create?  Instead of expensive and generally worthless focus groups, a true Social Business provides a digital platform for employees, partners, suppliers and customers to give input on new and existing products. 

• The competition has a rich, vibrant community of customers – some of them yours

We are present again at one of these significant turning points in communication – just like how the telephone revolution, email revolution, and internet revolution helped business better communicate with their customers. But now the revolution is about building online communities to connect with customers to foster loyalty, trust and engagement.  Those companies ignoring communities will soon find their customers moving to better neighborhoods. 

• Increasingly, consumers are engaging brands with mobile devices

“We saw two companies in the same sector – insurance in this case – create mobile applications but with two completely different outcomes. The first company tried to simply replicate information found on their website. But the other company took an end-to-end approach and was able to get their prospect to sign a contract on the spot because he had access to all the back office information,” said McAfee giving just one example of how mobile is a competitive differentiator.

Companies will need to quickly adopt a mobile strategy that fits their own set of business use cases in order to keep up with how customers are making purchases. 

• Integrating digital Information is allowing companies to gain global synergies while remaining locally responsive.

‘”We saw some really good examples of people in hotels and entertainment companies, for instance, where they integrated customer data from their CRM system, with data from social media, with location based mobile data to start recommending offers,” McAfee explained when referring to a best-in-class example of how companies can integrate data for increased sales.

We’ve all experienced a customer service call where we have to dial in our personal information only to have the data disappear once a live agent jumps on the phone.  This is but a small example of the overall problem that most companies have.  The role of the digital leader is to now meld all of the bits of information they have about their customers and to create better experiences and sales opportunities. 

• Companies need a social business platform for a common view of customers and products.

The MIT and CapGemini report states that: “The most fundamental technology need for digital transformation is a digital platform of integrated data and processes. Large successful companies often operate in silos, each with their own systems, data definitions, and business processes. Generating a common view of customers or products can be very difficult. Without the common view, advanced approaches to customer engagement or process optimisation cannot occur.”

While social interactions are fundamentally a human function, organisations need a digital platform (like SharePoint, Salesforce.com, Yammer, SocialText or Jive) to facilitate social interactions on a global scale. For our purposes, the technology enables the social interaction, but the social interaction shapes how the technology is used.  Each feed off each other until the organisation becomes more effective. 

But why haven’t more companies jumped on the social bandwagon? According to Bonnet: “One of the key findings in the study was that one of the main barriers to achieving a successful social transformation – 77% of the time was lack of skills. Lack of social media skills, advanced mobility application skills and so on and so forth.”

Still, one-third of the companies they surveyed have an effective digital transformation program in place.  The other two-thirds need to quickly get their act together or risk falling behind. Perhaps this is why Capgemini is one of the first top tier consulting firms to change course and build a social business practice.  Indeed, who could blame them?

To read the full article on Business Insider, please click here: 5 reasons why Capgemini just re-positioned their management consulting practice to focus on social business

Related Links:

• Thought Leadership publication: Social Media Management: Managing Trust and Transparency in the Social World

Such aggressive numbers may be self-serving, but the ranks of public cloud boosters are growing. Joe believes “the telcos are going to be huge” players in public cloud services. Moreover, he says, in some engagements he is “hard-pressed to come up with a reason to be in your own data centre anymore.”

In economic times like these, up-front cost is clearly a factor. Conventional wisdom says that sunk cost in infrastructure will prevent enterprises from migrating to the cloud. Who would simply abandon all that stuff? But that formulation changes when rack upon rack of servers reach the end of their useful lives. You can gear up for another major capital investment in hardware -- or turn to a public cloud service provider instead.

To read the full article on InfoWorld please click here: 2011: When cloud computing shook the data centre

Related Links:

• Thought Leadership Publication: The Government Cloud

Roodenrijs says that they think it’s too time-consuming and so they concentrate “on building something than analysing whether the quality is good enough.” The result is that they end up destroying what they wish to achieve. He says other issues arise too. For example, you can test the cloud migration at its different stages, but this doesn’t necessarily make things better. He therefore suggests that organisations should ask themselves a number of questions, which include the following:

• Is the functionality of the cloud-based software applications the same as if they were on-premise? There may be no point in undertaking a cloud transformation if the software functionality is less than that offered by more traditional on-premise applications.
• What is the functionality that I am receiving by going to the cloud? It’s also important to make sure that the SaaS offerings provide what an organisation’s employees need for their jobs and therefore make them more productive.
• How does it all fit in with my other systems? This is to ensure that the cloud-based systems can be integrated with any traditional IT systems that remain in-house, or with non-public and hybrid cloud systems.
• What levels of security are in place, and who controls them? This is because moving to the cloud represents a form of outsourcing, and with this comes a certain amount of a loss of control over an organisation’s IT real estate.
• Where are the cloud servers and my data? Data protection compliance is an issue that needs to be considered, and some organisations like those in the financial services industry may have other legal obligations and industry-related regulations to comply with.

To read the full article on CloudPro please click here: Developers warn of testing times for cloud adoption

Related Links:

• Global Service Line: Testing
• Capgemini Publication: Cloud Readiness Assessment

Rob says, “CIOs need to look at the requirements capture techniques and approaches that utilise visualisation and prototyping.”

To read the full article on CIO UK, please click here: Make your requirements functional

He cites a recent example where an engineer had an unusual problem with some Unix code. He posted the question on Yammer, and within two hours had an answer from someone in the company he didn’t know, in a department of the business he barely knew existed.

To read the full article on Reuters, please click here: How social networks beat email

Related Links:

• Read the original coverage in FT.com: The end of email?
• Thought Leadership: Social Media Management: Managing Trust and Transparency in the Social World
• Read more from Andy: The CTO Blog

“People could be worried about job security, pensions, terms and conditions, their working hours, their career prospects: we try and build a discussion about all of these into the transition and talk to staff as early as is realistically possible,” says Ingram. “When a workforce is in transition there can be a terrible feeling of having this done to you, rather than with you.”

For some, working for the outsourcing provider becomes a long-term career move. Capgemini has celebrated anniversaries this year with staff who joined the company 20 years ago with the now obsolete National Coal Board and ICI. “We say to people: ‘Your history is important and is part of our history’. It’s not just about them working for us.”

So while the TUPE part of the process should ensure the mechanics of the transition work well, being able to ask questions of your new employer and find out more about them will ease the trickier, emotional side of the deal. “The natural instinct is to idealise the past and demonise the future,” concludes Ingram, “but the past was never quite as good and the future is never quite as bad. The key is to get past that.”

To read the full article on Personnel Today, please click here: Working for an outsourcing company

Related Links:

• Outsourcing: An overview

Capgemini Group won the award thanks to the strength of its collaboration on application lifecycle and testing thought-leadership initiatives, joint solutions such as the TMap® Accelerator for HP Quality Center, Go-To-Market activities and demonstrative results with customer wins in both the public and private sectors. Of note were key reports launched jointly with HP including this year’s World Quality Report and the new Application Landscape Report. The award is recognition of the continued strength of the HP-Capgemini collaboration, and follows Capgemini Group’s HP Software Alliance Partner of the Year award for EMEA in 2010.

Murat Aksu, VP, Global Head of the HP Software Alliance, Capgemini said: “We are delighted to be recognised with this important award from one of our key strategic partners and to receive validation as one of the premier systems integrator for HP Software in EMEA. The award is testament to the dedication of our teams and our collaborative efforts to deliver thought-leadership and tailored solutions that have provided significant customer results to business challenges. We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with HP Software in the years to come.”

The HP Software Awards are given to partners and resellers every year to recognise outstanding achievement, and take place each year during the HP Software Partner Executive Summit.

About Capgemini and Sogeti

With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, The Capgemini Group is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model. Sogeti, its wholly-owned subsidiary, is a leading provider of local professional services, bringing together more than 20,000 professionals in 15 countries and is present in over 100 locations in Europe, the US and India.

Together, Capgemini and Sogeti have developed innovative, business-driven quality assurance (QA) and testing services, combining best-in-breed testing methodologies (TMap® and TPI®) and the global delivery model, Rightshore®, to help organisations achieve their testing and QA goals. Capgemini and Sogeti have created one of the largest dedicated testing practices in the world, with over 8,200 test professionals and a further 12,500 application specialists, notably through a common center of excellence with testing specialists developed in India.
For more information, please visit:
www.capgemini.com
www.sogeti.com

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini.

TMap®, TMap NEXT®, TPI® and TPI NEXT® are registered trademarks of Sogeti.

Capgemini press contact:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
Email: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Sogeti press contact:
Therese Sinter
Tel:  +46 703 61 46 21
Email: therese.sinter@sogeti.com

And as workers were increasingly reading their emails on mobile devices with expensive data charges, reducing the volume of email could cut costs.

To read the full article on FT.com, please click here: The end of email?

Related Links:

• Thought Leadership: Social Media Management: Managing Trust and Transparency in the Social World
• Read more from Andy: The CTO Blog

To read the full article on Hostway, please click here: Hull named the ecommerce capital of England

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online Christmas season slow to start
• Industry Overview: Retail

Meanwhile, the Office for National Statistics reported in its latest Retail Sales Bulletin that non-store retailing rose by 19.1% in value and by 18.9% in volume in November. It said this showed “consumers were buying a significant amount more from non-store retailers than they did a year ago and also spending more.” Prices in the sector are thought to have risen by 0.1% on the same time last year, showing, said the ONS, that the growth was mainly down to the amount bought rather than price rises.

To read the full article on Internet Retailing, please click here: Online sales rise in November: ONS and IMRG figures

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online Christmas season slow to start
• Industry Overview: Retail

Capgemini’s messaging-as-a-service for the UK police force is a case in point. Steve says his organisation is “focussing on where the real action is, i.e provisioning of business services”. This messaging capability is based in the cloud and the client only pays for the number of mailboxes they use. This includes the necessary security and security requirements, which were the prerequisites for selling into the market. 

To read the full article on Outsource please click here: Heads In The Cloud

Related Links:

• Solution Overview: Outsourcing
• Publication: The Government Cloud

“Don’t worry too much about the number of Twitter followers. You can count a lot of stuff but how valuable is it?” asked Robinson.

“They might be a spambot [a Twitter user that is not a real person but an automated computer program sending spam] and completely irrelevant to the type of people you want to hire. Try to count the things that matter.”

To read the full article on Recruiter, please click here: The FIRM: Recruiters must avoid directionless pursuit of Twitter followers

Related Links:

• Solution Overview: HR

The Index was up 11% on November 2010, just below IMRG and Capgemini’s forecast of 12-14% growth for Q4, but building on a very strong performance last year (+22% in Nov 2010). It is worth noting that the early snowfall in November last year most likely boosted early online sales, as people unable to access the high street shopped online instead. Consumers this year may feel more confident in receiving their deliveries on time if they order in December.

This dip in online sales growth mirrors wider retail trends. According to the British Retail Consortium, November saw the high-street suffer its biggest annual fall in sales since May this year. In the wake of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the economy, it would appear that British shoppers are exercising greater caution in their purchasing decisions online as well as on the high street.

In terms of specific sectors clothing has been hit especially hard, recording just 8% YOY growth; the lowest YOY figures since May 2009 and in stark contrast with the 34% growth reported in November last year. The mild weather last month (compared with the deep freeze this time last year) has clearly impacted upon consumers’ desire to update their winter wardrobes unnecessarily.

Other sectors reporting disappointing sales include alcohol, which reported a YOY growth of just 2%. November is traditionally a busy time for alcohol sales as Brits stock up early in preparation for a boozy festive season.  With online sales down 20% on October, the travel sector was hit the hardest. Travel has seen a decline throughout the year, but with shoppers saving up for Christmas presents, expensive holidays are the first luxury to be put on hold until the New Year.

However, there was more positive news in other sectors. The electrical sector, which has performed badly throughout 2011, has seen an unexpected return to form, reporting growth of 14% YOY, and an impressive 47% MOM. Health and beauty also enjoyed a solid month, jumping 30% YOY and increasing a significant 63% on October. Both these sectors see a spike during the run up to Christmas, as savvy shoppers jump online to purchase popular electrical devices and cosmetics/perfumes for presents. 

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini says: “While these lower than expected growth figures show that online is not immune to the economic slowdown, the shift from the high-street to online continues. A growth of just 11% is very disappointing for this time of year as traditionally shoppers start their Christmas shopping early to spread the cost of presents over several pay cheques. This does follow a particularly busy November last year, but nevertheless it is clearly a sign of consumers tightening their belts.”

Tina Spooner, Chief Information Officer at IMRG said: “While the growth in e-retail sales in November is weaker than expected, this is on the back of a very strong performance in November 2010 when the Index recorded growth of 22%. With consumers suffering the biggest squeeze on the cost of living and disposable incomes in over 50 years, it appears the strain on high street retailers may now also be affecting the online retail sector.

“Clothing sales were particularly poor in November, no doubt compounded by the mild weather, as consumers delayed updating their winter wardrobes. However, online electrical and health & beauty retailers fared better last month, with sales up 14% and 30%, respectively. It is also worth noting that we have not seen a repeat of the widespread snow disruption that heavily impacted upon deliveries last year, so consumers may be more confident in leaving their shopping a bit later this Christmas.”

Notes to Editors
About IMRG
IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) is the UK’s industry association for e-retail. Formed in 1990, IMRG is setting and maintaining pragmatic and robust e-retail standards to enable fast-track industry growth, and facilitates its community of members with practical help, information, tools, guidance and networking. Consumers can be confident when dealing with IMRG Members because all interact in an environment where they are encouraged to operate using methods that are Honest, Decent, Legal, Truthful and Fair, and have undertaken to not bring the industry into disrepute. The strength of IMRG is the collective and cooperative power of its members. For more information please visit http://www.imrg.org/ or email membership@imrg.org 

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About the ‘IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index’
The IMRG Capgemini Index, which was started in April 2000, tracks ‘online sales’, which we define as ‘transactions completed fully, including payment, via interactive channels’ from any location, including in-store.  These sales are predominantly internet-based today, but the Index remains ready to record e-retail sales conducted via whatever interactive channels the market may embrace in the future.

Around one hundred e-retailers now regularly contribute data to the IMRG Capgemini Index, including Airport Parking & Hotels Ltd, Amara, Arcadia Group (Burton, Top Man, Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Wallis, Miss Selfridge), Ask Direct, ASOS.com, Bank, Berry Bros & Rudd,  Binends.com, Blacks, Boden.co.uk, Boohoo.com, Boots Direct, Boutique to You, Brandosa.co.uk, Brora, Buyagift.com, BuyItDirect.co.uk, Carphone Warehouse, Charles Clinkard, Charles Tyrwhitt,  Clarks, Cloggs, Co-operative Travel, Crocus.co.uk, Dabs.com, Damart, Debenhams, Ethical Superstore, Figleaves.com, Firebox, First Choice, Freemans Grattan Holdings, Furniture123, Game, Gameplay, Gamestation, Getting Personal.co.uk, Greenfingers.com, Home & Cook, House of Fraser, JD Sports, J D Williams, John Lewis Partnership, Ladderstore.com, Lastminute.com, LK Bennett, Lookfantastic.com, Lyco Direct, M and M Direct, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Millets, My Tuxedo, Naked Wines, NaturalCollection.com, New Look, Next, Peacocks, Perfect Handbags, PetPlanet.co.uk, Philip Kingsley, PIXmania, Prezzybox.com, QVC, Redfoot Revolution, Richer Sounds, Sainsbury’s, Scales Express, Schuh, Scott, Shoe-Shop.com, Shop Direct Home Shopping (Additions, Great Universal, Kays, Littlewoods, Empire, Woolworths,Very, Isme), Serenata Flowers, Size, Sofa and Home, Sunshine.co.uk, Tesco.com, The Fragrance Shop, The Health Supermarket, The Natural Store, TUI UK, Turton Wines, Waitrose, Warehouse, Wilkinson Hardware & Wynsors World of Shoes.

Meanwhile, electrical goods saw sales growth of 14 per cent year-on-year and 47 per cent month-over-month, as customers flocked online to buy presents ahead of the festive period.

Overall, e-retail sales were up ten per cent on last year, which was lower than some forecasts but nevertheless built on the “very strong” growth seen in November 2010.
To read the full article on MyHermes, please click here: Xmas gift delivery drives upturn in online electrical and beauty sales

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online Christmas season slow to start
• Industry Overview: Retail

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini, said that the firm had expected it be higher because many consumers buy goods online before December.

“A growth of just 11 per cent is very disappointing for this time of year as traditionally shoppers start their Christmas shopping early to spread the cost of presents over several pay cheques,” he said.

The figures from November 2010 were up 22 per cent from 2009, which IMRG chief information officer Tina Spooner said was driven by the huge snowfalls that swept across the UK last year, which had not occurred this year.

To read the full article on V3.co.uk, please click here: Mixed news for online retailers as sales grow but remain slow

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online Christmas season slow to start
• Industry Overview: Retail

Early snowfall last year (pictured) is also thought to have boosted early online sales in 2010 because consumers were less able to access the high street. Plus consumer confidence in deliveries could mean people are leaving ordering online until later.

To read the full article on New Media Age, please click here: Shift from high street to online continues but growth slows

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online Christmas season slow to start
• Industry Overview: Retail

To read the full article on CIO magazine, please click here: A look back at 2011 for CIOs

Related Links:

• Capgemini Career: Overview
• Solution Overview: HR
  

The event was a collaboration between Microsoft, technology services firm Capgemini and apprenticeship provider QA Apprenticeships.
To read the full article on Computing, please click here: QA Apprenticeships says 85 per cent of its schemes lead to full-time employment

Related Links:

• Programme Overview: Apprenticeships
• Press Release: Capgemini launches its first apprenticeships in the north as IT demand from banking sector booms

The move follows the extension of Capgemini’s outsourcing contract with the MPS last year until December 2015.

ISO 20000 is regarded as the international standard for IT service management, and ensures an organisation’s processes match up to international best practise.

This year, Capgemini’s services to the MPS have also seen it gain certification for ITIL maturity level 3.5, CMMI level 3 for IT project management, and ISO 27001 certification for security management.

Steve Dain, Capgemini account director for MPS, told Computing that certification is becoming increasingly important to his customers. “We are seeing more organisations in both the public and private sector looking for their suppliers and partners to have this accreditation.”

The deal signed last year aims to deliver £43m in cost savings to the MPS.

To read the full article on Computing, please click here: Capgemini gains accreditation for services to police force

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini’s IT service to Metropolitan Police gains world-class recognition
• Solution Overview: Outsourcing

The certification was awarded by the British Standards Institution (BSI), the UK member of the International Standards Organisation ISO, following an intensive programme of reviews and inspections carried out during 2011 by BSI auditors. The certification is the latest in a series of independent accreditations for Capgemini’s work at MPS which also include ITIL maturity level 3.5 in all process areas, CMMI level 3 for IT project management, and ISO 27001 certification for security management.

Dean Grant, Vice President and MPS Client Director at Capgemini, said: ‘This certification reflects the hard work and commitment of our teams supporting the Metropolitan Police, and provides independent, objective evidence that the service we provide to this important client is truly world class.’

Capgemini became a prime IT supplier to MPS in 2005 and last year, its outsourcing contract with MPS was renewed and extended until December 2015 in a new contract that is aimed at providing £43 million of cost savings to the MPS in supporting the work of London’s 52,000 police officers, staff and community support officers.
ISO/BSI inspections and audits were carried out at the three main Capgemini UK sites involved in the company’s work for MPS, and involved checking some 313 controls and processes. All requirements were met, and attained no non-conformances, a result described by the BSI as ‘rare and impressive’.

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Press contact:
Tom Barton
Capgemini UK plc
Tel.:+44 (0)870 238 2491
Email: tom.barton@capgemini.co.uk

We would like to apologise for the difficulties some Royal Mail customers are experiencing with a number of the applications on the website. We very much appreciate that this is the busiest trading period of the year for many of our customers.

The Parcelforce Worldwide and Post Office’s websites are largely unaffected by these difficulties although there have been issues with a small number of services. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

Performance continually being reviewed

The performance of the Royal Mail website is continually under review by Capgemini, who manages it on behalf of Royal Mail. Capgemini has advised that there are currently problems with the SmartStamp and Online Postage applications.

The majority of our SmartStamp and Online Postage customers - approximately 30,000 in total - are not affected by the current problems. Difficulties are being experienced, however, by some SmartStamp and Online Postage customers. We have therefore taken the decision to maintain the SmartStamp and Online Postage applications as it is such a busy time of year for so many customers. Capgemini is working hard to return the website to normal.

Problems being addressed

The technical problems mean that for around 600 customers we have debited their payment cards twice as they sought to repeat a transaction which the system told them had failed. The estimated average additional amount is around £50. As the records of those impacted customers are reviewed, they will be contacted as a matter of urgency and their accounts will be credited in full. They will also be provided  with an additional payment of £25 as a gesture of goodwill.

Some customers have also paid for postage which has then not printed out or have not been able to see the result of a top up to their pre-pay account. Where this is happening, or where other problems are occurring, we are fixing those problems on an individual basis. These specific payment issues do not affect customers using Online Postage via Paypal.

Royal Mail and Capgemini would like to sincerely apologise for the disruption at this key time of the year for our customers. We do really appreciate the level of inconvenience this is causing some of our SmartStamp and Online Postage customers.

We will keep you updated about our progress as we strive to restore services to normal.

Moya Greene
Chief Executive
Royal Mail Group

Paul Hermelin
Chief Executive Officer
Capgemini Group

Robert wants good, ground-breaking labour relations here, if the public authorities and unions worked together. “They could maximise the readiness of people being made redundant for the next stage of their working life,” he says. “It should become a key part of the consultation process.”

Capgemini: mislabelling public sector is ‘horrific’: Capgemini has a history of employing ex-public sector workers, through winning outsourced contracts for government departments, and also recruiting extensively from privatised public utilities such as British Gas. The company has invested in outplacement and transition coaching for many years, to ensure colleagues understand the working culture and are suited to the roles they are taking on.

Robert believes labelling public sector workers as unproductive, uncreative and over-indulged to be “a horrific generalisation”. “You have to look at public sector roles in their proper context,” he says. “For instance, some parts of the civil service have working processes that are extremely thorough and consultative. Progress may appear slow compared to how things get done in the private sector, but it has to be that way. People working there are highly skilled and should be judged on the effort they put in, not the pace of progress they are constrained by.” Meanwhile, he says there is plenty of innovation and cost-effective working practice in the health and education sectors.

Ingram does sometimes see people portraying themselves in a negative light in interviews because they have a tendency to focus on the change they have been through, rather than talking up their future vision and what they aim to achieve. “I want to see fire and passion for what an individual wants to do next. If all they can refer to is what they did in the past and how the change has unsettled them, I am not going to be very impressed.”

Employers understand individuals post-redundancy lose confidence in themselves and can’t imagine going out and getting a new job. “That is why outplacement is so valuable if change has been enforced,” says Ingram. “It helps people develop a positive new mindset. They go from thinking, ‘I’m an out-of-work payments professional’ to saying, ‘I’ve got accounting skills, customer service skills, team-working skills. I’d do really well in an insurance company or bank.’ It is very powerful to give people a sense of what they can do next, rather than leave them to dwell on what they have lost.”

To read the full article on HR Magazine, please click here: Outplacement: Public sector employers could help with ‘career transition’, but private sector should shed its prejudices

Related Links:

• Service Overview: HR
• Industry Overview: Public Sector

To read the full article on FT.com, please click here: Energy costs: Now top priority

Related Links:

• Merlin: An Overview

“Many technologies are evolutionary when applied to the existing IT environment and so decisions are based on relatively low-impact issues; that is, a minor improvement to operating existing servers with a strong cost pay-off.”

“But it is in the relatively new areas of business analytics, social customer relationship management and mobility that it really matters.”

To read the full article on FT.com, please click here: IT departments must deliver more for less

Related Links:

• The CTO Blog

The programme will involve migrating legacy data warehouses into the new EDW and providing new data-mining and analytical tools to support Unilever management at all levels in achieving fast, informed and fact-based decision-making based on comprehensive and up-to-date data. It is also expected to deliver significant sustainable cost savings both in IT and across Unilever business operations worldwide.

Willem Eelman, Unilever’s Global Chief Information Officer, said: “This programme is one of our top strategic initiatives, not just for IT but for the Unilever business worldwide. It will transform the way our businesses around the world access and use information, bringing enhanced insight and consistency. Capgemini was the natural partner for us given their strong global Business Information Management experience and understanding of our business.”

The programme reinforces Capgemini’s position as one of the world’s leading Business Information Management service providers.  Capgemini was positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the leaders’ quadrant for Global Business Intelligence and Performance Management Service Providers^[1] . Capgemini’s global Business Information Management (BIM) service line was established in 2009 with the aim of serving its global customers better, and brings together over 7,000 specialist consultants supporting a global BIM delivery model.

Paul Nannetti, Capgemini’s Global Leader for Business Information Management, said: “Unilever is already one of our most important global customers and we are delighted to be working with them to deliver this new and critical programme which aims to release the full power of information to the benefit of their business. We look forward to applying our experience of global BI transformations to this programme combining our skills in technology, programme management and business consulting.”

Capgemini was selected by Unilever following competitive bids from several leading multinational IT providers. The main reasons include Capgemini’s in-depth knowledge of global BIM challenges and proven BIM methodology, its track record in major BIM assignments and in the consumer goods sector, and its five-year history of successful engagements at Unilever in finance business process outsourcing. Capgemini’s proven commitment to sustainability, matching that of Unilever, was a further important point in favour.

Capgemini will deploy its Rightshore® global delivery model on the Unilever programme. The Capgemini team working on the project will be led from the UK and based at a number of locations around the world including Continental Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific, and with core support from a development centre in India.

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organization, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Press contact:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
Tom Barton
Capgemini UK plc
Tel.:+44 (0)870 238 2491
Email: tom.barton@capgemini.co.uk

“The SAPs and Oracles of the world are trying to adapt their existing software to the cloud, which is extremely difficult and time consuming,” says Joe Coyle, CTO of Capgemini North America, a consulting and outsourcing firm that helps enterprises deploy cloud services. He argues that the process of putting these applications in the cloud is not difficult, but getting them to take advantage of the elastic nature of the cloud, is.

“Getting an SAP application to know there is more compute power available when it needs it, is the challenge,” Coyle says. Until those applications are reworked to understand what is dynamically available to them, they will lag behind the SaaS leaders, Coyle says.

The traditional, old-school telecom carriers are sometimes seen as dinosaurs, but Coyle says they shouldn’t be discounted. “Just think of who controls all the bandwidth, right? It becomes a no brainer then,” Capgemini’s Coyle says.

AT&T, British Telecom and Verizon lead the pack of carriers in the cloud to some degree, but in terms of building out reliable IaaS-focused data centers, Verizon is the most advanced, Coyle says. He argues that the point of the Terremark purchase was not the extra data centre footprint, but the management services that Terremark wraps around its IaaS.

Managed services are where the real money lies for cloud vendors, says Coyle, adding that the Amazons of the world are driving prices down so low that the carriers will not be able to compete on raw compute power alone.

“IaaS companies are starting to realise they have to offer these managed services - or at least create APIs so you can have management software plug in and monitor these clouds like you do your internal assets -- to get into the enterprise and pull in their next level of business,” Coyle says.

To read the full article on CIO magazine, please click here: Cloud computing disrupts the vendor landscape

Related Links:

• Solution Overview: Technology
• Thought Leadership: Records Management and the Cloud
• Capgemini Publication: An Early View of Cloud Computing

To read the full article on Consultant-news, please click here: Capgemini wins award for financial management services

Related News

• Press Release: Capgemini awarded Globalisation Excellence Award in Financial Management Services by global research firm Frost & Sullivan

Willem Eelman, Unilever’s Global Chief Information Officer, said: “This programme is one of our top strategic initiatives, not just for IT but for the Unilever business worldwide. It will transform the way our businesses around the world access and use information, bringing enhanced insight and consistency. Capgemini was the natural partner for us given their strong global Business Information Management experience and understanding of our business.”

Paul Nannetti, Capgemini’s Global Leader for Business Information Management, said: “Unilever is already one of our most important global customers and we are delighted to be working with them to deliver this new and critical programme.”

To read the full article on ComputerWorldUK, please click here: Unilever picks Capgemini for global enterprise data warehouse project

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini is selected by Unilever for Major Global Transformation Programme
• Solution Overview: Business Information Management

Capgemini will provide SoCalGas with a spectrum of advanced meter project services including developing processes for and staffing a project management office, developing detailed technical and business requirements for the project, managing multiple system releases and developing project strategies for the test and organizational change management aspects of the project. In addition, Capgemini will provide support to the systems integration, architecture, testing, and deployment efforts.

To read the full article on Consultant-news, please click here: California gas company awards smart metering contract to Capgemini

Related Links:

• Press Release: Southern California gas company awards Smart Metering contract to Capgemini
• Industry Overview: Oil and Gas
  

The Ovum Services Guide: Outsourced Testing benchmarks software and systems testing services providers across the world. Ovum bases its study on 20 key criteria ranging from cost and value, service portfolio, domain expertise, innovation and talent pool. Ovum benchmarked 13 software and systems testing services providers, ranking Capgemini Group at number one, ahead of other major players in the market.

Ovum noted in particular how Capgemini Group works collaboratively with customers at an operational level in joint customer-Capgemini/Sogeti teams to agree Service Level Agreements and Key Performance Indicators to combine decision making, and share accountability. Capgemini Group was also noted for its ability to accommodate the linguistic and cultural requirements of its customers, a result of a high proportion of Capgemini Group’s testing practice being based onshore or nearshore – enabling local teams to assimilate with and work alongside the customer’s own IT professionals.

Hans van Waayenburg, Leader of the Testing Global Services Line said “We are delighted to have been recognised by Ovum as heading the leaders board for testing, ahead of tough competition. We have just marked 25 years of providing leading quality assurance and testing services. From small beginnings in 1986 in Sogeti Netherlands, our world-class testing service has been growing at a rate of over 29% per year, with a sizeable combined team of Sogeti and Capgemini dedicated testers, active in nearly 40 countries. Our aim then and now has always been to help clients lower their costs of new and existing IT applications and to enable faster delivery with higher quality.”

Dr. Alexander Simkin, Lead Analyst at Ovum and author of the study said: “For a vendor of Capgemini Group’s size, its ability to build deep, enduring customer relationships with its testing customers is impressive. No other testing services vendor has managed to establish a global presence and strong connections with its customers the way Capgemini Group has.”

About Capgemini and Sogeti
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, The Capgemini Group is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model. Sogeti, its wholly-owned subsidiary, is a leading provider of local professional services, bringing together more than 20,000 professionals in 15 countries and is present in over 100 locations in Europe, the US and India.

Together, Capgemini and Sogeti have developed innovative, business-driven quality assurance (QA) and testing services, combining best-in-breed testing methodologies (TMap® and TPI®) and the global delivery model, Rightshore®, to help organisations achieve their testing and QA goals. Capgemini and Sogeti have created one of the largest dedicated testing practices in the world, with over 8,200 test professionals and a further 12,500 application specialists, notably through a common center of excellence with testing specialists developed in India.

For more information, please visit:
www.capgemini.com/testing
www.sogeti.com/testing
www.ovum.com/media center

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini.

TMap®, TMap NEXT®, TPI® and TPI NEXT® are registered trademarks of Sogeti.

Capgemini Group press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
Therese Sinter
Tel:  +46 703 61 46 21
Email: therese.sinter@sogeti.com

For the Excellence in Globalisation Award, the following criteria were used to benchmark Capgemini’s global delivery performance against key competitors:

• Processes a Strategic Global Footprint
• Leverage of Global Assets
• Global Integration of Processes/Systems
• Enhanced Global Value to Customer
• Exhibits a Global Perspective

According to Frost & Sullivan’s research findings, Capgemini has emerged as a leader in the financial management services through its deep domain knowledge, expertise and experience Arnab Nath, Research Associate from Frost & Sullivan said “The company has a diversified client base spread across the globe, served by high quality professionals. Through acquisitions Capgemini has expanded its footprint over the years and is targeting the emerging markets of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The experience that Capgemini has, complemented by its global process strategy, technological capability and domain expertise, keeps the company ahead in the market compared to its peers.”

Shane Cassidy, VP - Financial Services Global Business Unit at Capgemini said “This award for globalisation excellence fully recognises the success of our strategic methodologies including our Global Process Model^[1] and Global Delivery model, Rightshore®. We have leveraged the right balance of locations, our streamlined processes and innovative customised business models to help our clients reduce cost and ultimately improve their bottom line.”

Frost & Sullivan is in its 50th year in business as a global research organisation of 1,800 analysts and consultants who monitor more than 300 industries and 250,000 companies. The company’s research philosophy originates with the CEO’s 360 Degree Perspective™, which serves as the foundation of its TEAM Research™ methodology. This unique approach enables it to determine how best-in-class companies worldwide manage growth, innovation and leadership.

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Capgemini’s Financial Services Global Business Unit brings deep industry experience, innovative service offerings and next generation global delivery to serve the financial services industry. With a network of 17,000 professionals serving over 900 clients worldwide, Capgemini collaborates with leading banks, insurers and capital market companies to deliver business and IT solutions and thought leadership which create tangible value.
For more information please visit www.capgemini.com/financialservices

About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company’s Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO’s Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.

Press contacts

Capgemini press contact:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
Frost & Sullivan press contact:
Emily Bailey
Tel: +44 (0)20 7915 7869
Email: emily.bailey@frost.com

^[1] Capgemini’s Global Process Model is a map that defines the best flow for each process and sub-process, backed by a comprehensive database of defined, world-class controls and measures representing global and industry best practice.

Capgemini’s relationship with International Paper began in 1999 and currently 480 Capgemini associates sit in more than 240 locations for International Paper. These associates provide F&A services including order to cash, procure to pay, record to analyse and treasury in seven languages, serving multiple customer locations across the globe.

Hubert Giraud, CEO for Capgemini business process outsourcing said that they were delighted to have won this landmark contract extension with International Paper, which is recognition of their trust in our collaboration, commitment and delivery of these important services. The Capgemini engagement team has demonstrated their exceptional capabilities to deliver industrialisation and innovation.

To read the full article on Computer Business Review, please click here: Capgemini bags €42m five-year contract renewal with International Paper

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini wins €42m five-year contract extension with International Paper
• Service Overview: BPO

Capgemini will provide SoCalGas with a spectrum of advanced meter project services including developing processes for and staffing a project management office, developing detailed technical and business requirements for the project, managing multiple system releases and developing project strategies for the test and organisational change management aspects of the project. In addition, Capgemini will provide support to the systems integration, architecture, testing, and deployment efforts.

Capgemini was selected for this project by SoCalGas following a competitive tender process involving major vendors. This project is part of a breakthrough year for Capgemini Smart Energy Services (SES). Since February 2010 when Capgemini launched the SES global service line, Capgemini has grown its smart energy client base from 5 customers in North America to a total of 39 active accounts representing triple-digit growth and all major geographies across the globe. Capgemini continues to expand its SES portfolio focusing on SES Platform, a “software as a service” solution for metering operations as well as Home Energy Management. Capgemini provides the full spectrum of smart metering, smart grid, smart home and smart analytics solutions through leveraging best practices developed successfully over the last 10 years with some of the world’s leading utilities.

Perry Stoneman, vice president and global leader, Smart Energy Services, Capgemini comments: “We’re delighted to have the opportunity to work with a leading utility like Southern California Gas Company on a project of such scale, with such potential. This is the latest in a line of important milestones for Smart Energy Services and of strategic importance to Capgemini as we build our capabilities and expand from electricity into gas metering programs. With each landmark program, we gather more skills and experience to analyse and share for the benefit of our global utility clients.”

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore®, its worldwide delivery model.

Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail:christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
N icolas Atlan
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 71
Email: nicolas.atlan@capgemini.com

International Paper, a Fortune 500 company and a global leader in the paper and packaging industry, operates in more than 20 countries, employs over 60,000 people and serves customers worldwide. The company’s businesses include uncoated papers and industrial and consumer packaging with primary markets and manufacturing operations in North and Latin America, Europe, Russia, Asia and North Africa.

To read the full article on Sourcing Focus, please click here: Capgemini wins €42m five-year contract extension with International Paper

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini wins €42m five-year contract extension with International Paper
• Service Overview: BPO

International Paper, a Fortune 500 company and a global leader in the paper and packaging industry, operates in more than 20 countries, employs over 60,000 people and serves customers worldwide. The company’s businesses include uncoated papers and industrial and consumer packaging with primary markets and manufacturing operations in North and Latin America, Europe, Russia, Asia and North Africa.

Capgemini’s relationship with International Paper began in 1999, when 40 Capgemini associates served the needs of International Paper’s European entities. In 2002, the contract extended to cover the United States and the account has grown ever since. Currently 480 Capgemini associates serve more than 240 locations, working out of Krakow in Poland, Nanhai in China and Guatemala City, providing full scope F&A services including Order to Cash, Procure to Pay, Record to Analyse and Treasury in seven languages, serving multiple customer locations across the globe.

Key to Capgemini’s success in winning the contract extension was its consistently high quality service delivery, its innovative and flexible solutions and its response to International Paper’s needs. Capgemini was viewed as an important driver of process improvement using its Global Process Model©^[1] and worked collaboratively with International Paper to achieve process standardisation and higher operational performance.

Harry Wauters, Director Global Financial Shared Services Centres from International Paper: “We were looking for a company with a robust F&A platform to support our objectives which could be flexible and scaled up and down according to our business needs. We chose to extend our relationship with Capgemini because of their outstanding collaborative approach, their added value beyond the agreed service scope and their strong focus on continuous improvement. They have demonstrated to us over numerous years their dedication to deliver innovative and adaptable solutions.”

Hubert Giraud, CEO for Capgemini Business Process Outsourcing said: “We are delighted to have won this landmark contract extension with International Paper, which is recognition of their trust in our collaboration, commitment and delivery of these important services. The Capgemini engagement team has demonstrated their exceptional capabilities to deliver industrialisation and innovation. We look forward to extending this important strategic partnership to our mutual benefit.”

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini
Capgemini’s expertise is recognised in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) with a solution portfolio that spans
Finance & Accounting, Customer Operations Management, Procurement, Supply Chain Management, Human Resources and services for banking & Insurance sector. As part of Capgemini’s Rightshore® delivery network, BPO professionals provide services to clients worldwide 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in over 36 languages, from centers located in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Guatemala, India, Philippines, Poland, Sweden and the United States. Capgemini, is a recognised player in BPO in Poland, Latin America and Brazil, with more than 2,000 BPO professionals managing BPO processes in Latin America and 12.000 globally.
www.capgemini.com/bpo

Press contact:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Hester Decouz
Tel: +44 (0)870 904 5758
Email: hester.decouz@capgemini.com

^[1] Capgemini’s Global Process Model is a map that defines the best flow for each process and sub-process, backed by a comprehensive database of defined, world-class controls and measures representing global and industry best practice.

For Nicolas Dufourcq, Deputy General Manager and Chief Financial Officer: “This transaction enables Capgemini to diversify its funding sources by targeting a new category of investors. Despite difficult market conditions, our inaugural issue generated strong demand from investors, demonstrating their interest and confidence in the sector of IT services, which has so far been underrepresented in the euro bond market”.

In accordance with the objectives set by Capgemini on the presentation of its 3rd quarter revenues, this transaction enables the Group to strengthen its financial flexibility and extend the average maturity of its debt. Capgemini thereby anticipates the now likely redemption of its June 2005 issue of bonds convertible/exchangeable into new or existing shares (OCEANE) maturing on January 1, 2012. Furthermore this has been achieved without a significant increase in the interest expense recognised in the Group’s consolidated accounts. Indeed, the OCEANE bond issue – which in case of conversion could lead to the creation of around 12 million shares – generated a €26 million consolidated charge 2010.

In addition, the loan is rated “BBB-” by the international rating agency Standard & Poor’s in the Investment Grade category, with a stable outlook.

BNP Paribas, J.P. Morgan Securities Ltd., HSBC and Société Générale were the lead banks for this bond issue.

Copies of the prospectus concerning the transaction, filed with the French Financial Markets Authority (Autorité des marchés financiers, AMF) on November 25, 2011 under the number n°11-546, may be obtained free of charge from the head office of Cap Gemini. The prospectus may also be consulted on the Capgemini website (http://www.capgemini.com/investor/press ) and the AMF website (www.amffrance.org).

This press release and the information contained herein do not constitute an offer to sell or subscribe, nor a solicitation of an order to purchase or subscribe the notes in any country, in particular in the United States. The distribution of this press release may be restricted in some countries and persons in possession of this press release should inform themselves about and comply with any applicable restrictions.

Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains information which could be deemed as forward-looking with respect to Capgemini`s financial condition, results of operations, business, strategy or plans. Although Capgemini believes that such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from the forward looking statements as a result of a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside our control, including but not limited to the risks regarding antitrust and regulatory approval as well as the risks described in the documents Capgemini has filed with the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (French securities regulator) and which are also available in English and French on our website (www.capgemini.com). Investors and security holders may obtain a free copy of the documents filed by Capgemini with the Autorité des Marchés Financiers at www.amf-france.org, or directly from Capgemini.

The present forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this presentation and Capgemini did not disclaim any intention or obligation to provide, update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Press relations:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.: +33 1 47 54 50 76

Investor Relations:
Walter Vejdovsky
Tel: +33 1 47 54 50 87

“I am delighted to announce the double appointment of Dee Burger as the new head of Capgemini’s TME sector, as well as the appointment of his deputy, Jean-Marc Steffann,” said Stanislas Cozon, Global Head of Sectors at Capgemini. “The big data opportunity has the potential to revolutionise today’s mobile market for business and consumer customers. With both Dee and Jean-Marc on board, I am confident in strengthening our mobile offering for this key trend in established markets as well as helping to spearhead Capgemini’s expansion into new international markets,including Latin America.”

Burger brings over 19 years experience to Capgemini’s Telecom, Media and Entertainment (TME) sector. Previously responsible for developing and leading Capgemini’s Communication Transformation Platform (CTP) offering, which has been the basis for the company’s leading position in the Telecommunications transformation market, as well as leading Capgemini’s telecom team in North America. Additionally, Burger  has been responsible for teams delivering large programs for Global Telecommunication providers across global markets including North America, Europe and Asia. Burger also held positions as a Partner in Ernst & Young’s Telecommunications practice as well as a Vice Presidential role leading Gemini Consulting’s Telecommunications practice. 

Dee holds a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Georgia as well as a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Clemson University.

Jean-Marc has over 20 years industry experience, 18 years of which were held within the France Telecom Group’s R&D center (now known as Orange Labs), where he became a specialist in IP networks.  In 1995 Jean-Marc played an instrumental role in the development and launch of Wanadoo, where he was later appointed as Wanadoo’s first Chief Technology Officer in 2000 and went on to become CEO of Wanadoo France in 2005. He is a renowned Internet expert and was one of the early promoters of the Internet in France. Jean-Marc graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale des Telecommunications, and holds a master’s degree from Institut Theseus.

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.

Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Capgemini Press Contact:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Ellie Turner
Weber Shandwick for Capgemini
Tel.: +44 (0) 207 067 0534
E-mail: CapgeminiEMEAPR@WeberShandwick.com

Using natural cooling is a growing trend for data centres striving to reduce power costs and carbon emissions. So for global companies looking for suitable locations for a new facility the outside air temperature is increasingly a factor. IT company Capgemini’s newest data centre in Swindon uses a fresh air cooling system that apparently delivers 80% savings in running costs and produces as much as 50% less carbon emissions.

To read the full article on The Guardian please click here: Half of data centres are now using natural cooling

Related Links:

• Merlin: An Overview

“I am delighted to announce the double appointment of Dee Burger as the new head of Capgemini’s TME sector, as well as the appointment of his deputy, Jean-Marc Steffann,” said Stanislas Cozon, Global Head of Sectors at Capgemini. “The big data opportunity has the potential to revolutionize today’s mobile market for business and consumer customers. With both Dee and Jean-Marc on board, I am confident in strengthening our mobile offering for this key trend in established markets as well as helping to spearhead Capgemini’s expansion into new international markets,including Latin America.”

To read the full article on Consultant-news please click here: Capgemini appoints new TME leaders

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini appoints Dee Burger as Telecom, Media and Entertainment Practice Sector Lead and Jean-Marc Steffann as his deputy

The Index highlights an increasing gap between trade levels in mature and emerging markets, with deceleration in import and export growth affecting all the G7 nations. Trade levels in Europe, heavily impacted by the debt crisis in the eurozone and constrained by an appreciating euro, fell by 2 percent in Q3 2011. Similarly, US trade levels also declined by 2 percent q-o-q, with a weak dollar leading to a decline in its foreign market growth and rising commodity prices further reducing its domestic consumption. Japan saw a decline in trade levels of 1.6 percent in Q3 2011, although this follows a reduction of 5.7 percent in Q2 2011, suggesting signs of recovery in the Japanese market following the continued impact of the earthquake and tsunami disaster earlier this year.

In contrast, trade levels in emerging markets were more stable, with both India and China seeing increases of 1.2 percent and 0.4 percent respectively q-o-q. Similarly, Russia saw only a slight reduction in trade levels of 0.26 percent. Overall, GDP in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) continues to grow and increased by between 2.7 and 3.5 percent in Q3 2011. However, this is not reflected in global trade flow levels which show that exports to mature markets are only declining. This suggests import volumes into these regions are heavily substituted by locally manufactured products and services.

“Due to a particularly tough economic climate, we have seen declining global trade levels this quarter,” said Roy Lenders, Vice President Supply Chain Management at Capgemini Consulting. “However, growing GDP levels in the BRIC markets are not leading to increased global trade, suggesting this local economic growth primarily benefits companies operating locally. For companies looking to benefit from growth in the BRIC countries, local operations should be the preferred way to market.”

Looking ahead to Q4 2011, global trade flows are expected to increase, driven largely by the traditional end of year seasonal upswing in trade due to the holidays. However, inflation, caused by high food prices and volatile commodity markets is a key risk for both emerging and developed markets. Ongoing US fiscal imbalances also run the risk of creating instability in financial markets, although the biggest risk to the overall outlook of the global business environment remains the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone.

APPENDIX - Capgemini Consulting Global Trade Flow Index (extract of the ranking with the 12 leading countries)

Copyright©2011 Capgemini- All rights reserved
Note:  Global Trade Index Score = A x (average of (B,C,D))

*About the Capgemini Consulting Global Trade Flow Index
The Capgemini Consulting Global Trade Flow Index is calculated for the 23 countries with the highest levels of global trade, assessing changes in competitive position of each country individually. Q3 2011 figures are based on estimates (methodology detailed below) ahead of official data for all 23 countries being fully available, in December 2011, to give a robust analysis of the quarter’s performance, while Q2 2011 figures are based on official government data.

The Index tracks global trade levels by quarter, based on Capgemini Consulting’s own analysis of trade and market-related parameters from the latest available official data from national agencies. This analysis is performed by applying the LOGEST formula to historical trade, GDP, domestic and foreign market data. As such, there may be a variance between estimated data and actual data of -3 to 6 percent, which is within standard forecast tolerance levels (10 percent).

The index will be updated and published each quarter to reflect developments in global trade flows. The latest version of the Index covers the period July to September 2011. The Index analyses four sub indicators for each country:

• Total trade, including both imports and exports
• Q-o-Q growth in trade
• Foreign markets for goods produced in a country
• Domestic market

The Capgemini Consulting Global Trade Flow Index is also supported by:

• Holland International Distribution Council (HIDC)
• Global Supply Chain Council in China and India
• Supply Chain Movement
• Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals’ (CSCMP) Supply Chain Quarterly

A full copy of the report can be downloaded from:
http://www.capgemini.com/insights-and-re sources/by-publication/global-trade-flow -index-q3--2011/

Capgemini Consulting is the Global Strategy and Transformation Consulting brand of the Capgemini Group, specialising in advising and supporting organisations in transforming their business, from the development of innovative strategy through to execution, with a consistent focus on sustainable results. Capgemini Consulting proposes to leading companies and governments a fresh approach which uses innovative methods, technology and the talents of over 3600 consultants worldwide.
For more information: www.capgemini-consulting.com.

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore ® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Capgemini press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
Ellie Turner
WeberShandwick for Capgemini
Tel.: +44 (0) 207 067 0534
E-mail: CapgeminiEMEApr@WeberShandwick.com

Another skill that consultancy companies look for in candidates from industry is the ability to sell and deliver projects. Tom stressed the importance of sales and project delivery experience: “As you become more senior within consultancy the ability to sell becomes more important; taking this into consideration can you sell it if you haven’t delivered it?”

To read the full article on Consultant-news please click here: Moving from industry to management consulting

Related Links:

• Capgemini Consulting: An Overview

The CIVETS are Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa, and they have been highlighted for the speed of their economic growth, which is far outstripping the BRIC countries. 

But at the moment, there is no denying that economic globalisation has gone off the boil. In fact, there is clear evidence of a decline in global trade levels.

Capgemini’s latest Global Trade Flow Index for the third quarter reveals a fall of 1.3 per cent quarter on quarter. At the same time,  local domestic consumption around the world is still growing slowly.

To read the full article on Supply Chain Standard, please click here: Drop the BRIC, it’s time to focus on the CIVETS

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini Consulting Global Trade Flow Index reveals Global Trade Levels are clearly trending down in Q3 2011 while local domestic consumption around the world is still growing slowly

Integrated Profitability Management (IPM) builds on driver-based modeling techniques like ABC but adopts a more pragmatic approach to answering specific business questions about profitability. Put simply, IPM is about making sure resources are targeted at profit-making activities. Among other things, that means focusing on revenue streams and taking account of today’s multi-channel operating model.

Watch the video here to know more.

Related Links:

• Service Overview: Financial Services
• Capgemini Consulting: An Overview

In my previous article, ‘In-store kiosks: the future of retailing?’ I looked at how retailers are using the variety of channels available to engage with customers and meet their expectations. This month, I want to focus on the highs and lows of online delivery - how has the internet shaped consumer purchasing behaviour, and how have retailers had to adapt their supply chain to meet the logistical demands of this new shopping platform?

Over recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of retailers offering their products online, bringing electronic home shopping into British sitting rooms. According to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, British shoppers spent a total of £5.9 billion online in October, with £7.75 billion expected to be splashed out online during this year’s five-week shopping peak. And who can blame them? Wrestling your way through the Christmas hordes is rarely a pleasant experience, even for the biggest fans of retail therapy. Better still, prices for many goods and services are generally cheaper online than in store, with shoppers using comparison websites to compare prices and find the best deals. As a result, for the likes of Amazon, John Lewis and Next, Christmas is the most important time of the year, as customers flock to the internet to buy their products online.

However, with the increase in online shopping comes an increase in the number of complaints regarding delivery of goods - if a retailer’s online strategy is not right, its reputation and company profits can be left in turmoil. Unfortunately, customers’ expectations of online customer service and delivery keep on rising and retailers’ capabilities are failing to keep pace. This does not just hold back potential profit margins for individual businesses - it damages the e-commerce industry as a whole. It is easy to focus on driving website traffic to increase sales, but it is still paramount to deliver products quickly, economically and accurately. Retailers cannot take anything for granted - bad experiences can cause opinions and behaviour to change. Online delivery is vital to Britain’s economy, but so is making sure shoppers get their presents in time.

Back in December 2010, heavy snow kept shoppers away from the high street, forcing some retailers to warn the market of failing sales and pushing more shoppers online. But the severe weather conditions left couriers struggling to complete orders, leaving families across the country disappointed as gifts were not delivered in time. Many online retailers, including major supermarkets, had to cancel deliveries, leaving a backlog of more than four million parcels sitting in warehouses or private courier firms across the country. At the same time, many web stores, including Amazon, were forced to bring forward their last ordering date for a promised Christmas delivery. Consequently, shoppers this year have been put off ordering their festive purchases online because of past difficulties, showing a dent in public confidence in internet retailing.

This year it is important for online retailers to promise only what they can realistically deliver. That means keeping on top of stock levels, and ensuring the company website reflects what is happening in the warehouse or stockroom. It also demands some knowledge of what is going on at the end of the supply chain - if you know you are not going to be able to make 1,000 deliveries in a day then do not advertise that you can.

Asos.com’s ‘Here to Help’ Twitter feed provides an excellent example of superb online customer service. Run by its in-house team, the service offers an interactive, hands-on approach to providing up-to-date information to customers about online orders and deliveries. Shoppers can simply tweet an inquiry to Asos and receive an instant response from customer service, with all conversations open to followers. Such activity allows for transparent communication, which not only builds customer trust, but also helps to solidify positive, long lasting relationships between the retailer and its customers. Asos benefits from an improved corporate reputation, driving customer loyalty and securing future sales.

As well as managing expectations, online businesses should push their supply chain to adapt to support more customer friendly services. Providing consumers with timed delivery slots, for instance, is just one of the many ways retailers can help avoid these hassles. Shoppers often have to take the day off work or make special arrangements for someone to house sit and wait for an item to arrive - a customer’s time is valued, and retailers should not take it for granted.

Of course, communicating the answer is only half of the struggle. Formulating an effective response and anticipating customer needs to provide it in advance of enquires depends on highly effective business intelligence. Retailers Retailers need to use the internet to identify, extract and analyse consumer demands in order to make improved decisions and provide an efficient response. Effective management of business information provides customers with a holistic view of their entire information landscape - embedding business intelligence into business processes, rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Consumers are fickle, offering products they want is simply not enough - retailers need to go above and beyond to ensure they attract new business, retain customers and hit targets. The internet offers a diverse, flexible and interactive shopping platform - it is an opportunity that needs to be embraced, nourished and used to a retailer’s advantage.

The challenge is for online businesses to demonstrate their customer service capabilities and provide the same level of product delivery to shoppers as they do in store.

Related Links:

• Press Release: Mild October produces mixed online results ahead of forecast £7.75bn Christmas spending bonanza
• Industry Overview: Retail
  
  
   

Capgemini’s endeavour to help customers drive sales productivity, streamline processes, develop market opportunities and reduce costs by extending and making use of SAP applications through Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

GT Advanced Technologies has already deployed Capgemini’s offerings on the Duet Enterprise platform.

Capgemini has already developed two sector-specific solutions integrated with Duet Enterprise, namely Capgemini Hiring Manager Portal 1.0 and Capgemini Purchase Requisition Cockpit.

To read the full article on Computer Business Review, please click here: Capgemini through new ERP+ offering invests in Duet Enterprise

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini invests in Duet® Enterprise through new ERP+ solution
• Alliance Partner: SAP

Related Links:

• Announcement: Capgemini and Dassault Systèmes sign an innovative services partnership

This collaboration will accelerate the implementation and deployment of PLM solutions based on the value of Dassault Systèmes’ Version 6, an open online platform allowing an expanded user community to create, collaborate and experience products virtually in a 3D environment, throughout the innovation cycle, ensuring IP protection. It will also strengthen the capacity to integrate PLM technologies in more complex client environments, such as ERP applications, or proprietary application development.

Patrick Longuet, Capgemini France Aerospace & Defense, explains, “Through this partnership, we are aiming to position ourselves as European leader in the PLM solution integration market in different sectors, in particular aerospace and defense. Our unique expertise as a global integrator, will be enhanced with greater PLM skills, plus expertise around Dassault Systèmes solutions to better meet clients’ needs. At first, this global partnership will focus on France and Europe.”

Philippe Besse, Vice President, Industry Services EMEA at Dassault Systèmes, says, “We are proud to be able to sign this strategic partnership with a tier one European technology services player, which has widely demonstrated its skill and professionalism in consulting as well as systems integration. This will undoubtedly act as a catalyst for a wider integration of our PLM solutions for clients, while providing them with greater project and process management capabilities, and expertise around our PLM solutions.”

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About Dassault Systèmes
As a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, Dassault Systèmes brings value to more than 130,000 customers in 80 countries. A pioneer in the 3D software market since 1981, Dassault Systèmes applications provide a 3D vision of the entire lifecycle of products from conception to maintenance to recycling. The Dassault Systèmes portfolio consists of CATIA for designing the virtual product - DELMIA for virtual production - SIMULIA for virtual testing - ENOVIA for global collaborative lifecycle management, EXALEAD for search-based applications- SolidWorks for 3D mechanical design and 3DVIA for online 3D lifelike experiences. For more information, visit http://www.3ds.com.

CATIA, DELMIA, ENOVIA, EXALEAD, SIMULIA, SolidWorks and 3D VIA are registered trademarks of Dassault Systèmes or its subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries.

Capgemini press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel. : +33 1 (0) 47 54 50 76
E-mail : christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Hester Decouz
Tel: +44 (0)870 904 5758
Email: hester.decouz@capgemini.com

Dassault Systèmes press contact:
Arnaud Malherbe
Tel : +33 1 (0) 61 62 87 73
E-mail : arnaud.malherbe@3ds.com

One customer already taking advantage of Capgemini solutions on the Duet Enterprise platform is GT Advanced Technologies, a global supplier of polysilicon production technology and crystalline growth systems for the solar and LED markets.  Tom Doyle, vice president of Information Technology at GT Advanced Technologies said: “We worked with Capgemini to leverage Duet Enterprise’s interoperability to allow our executive teams and mobile users the ability to review and approve purchase orders outside of the SAP environment while travelling. This greatly improved the purchase order approval process.”

Capgemini has already developed two sector-specific solutions integrated with Duet Enterprise, with more in development at its new center in Mumbai:

• Capgemini Hiring Manager Portal 1.0 certified by SAP for integration with Duet Enterprise 1.0, simplifies and speeds up HR processes using one single application to automate the creation and approval of new jobs
• Capgemini Purchase Requisition Cockpit provides customers with high data quality and a streamlined business process, reducing the amount of manual work required in the purchase requisition process. It provides a quicker service by improving user experience and manual form processing through a user-friendly Web form and integrated workflow functionality. It also provides potential cost savings by reducing the need for staff requisition mailboxes and by simplifying the overall process, to realise time and staffing savings.

“This cooperation between SAP, Capgemini and Microsoft will deliver business packages to the marketplace that meet specific industry and business needs, while further aligning our teams,” said Pascal Gibert, general manager, Information Worker Product Technology Unit, SAP AG. “Our collaboration is ultimately about providing the best outcomes for customers so that they can automate both their structured processes and support their unstructured workloads through integrated solutions. This integration is vital in order to drive productivity and cost reduction, while maintaining IT control, within an ever-challenging business environment.”

As one of the few global partners with a dedicated sales and delivery team focused on interoperability of solutions from Microsoft and SAP, Capgemini was the first IT services provider to build core expertise with both onshore and offshore capabilities, to provide a dedicated portfolio of solutions called Capgemini ERP+, launched in 2009. Now using Duet Enterprise, a platform jointly developed by SAP and Microsoft as a foundation for interoperability between SAP applications and Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office, Capgemini ERP+ provides enhanced services to work with business processes from SAP with front-end Microsoft collaborative platforms such as SharePoint 2010, Microsoft.NET and Microsoft Office 2010. It helps companies improve compliance, maximise user adoption, reduce complexity, increase business speed and provides more accessible and secure data.

“Capgemini’s ERP+ solution helps maximise employee productivity, extend SAP utilisation, and further increase value for SharePoint customers,” said Jeff Teper corporate vice president, Office Business Platform, Microsoft Office Division.

Jean-Claude Viollier, global head of Channels and Partners, Capgemini Group said: “We have long-standing relationships with both Microsoft and SAP, using their technology software to aid our customers. With over 18,000 Microsoft and SAP practitioners around the globe we aim to coordinate with our partners to continue to provide the latest cutting-edge solutions to help reduce cost, while also increasing flexibility and user adoption.”

For more information about Capgemini’s ERP+ service offerings in support of Duet Entreprise, go to: http://www.capgemini.com/services-and-so lutions/technology/microsoft/solutions/e rp-plus

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

SAP, Duet and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.
All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

SAP Forward-looking Statement
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Capgemini Press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
Email: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Hester Decouz
Tel.:+44 870 904 5758
Email: hester.decouz@capgemini.com

The study, ‘Digital Transformation: A Roadmap for Billion-Dollar Organisations,’ found that only one third of companies globally have an effective digital transformation program in place.
To read the full article on MyCustomer.com, please click here: Digital transformation requires business evolution not revolution - study
Related Links:

• Press Release: Global study reveals only one third of large companies are succeeding in reshaping their business through digital technologies
• Capgemini Consulting: An Overview

Despite the pervasive influence of digital technology in everything from delivering enhanced productivity and efficiency to improving customer experience and the way people interact and collaborate within an organisation, the majority are still not taking advantage of its transformative potential and, therefore, risk falling behind more forward-thinking organisations.

Interviewing over 157 senior executive-level respondents from across 15 countries at global companies with more than $1bn in annual sales, the study highlights the fluctuating pace at which digital transformation is taking place and the varying levels of success experienced. The research assesses the maturity of organisations in terms of their digital transformation, with maturity made up of two dimensions characterised as the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. The what is the specific digital transformation elements being implemented by the organisation, made up of their specific investments in customer experience, operational processes and worker enablement. The how is the way organisations are driving the transformation, made up of aspects such as project governance, workforce engagement, and measurement mechanisms.

To read the full article on EFYTimes, please click here: New research from Capgemini, MIT Centre for Digital Business  
Related Links:

• Press Release: Global study reveals only one third of large companies are succeeding in reshaping their business through digital technologies
• Capgemini Consulting: An Overview

Paul will be joined in the presentation by Graham Evans, director, UK and Ireland for Active Power and Ian Whitfield, managing director, at Red Engineering Design. In the session, the speakers will discuss how Capgemini integrated traditional datacentre requirements with aggressive sustainability initiatives with particular focus on power infrastructure design.

The result: one of the most innovatively designed datacentres in the industry with a PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.11 and full Tier III design certification from the Uptime Institute and a Green Enterprise IT Award too.

Read more about Merlin

To drive high-performing, “big data” analysis, handling huge volumes of data in real time for instant business insight, the CUBE is now equipped with in-memory computing technology, in cooperation with SAP.

With the inaugration of CUBE, Capgemini expands its Global BIM Service Line capability and the centre will act as an interactive showcase where customers can experience innovative SAP HANA-based information management offerings.

In addition, customers can interact with subject matter experts on-site or through video connections from around the globe, examine offerings created to address specific customer issues, and review proofs of concept and technology innovations, as well as productivity tools.

Capgemini plans to create and build proof-of-concept offerings using SAP HANA at the CUBE to showcase its capabilities to its existing and prospective customers, across all industry sectors including Energy and Utilities, Retail, Healthcare and Life Sciences.

Capgemini BIM Service Line Global Head Paul Nannetti said Capgemini is delighted to open this new centre specialising in SAP HANA and in-memory computing technology.

To read the full article on CBR, please click here: Capgemini inaugrates new competency centre in support to SAP HANA

Related Links:

• Announcement: Capgemini launches Centre of Excellence – in support of SAP HANA™ - for Business Information Management (BIM)
• Global Service Line: BIM Overview

Vengroff, Williams is a provider of accounts receivable collections solutions.

This acquisition is reportedly in line with Capgemini’s strategy to complement its footprint with selected expertise. Run under the brand ‘VWA’, the OTC business delivers consistent financial performance in terms of both growth and profitability and will be accretive to the BPO and Group margin, Capgemini said.

Through this acquisiton Capgemini expects to build on its F & A (Finance and Accounting) BPO services through enhanced offerings in the OTC market worldwide. The acquisition adds over 300 VWA experts to Capgemini’s 12,000 skilled staff BPO organisation.

The transaction was reportedly financed by the Capgemini Group’s net cash.

To read the full article on CBR, please click here: Capgemini buys out OTC business of Vengroff, Williams & Associates

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini enhances its leadership in Finance & Accounting BPO through the acquisition of Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc. Order to Cash business
• Service Overview: Financial Services
  

Interviewing over 157 senior executive-level respondents from across 15 countries at global companies with more than $1bn in annual sales, the study highlights the fluctuating pace at which digital transformation is taking place and the varying levels of success experienced. The research assesses the maturity of organisations in terms of their digital transformation, with maturity made up of two dimensions characterised as the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. The what is the specific digital transformation elements being implemented by the organisation, made up of their specific investments in customer experience, operational processes and worker enablement. The how is the way organisations are driving the transformation, made up of aspects such as project governance, workforce engagement, and measurement mechanisms.

For MIT’s George Westerman, Research Scientist and a co-contributor to the report: “These two elements are at the heart of the alchemy of digital transformation. Firms that are mature on both these dimensions can drive powerful digital transformation that yields significant business value. These mature few have mastered not only the style of digital transformation but also the substance.”

Very mature exponents of digital transformation have a sophisticated grasp of both the what and the how, but overall the study characterises 4 levels of maturity:

• Digital Beginners: These companies are doing very little with advanced digital capabilities, although they have more traditional digital capabilities such as internet, e-mail or ERP. Companies may be in this category by choice but many are either unaware of the possibilities of new digital technologies or are starting to invest here without effective transformation management in place.
• Digital Fashionistas: These companies have implemented digital tools, some of which may be creating value, but some may not. These companies are motivated to bring on digitally-powered change, but their digital transformation strategy is not founded on real knowledge of how to proceed. Many of these companies believe they must move fast to keep up with demand for digital capabilities, but do not necessarily have a clear vision of how the elements will collectively create value.
• Digital Conservatives: These companies understand the need for a strong unifying vision and for governance and internal engagement activities to ensure prudent investment management. They understand where the company should be going and how to master digital challenges, but they can’t always build organisational momentum to carry out an ambitious program. As a result, though aiming to spend wisely, their careful approach may cause them to miss out on valuable opportunities.
• Digirati: These companies truly understand how to drive value from digital transformation. They combine a strong shared vision for transformation, careful governance and engagement with sufficient investment in new opportunities. They have developed a digital culture that can envision further changes and have the ability to implement them wisely for competitive advantage.

For MIT’s Andrew McAfee, report co-contributor: “Despite the hype around innovative new technologies such as social media or mobile, most companies still have a long way to go on their digital transformation journeys. Whether using new or traditional technology, the key to digital transformation is changing how the company operates and that is a management and people challenge, as much as a technology one.”

The study highlights the external factors that are driving digital transformation. Pressure from competitors (72%) and customers (70%) were the biggest drivers of change, as companies strive to find new ways of ensuring competitive advantage and meet changing customer expectations. It also highlights the main internal barriers to achieving digital transformation: missing skills (77%), culture issues (55%), ineffective IT (50%).

For Capgemini Consulting’s Didier Bonnet, a co-contributor to the report: “Digital technology has the potential to improve corporate performance and reach radically, but this transformation will be as much about organisational change as it is about implementing new technologies. What this research has shown us is that while many are convinced of the power of digitally-enabled business practices, success will only come with strategic vision and leadership of a cohesive program of transformation.”

About the study
In a three-year joint research collaboration with the MIT Center for Digital Business, Capgemini Consulting is conducting a joint research study into digital transformation through interviews with senior executives from leading companies around the world. The findings outlined here are from the first phase of this research, involving 157 senior executive-level interviews in 50 companies in 15 countries. These companies are large firms, each having more than $1bn in annual sales. Approximately half of the interviewees were business leaders such as CEOs, business managers and COOs and the other half were with IT and technology leaders. The interviews covered a broad range of geographies and industries with participants from Europe, the USA and Canada and Asia Pacific and across industries including public sector, pharmaceutical, transport, manufacturing, retail, energy and utilities, financial services and telecoms, media and entertainment. This study is the culmination of the first year of the collaboration and further analyses will follow in 2012 and 2013.

Capgemini Consulting is the Global Strategy and Transformation Consulting brand of the Capgemini Group, specialising in advising and supporting organisations in transforming their business, from the development of innovative strategy through to execution, with a consistent focus on sustainable results. Capgemini Consulting proposes to leading companies and governments a fresh approach which uses innovative methods, technology and the talents of over 3600 consultants worldwide.
For more information: www.capgemini-consulting.com.

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore ® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

The MIT centre for Digital Business
Founded in 1999, the MIT centre for Digital Business (http://digital.mit.edu) joins leading companies, visionary educators, and some of the best students in the world together in inventing and understanding the business value made possible by digital technologies. We are supported entirely by corporate sponsors with whom we work in a dynamic interchange of ideas, analysis, and reflection intended to solve real problems. The centre has funded more than 50 faculty and performed more than 75 research projects focused on understanding the impact of technology on business value, and developing tools and frameworks our sponsors can use for competitive advantage.

Capgemini Press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Emma Hedges
Weber Shandwick for Capgemini
Tel.: +44 (0) 207 067 0512
E-mail: CapgeminiEMEAPR@WeberShandwick.com

Capgemini’s Smart Energy Centre of Excellence is part of an ongoing market leadership initiative aimed at improving awareness and understanding of today’s smart energy developments.  The COE is equipped with examples of the latest smart energy operations in Australia and around the world, which will help demonstrate how local Energy and Utilities organisations can apply smart solutions to deliver value to their businesses.

Perry Stoneman, Vice President and Global Leader of Capgemini’s Smart Energy Services line says, “The Energy and Utilities sector is important for Capgemini worldwide. We have a strong presence globally and our new Centre of Excellence in Australia complements our market leadership and will play squarely to help strengthen our solutions offerings.  One of the major challenges Australia has with smart energy solutions is understanding how it might benefit the country; this new centre will help local companies tangibly understand the benefits for their business.”

The Energy and Utilities sector is a focus for Capgemini’s business in Australia. Capgemini is making investments to support its clients’ business and technology priorities.  The Smart Energy COE will support Energy and Utilities clients through access to thought leadership, innovation and smart solutions leveraged from the global COEs in India, Europe, Nordics and North America and developed for the Australian marketplace.  Local customers will benefit from reusable assets and collaborative methods to accelerate delivery of solutions across focus areas including Smart Grid, Smart Metering and Smart Home.

Ash Peck, General Manager, Information and Communication Technology at SP AusNet^[2] added, “I’m delighted to see Capgemini bring their global capabilities and thought leadership to the Australian Utilities marketplace, through investment in their Australian Smart Energy Centre of Excellence.  SP AusNet looks forward to leveraging Capgemini’s Centre of Excellence to assess business and technology scenarios in the Smart Grid arena.”

Glen McLean, General Manager of Information Technology at Powercor ^[3] Australia  said, “Capgemini’s launch of their Australian Smart Energy Centre of Excellence is testament to their commitment to the local Utilities sector.  At Powercor and CitiPower we look forward to leveraging Capgemini’s innovations and thought leadership through their Smart Energy Centre of Excellence.”

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Press contacts:
Elizabeth Mckenzie
Red Agency on behalf of Capgemini Australia
Tel: +61 2 9963 7721
Email: Elizabeth.McKenzie@redagency.com.au

Nicolas Atlan
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 71
E-mail: nicolas.atlan@capgemini.com

^[1] The Smart Energy Alliance (SEA) combines deep industry strengths of Capgemini, Cisco Systems, GE Energy, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Oracle to help utilities transform their transmission and distribution operations. (www.smart-energy-alliance.com)
^[2] A publicly listed company on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and the Singapore Exchange (SGX-ST), SP AusNet is majority owned by Singapore Power Ltd and owns and maintains a network of energy infrastructure that ensures efficient and reliable energy delivery to industrial and domestic customers right across Victoria.
^[3] Powercor Australia is Australia Victoria’s largest electricity distributor, which supplies electricity to regional and rural centers in central and western Victoria, and Melbourne’s outer western suburbs. Powercor services approximately 700,000 distribution customers, and operates successful non-regulated businesses.

The key to success lay not in the technology, said the report, Digital Transformation: a roadmap for billion-dollar organisations, but in three factors; clear direction, investing in the right skills, and leadership.

According to Didier Bonnet, Managing Director, Global Head of Practices, Capgemini Consulting, companies which relied on a bottom-up approach were much less likely to have effective programs.

The study highlights the external factors that are driving digital transformation.

Pressure from competitors (72%) and customers (70%) were the biggest drivers of change, as companies strive to find new ways of ensuring competitive advantage and meet changing customer expectations. Only 32% of change was caused by employee pressure.

To read the full article on WSJ, please click here: C-Level leadership key to Digital Transformation

Related Links:

• Press Release: Global study reveals only one third of large companies are succeeding in reshaping their business through digital technologies
• Capgemini Consulting: An Overview

The two firms say customers are seizing the chance to easily compare different products while shopping in bricks-and-mortar stores or travelling using their mobile phones, enabling them to find the best prices and sidestep the disruption caused by events such as heavy snowfall.

“Retailers understand consumer behaviour and have adapted accordingly, embracing the opportunity devices such as smartphones and tablets offer them in connecting with potential customers,” explains Chris Webster of Capgemini.

To read the full article on DirectNews, please click here: IMRG: Mobile to play big role in Christmas shopping
Related Links:

• Press Release: Mild October produces mixed online results ahead of forecast £7.75bn Christmas spending bonanza
• Industry Overview: Retail

Electrical goods were among the most popular items purchased over the internet during October, with year-on-year growth of 11 per cent, which is the highest recorded since April. This is thought to be as a result of discounting from retailers hoping to increase activity.

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini, said: “In other sectors, for example travel, online allows retailers to get ahead of the competition by using innovative strategies reach affluent consumers and make money even in sectors which overall are not performing well.”

To read the full article on Hostway, please click here: Ecommerce sales ‘increased during October’
Related Links:

• Press Release: Mild October produces mixed online results ahead of forecast £7.75bn Christmas spending bonanza
• Industry Overview: Retail

IMRG said that the strong performance by this sector supports the idea that as shoppers look to rein in their spending on more expensive high-ticket items, such as holidays and TVs, they are willing to treat themselves to lower-priced treats.

Sales of electricals products via the internet were up 11 per cent on last year, but the trade group suggested that this could be due to high level of promotions retailers are currently offering.

Chris Webster, Head of Retail Consulting & Technology at Capgemini, said: “The market is growing in line with our forecast, but the picture is mixed.”

Overall, £5.9 billion was spent online during October, which represented a seven per cent rise compared to the previous month.

Following October’s figures, the index still predicts that overall online sales growth for 2011 will total 16 per cent, helped by the expected £7.75 billion spend over the five-week Christmas period, starting November 28th.

According to the index, some £3.72 billion will be spent in the first two weeks of this festive season alone.

To read the full article on Retail Gazette, please click here: Healthy beauty sales drive online trading growth

Related Links:

• Press Release: Mild October produces mixed online results ahead of forecast £7.75bn Christmas spending bonanza
• Industry Overview: Retail

To read the full article on V3, please click here: UK consumers forecast to spend £7.75bn online at Christmas

Related Links:

• Press Release: Mild October produces mixed online results ahead of forecast £7.75bn Christmas spending bonanza
• Industry Overview: Retail

In terms of specific sectors, October has seen a very mixed performance. Online clothing sales were affected by the unusually warm weather^[1], with this sector seeing a much later sales spike than is usual for this time of year. Shoppers were put off updating their wardrobes for the chilly winter months as a result of high October temperatures, which soared up to 28 degrees during the first week.

The travel sector is continuing to suffer due to economic uncertainty, with a 17% decline on September’s already very weak result. However, the average spend in October reached £920; the first time it’s broken the £900 mark since the sector was first tracked in December 2008. This suggests that while the majority of Brits are tightening their belts in the wake of the struggling economy, the more affluent consumer is able to accept higher prices to enjoy luxurious holidays.

Other sectors performed better in October however; sales of electrical goods bounced back with a year-on-year growth of 11%, the highest recorded since April 2011. This could be a direct result of heavy discounting from retailers as they look to reinvigorate interest amongst shoppers; in January 2011 the average spend on electrical goods reached £173, compared with just £153 in October.

Other areas that experienced strong sales include health and beauty, which recorded a year-on-year increase of 53%; the highest growth ever recorded for the sector. This further supports the idea that while shoppers are looking to tighten their belts and avoid the more expensive high-ticket items, such as holidays and televisions, they are happy to treat themselves with lower ticket goods.  Alcohol also saw impressive online sales, reporting a significant 27% growth on September 2011 and up 20% on October last year.

The 14% rise recorded for October suggests the Index will meet IMRG and Capgemini’s recently revised prediction that the total market will close the year on 16% annual growth. This result will be helped, in part, by the strong online sales predicted for Christmas - an estimated £7.75bn will be spent during the five-week shopping month of December (starting w/c 28th November), almost half of which (£3.72bn) will be spent in the first two weeks alone.

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini says: “The market is growing in-line with our forecast, but the picture is mixed. Tough economic conditions are hurting retailers in commodity markets, such as electrical, as deep discounting is eroding profits. In other sectors, for example travel, online allows retailers to get ahead of the competition by using innovative strategies reach affluent consumers and make money even in sectors which overall are not performing well.”

Tina Spooner, Chief Information Officer at IMRG, comments: “October’s performance was at the top end of our 12-14% forecast for Q4, so on the whole the outlook is positive. Low-value product sectors are continuing to boom, with accessories up 50% as consumers look to buy bags and belts to complement their outfits rather than replenish their wardrobes, and likewise health & beauty reached a record high of 53% growth. Clothing retailers in general had a slow start to the month; we usually see a peak around the end of September but it actually appeared near the end of October this year. This can be attributed to the very mild weather affecting consumer interest in their autumn ranges.”

Industry quotes
Russ Carroll, UK Managing Director of Shopping.com, comments:
“Online spending has continued to perform well and we expect this to persist through to the end of 2011 as consumers look online for their Christmas shopping. Once again, clothing has proved a consistently strong category for Shopping.com, increasing by 47% year-on-year and appearing yet again as one of the top items in our monthly barometer of the fastest growing search categories. Lingerie and cosmetics also experienced strong growth at 37% and 20% respectively, with shoes also coming in at 20%. Whilst other higher ticket items have not fared so well, interest in tablets has increased considerably at 372% as popularity in this latest gadget stays strong amongst online shoppers.”

Jason Russel Tanousis of Philip Kingsley Products comments:
“Philip Kingsley sales were up approximately 20% on last October, considering sales across all of our online retailers. Being a single brand site with huge online beauty retailers (who sell the PK products) makes life very challenging. But with a new platform, PPC advertising and email marketing there has been cost effective growth in October. We are not surprised the Index recorded such strong growth for the health & beauty sector last month….we have seen this across all the online retailers we sell through.”

Chris Simpson, CMO at Kelkoo:
“The results of the October Index points to good news for online retailers as we move in to the key retail Christmas period.  The bounce back for electrical sales last month could suggest consumers took advantage of discounted items for the home in time for the festive period. From our research, online sales are expected to account for almost one fifth of all UK Christmas spending this year, in stark contrast to offline sales which are forecast to fall by 2.1%. It will be interesting to see how the early Christmas sales that retailers have started will affect next month’s index, especially in the clothing and electrical sectors, and we can only hope that consumers buy more products at lower prices as opposed to reducing their overall spend.”

Notes to Editors
About IMRG
IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) is the UK’s industry association for e-retail. Formed in 1990, IMRG is setting and maintaining pragmatic and robust e-retail standards to enable fast-track industry growth, and facilitates its community of members with practical help, information, tools, guidance and networking. Consumers can be confident when dealing with IMRG Members because all interact in an environment where they are encouraged to operate using methods that are Honest, Decent, Legal, Truthful and Fair, and have undertaken to not bring the industry into disrepute. The strength of IMRG is the collective and cooperative power of its members. For more information please visit http://www.imrg.org/ or email membership@imrg.org

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organization, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About the ‘IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index’
The IMRG Capgemini Index, which was started in April 2000, tracks ‘online sales’, which we define as ‘transactions completed fully, including payment, via interactive channels’ from any location, including in-store.  These sales are predominantly internet-based today, but the Index remains ready to record e-retail sales conducted via whatever interactive channels the market may embrace in the future.

Around one hundred e-retailers now regularly contribute data to the IMRG Capgemini Index, including Airport Parking & Hotels Ltd, Amara, Arcadia Group (Burton, Top Man, Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Wallis, Miss Selfridge), Ask Direct, ASOS.com, Bank, Berry Bros & Rudd,  Binends.com, Blacks, Boden.co.uk, Boohoo.com, Boots Direct, Brandosa.co.uk, Brora, Buyagift.com, BuyItDirect.co.uk, Carphone Warehouse, Charles Clinkard, Charles Tyrwhitt,  Clarks, Cloggs, Co-operative Travel, Crocus.co.uk, Dabs.com, Damart, Debenhams, Ethical Superstore, Figleaves.com, Firebox, First Choice, Freemans Grattan Holdings, Furniture123, Game, Gameplay, Gamestation, Getting Personal.co.uk, Greenfingers.com, Home & Cook, House of Fraser, JD Sports, J D Williams, John Lewis Partnership, Ladderstore.com, Lastminute.com, LK Bennett, Lookfantastic.com, Lyco Direct, M and M Direct, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Millets, My Tuxedo, Naked Wines, NaturalCollection.com, New Look, Next, Peacocks, Perfect Handbags, PetPlanet.co.uk, Philip Kingsley, PIXmania, Prezzybox.com, QVC, Redfoot Revolution, Richer Sounds, Sainsbury’s, Scales Express, Schuh, Scott, Shoe-Shop.com, Shop Direct Home Shopping (Additions, Great Universal, Kays, Littlewoods, Empire, Woolworths,Very, Isme), Serenata Flowers, Size, Sofa and Home, Sunshine.co.uk, Tesco.com, The Fragrance Shop, The Health Supermarket, The Natural Store, TUI UK, Turton Wines, Waitrose, Warehouse, Wilkinson Hardware & Wynsors World of Shoes.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/hi/uk_revi ews/newsid_9630000/9630305.stm

Category 1: CIO / IT Director

Capgemini nomination: Capgemini CTO Blog.

The Capgemini CTO Blog authored by Andy Mulholland and Ron Tolido has won this award an unprecedented three times and is a leading blog amongst the IT industry. The CTO Blog has been viewed by36,000 unique visitors in 2011 and is popular with CIOs in India, where several customers have praised the blog contents. The CTO Blog is currently syndicated on PCQuest and Capgemni China.

Category 2: IT Professional Blogger of the Year

Capgemini nomination: Capping IT Off.

Capgemini’s technology blog, Capping IT Off, has reached extraordinary heights. It has been viewed by 60,000 unique visitors so far in 2011, and its growing audience regular exceeds 5,000 a month. It is a collective effort from 20 regular contributors, all experts in their own fields - indeed, most have been included in the Capgemini Expert Connect channel

Category 3: Best use of Social Media (private sector)

Capgemini nomination 1: Digital Transformation Recruitment Campaign.

At the beginning of the 2010, Capgemini made a strategic decision to focus on Digital Transformation following increasing demand from the market. After an assessment of ‘in-house’ skills, it was recognised that we needed more ‘consultants’ who understood digital specifically social media, mobile apps, web and eCommerce. Capgemini used social media to great effect to find these types of people through a concentrated Twitter and social media campaign (the place where these skill sets exist) a specific Twitter account, @CapgeminiUKppl was set up to target key individuals. As a result, Capgemini have recruited digital experts from a range of backgrounds including social CRM, marketing agencies, SEO, social media strategists to ensure we have the right skills to deliver digital transformation.

Capgemini nomination 2: Capgemini Social Media Landscape.

In 2008, Capgemini made a strategic decision to build its presence in digital and web channels. In 2010, Capgemini set a strategic focus on; externally; corporate and local websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Slideshare, YouTube and LinkedIn and internally, intranet and Yammer. We also created social media guidelines for our colleagues. At Capgemini, social media is all about human interaction in the virtual world. In addition to the creation of corporate accounts, we have brought together a large group of experts who are official spokespeople from around the company who communicate via twitter and blogs on specific topics, ranging from cloud computing to innovative postal services. It is important for Capgemini to have voice of the Group as well as individuals, underlining the brand signature ‘People matter, results count’.

Some our statistics include:

• 60 Capgemini experts with 16,000 followers and 18,000 conversations.
• A Global Capgemini Twitter account focusing on business contacts and developing journalist/analyst interaction with over 10,000 followers.
• A Capgemini Facebook page with 2,000 interactions.
• A LinkedIn page with nearly 80,000 followers and recommendation of our services.
• A Slideshare web page with content posted on Slideshare homepage and documents receiving over 12,000 views.
• A dedicated YouTube channel with 450 followers and 47,000 views
• A focus on thought leadership through Blogs with 20, 000 annual views of Customer Experience blog and 100,000 views of .com posts in 2011.
• Use of the enterprise social network Yammer where over 30,000 Capgemini employees collaborate and share information and is one of the largest B2B users of Yammer.

Category 4: Best IT video of the year

Capgemini nomination: Capgemini Countdown to the 13th European Energy Markets Observatory Report.

The video shows a preview the key topics of Capgemini’s 13th European Energy Markets Observatory.Initiated in 2002, the European Energy Markets Observatory is an annual report that tracks the progress in establishing an open and competitive electricity and gas market in EU-27 (+ Norway & Switzerland) as well as the progress to reach the 3x20 climate change objectives.

Voting for all entries closes on the 25 November and you can vote through the ComputerWeekly website and join the conversation supporting Capgemini on Twitter by including the #votecapgemini tag in your tweet.

Industry figures said the index reflected an expected growth in internet sales coming up to Christmas as shoppers looked for bargains.

To read the full article on MyHermes, please click here: Survey finds online shoppers spend nearly £6bn
Related Links:

• Press Release: Mild October produces mixed online results ahead of forecast £7.75bn Christmas spending bonanza
• Industry Overview: Retail

To read the full article on Marketing Week, please click here: Nectar readies campaign to push online offering

Related Links:

• Press Release: Mild October produces mixed online results ahead of forecast £7.75bn Christmas spending bonanza
• Industry Overview: Retail

OTC BPO services can help clients reduce OTC BPO services can help clients reduce revenue leakage, accelerate the cash-flow cycle and limit bad debt expense – outcomes that clients are increasingly demanding. Revenue leakage from cash collections can account for up to 5% in some firms. Capgemini will be ideally positioned to address these needs and deliver best in class accounts receivable functions to clients across the globe. The OTC and collections BPO market size is expected to reach $31bn by 2012 and is growing by more than 10% per annum according to NelsonHall, an industry leading BPO analyst firm.

F&A has been the main growth engine for Capgemini’s BPO business, driving over 60% of its revenue last year. Capgemini is a recognised leader in F&A BPO. Gartner positioned Capgemini in the Leaders Quadrant for Comprehensive F&A BPO, Global ^[2].
With over 300 experts, mainly based in the United States, VWA has eight outsourcing delivery centers - two in the United States and six in Europe: UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain and Italy. VWA supports global Fortune 100 and Mid-Market enterprises. It boasts world-class credit analytics, cash application, and an impressive record in collections, supported by leading dispute and deductions toolsets.

Capgemini also acquires a significant equity stake in the Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc. subsidiary that owns the Webcollect O2CPro software, with Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc. retaining a majority equity stake in it. It is anticipated that this subsidiary will continue to be run as an independent entity and that the software will continue to be licensed to clients and other service providers.

Capgemini BPO has already integrated Webcollect O2CPro software into its BPO F&A offering and has thus extended its software and services platform-based BPO strategy that was developed through the earlier acquisition of the IBX Procurement platform in 2010. This allows Capgemini to deliver global, standardised services and faster time to value for BPO clients, as well as offer new software-rich business services.

Robert G. Williams, Chairman at Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc., who joins Capgemini as Head of the BPO Order to Cash service, commented, “We are thrilled to join a global team which has a great reputation in the market for Finance and Accounting BPO and which seems a perfect fit for our business. Capgemini’s BPObusiness has global scale and reach, together with great vision in BPO. This combined with our deep expertise in OTC and collections should prove to be a winning combination. Meanwhile, Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc. will continue to develop its business, notably 3rd party collections and specialty audit.”

Hubert Giraud, CEO Business Process Outsourcing at Capgemini, commented, “This acquisition is a perfect next-step for our growth strategy. It will further strengthen our global BPO offering through VWA’s domain knowledge, on-shore center capabilities and US presence. Capgemini’s BPO service is focused on delivering the best outcomes and real benefits to our clients. VWA will bolster our offering in the Order to Cash arena, giving more value for our existing clients and a strong new entry point for new customers. Combined with VWA, Capgemini strengthens its position as a leading player in this field.”

Note about the Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2011 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Capgemini
With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of
consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About Vengroff, Williams & Associates, Inc.
VWA is the global domain provider of order to cash business process outsourcing for optimising working
capital. Founded in 1963, with over $23 billion dollars under management and 3,000 global customers, VWA strategically designs Order to Cash BPO solutions with an emphasis on technology innovation and partnership to drive ROI across the entire order to cash cycle, maximising working capital.
Combining unequaled experience and comprehensive capabilities across a number of vertical industries and business functions, VWA has extensive industry expertise in Order to Cash outsourcing and provides a broad and evolving spectrum of service offerings including O2C, starting with credit, revenue cycle management, Deduction Management, Dispute Management, 3rd party collections, Subrogation, Credit Risk Mitigation Services and A/R technology solutions.
For more information, please visit www.vwainc.com

Press Contacts

Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
Hester Decouz
Tel: +44 (0)870 904 5758
E-mail: hester.decouz@capgemini.com
Beth Trier
Trier and Company for VWA
Tel: +1 415 285 6147
E-mail: beth@triercompany.com

Capgemini is one of the first systems integrators to launch a dedicated Competency centre for SAP HANA, along with a complete learning and proof-of-concept environment. It is also one of the leading technology service providers to offer BIM solutions that integrate solution data from SAP and other vendors within a predominant SAP® solution-based landscape using in-memory computing technology. The centre will act as an interactive showcase where customers can experience innovative SAP HANA-based information management solutions. Customers are also able to interact with subject matter experts on-site or through video connections from around the globe, examine solutions created to address specific customer issues, and review proofs of concept and technology innovations, as well as productivity tools.

Paul Nannetti, Global Head of the BIM Service Line at Capgemini, said, “We are delighted to open this new centre specialising in SAP HANA and in-memory computing technology. In today’s highly-competitive business climate, immediate access to and analysis of all operational data ultimately determines the success of an organisation. This centre will further strengthen our data analytics capabilities, which is fundamental to helping enterprises leverage the rising volumes and speed of data in our increasingly global, mobile and social world. We will continue to focus and invest in Business Information Management to help customers unlock the power of their data.”

With the SAP HANA platform, companies now can run complex analyses such as simulations and pattern recognition in seconds, enabling sweeping innovations in the way they run their businesses. Capgemini plans to create and build proof-of-concept solutions using SAP HANA at the CUBE to showcase its capabilities to its existing and prospective customers, across all industry sectors including Energy and Utilities, Retail, Healthcare and Life Sciences.

BIM is a key strategic growth area for Capgemini, with strong demand from organisations interested in new strategies and techniques to retain, organise and gain insight from their most valuable asset: information. Capgemini was positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the leaders’ quadrant for Global Business Intelligence and Performance Management Service Providers^[2]. Its global BIM service line was established in 2009 with the aim of serving its global customers better and brings together over 7,000 specialist consultants supporting a global BIM delivery model.

About Capgemini
With over 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

About Capgemini India
Capgemini in India is more than 34,000 people strong across 7 cities (Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune and Delhi). A pioneer in the IT industry, Capgemini has over 43 years of global expertise collaborating with leading corporations and now brings the Consulting, Technology and Outsourcing experience to India. With dedicated teams to service the local markets, Capgemini has strong domain experience to assist clients across the Government and Public Sector, Energy and Utilities, Manufacturing, Telecom and Financial Services sectors and help them advance in their respective industries. Please visit www.in.capgemini.com for more details.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini
SAP, SAP HANA and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.
All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

Capgemini press contact:
Christel Lerouge
Capgemini Group
Tel: +33 1 47 54 50 76
Email: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Merrin Netto John
Capgemini India
Tel: +91 22 67557000
Email: merrin.netto-john@capgemini

[1] CUBE - The CUBE infrastructure installed at the Mumbai’s Airoli facility boasts a state-of-the-art setup running on dozen of high-performing blade servers, Business Intelligence appliances, and over twenty-five terabytes of storage subsystem; hosts a spectrum of various Business Intelligence, Enterprise Performance Management, & Enterprise Information Management tools and technologies. The environment is available for client Proof of Concept, demonstrations and training.
^[2] Gartner Inc.: “Magic Quadrant for Global Business Intelligence and Performance Management Service Providers,” Alex Soejarto, Neil Chandler, 27 January 2011

The judges were won over by the way Hannah has managed, with the help of the Prince’s Trust, to overcome many challenges to become a confident young woman with a bright future.

When Hannah was ten her parents split up. This, coupled with the stress of moving to a new area and new school, took its toll and by the time she reached high school Hannah had begun to lose her hair.

Her self-esteem hit rock bottom and she was terrified of others finding out she had to wear a wig. When they did, and the teasing and bullying became unbearable, she began truanting and eventually dropped out of school altogether.

Hannah had the opportunity to make a new start on Tasker Milward School’s Prince’s Trust xl programme – a curriculum designed for pupils facing difficulties.

She gradually began to make friends and grow in confidence and her attendance improved dramatically. She threw herself into completing her xl Bronze and Silver awards and as her self-esteem grew she realised she had a future, and could actually follow her dream of working with animals.

Hannah has since joined a local youth club and has started an animal care course. She has transformed her life and is positively looking forward to the future.

To read the full article on the Western Telegraph, please click here: Prince’s Trust teen scoops Capgemini Educational Achiever award

Related Links:

• Partnership Overview: The Prince’s Trust

To read the full article on ITBusinessEdge, please click here: Big Data Shines a Spotlight on MDM

Related Links:

• Thought Leadership: MDM: Mastering the Information Ocean
• Global Service Line: Business Information Management

According to Capgemini’s CPO Survey 2010, many businesses have not yet realised the full potential of on-line procurement ,with 67% claiming that less than a fifth of their spend is through eProcurement. But cloud services have the advantage of being quick, easy-to-use, ready for use, and not requiring any data integration or customer installation. Capgemini’s IBX Spend Capture Cloud can be up and running in 90 days offering cost benefits of up to 50% compared to an on-premise implementation. The solution integrates with all major eProcurement systems and has pre-built integration package for SAP SRM.

The solution provides a ‘one-stop-shop’ to guide users simply through an online order system via an intuitive approach. The Portal start page displays most frequent suppliers, contracts and items for speed of use. Supporting multiple call-off methods to capture any spend, from IT services to products. It comes pre-integrated with the IBX Supplier Network that provides connectivity to businesses’ entire supply base through one channel which provides access to all contracts, frame agreements and preferred suppliers in one place, with one search screen for all contracts, vendor forms, price check, order tracking and catalogues. It also includes a system to track key performance indicators to show procurement value contribution.

According to the recent Gartner Inc.^[3] E-Procurement Market and Vendor Landscape report covering 32 vendors, the Capgemini IBX solution was rated as a top five vendor in the categories of Electronic Catalogue, Supplier Integration and Technology platform.

Capgemini is already delivering the IBX Spend Capture Cloud solution to a number of blue-chip companies including major companies in the airline, telecommunications, manufacturing and consumer goods and retail sectors. “Since we’ve started to use the IBX Spend Capture Cloud to procure consulting and other services, we have received a higher degree of contract compliance and we have the ability to easily and properly send requests to our suppliers. After 6 months we now have a more structured procurement process and our users are happy that the time from specifying our needs to ordering is much quicker”, says Jörgen Augustsson, Procurement Director at Saab.

“The new user interface of the IBX Search Engine has been very well received by our end users. The design is improved and much more intuitive. This has also improved the end users experience of the entire procurement process”, says Gunnar Tvilling, Content Manager, Copenhagen Airports A/S.

Pontus Björnsson, vice president for Capgemini Procurement Services said “We are excited about the launch of the IBX Spend Capture Cloud. Struggling with bad usability and low levels of spend through eProcurement will now be history. The IBX Spend Capture Cloud will enable customers to truly improve their compliance and increase bottom line cost savings.”

Capgemini acquired a Swedish e-procurement vendor, in February 2010 gaining access to IBX Platform. The Capgemini IBX product portfolio is an extensive eProcurement suite, offering BPO and hosting services for SAP’s procurement product line. IBX Spend Capture Cloud including IBX’s Content Platform for content management, IBX Search Engine, IBX Procurement Intelligence, IBX Supplier Network and IBX eRequest are the intellectual property of Capgemini. With the IBX Platform, Capgemini is the only vendor to offer a complete procurement suite with all three operating models including 100% on-demand delivery, hybrid delivery – with the IBX Spend Capture Cloud connected to an on-premise eProcurement solution and finally the ability to build and run businesses’ procurement suites on-premise behind firewalls.

About Capgemini

With more than 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.

Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About IBX Platform

The IBX On-demand Platform represents a complete set of software tools for the procurement organisation, like IBX Spend Capture Cloud, IBX eProcurement and IBX eSourcing, all delivered on-demand. With this solution suite Capgemini Procurement Services provide clients inroads into leading practices in the industry and superior procurement processes with a very attractive return on investment.

More information is available at: www.ibxplatform.com

Press contact:

Christel Lerouge

Tel.:+ 33

E-mail: Christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Hester Decouz

Tel: +44 (0)870 904 5758

Email: hester.decouz@capgemini.com

^[1] According to ABERDEEN GROUP - The State of Strategic Sourcing: Building a Context for the Next Decade, March 2011, the average corporation sees 42% of their sourcing savings wasted

^[2] eProcurement is electronic procurement which provides an end-to-end process from the selection of suppliers to purchase, tracking costs and overall supplier management. This is done through the Internet or other networking systems such as Electronic Data Interchange or Enterprise Resource Planning.

[^3] Gartner Inc. E-Procurement Market and Vendor Landscape, Deborah R Wilson, Nigel Rayner, 2 September 2011

The Cap Gemini survey found that adding more value to the business was the top priority for CIOs in 2011, followed by increasing the efficiency of IT.

Cutting out that fatty layer of applications being used by employees in single or low double-digit numbers, but which still incur heavy maintenance and support costs, is a way of achieving that.

Even more so if, for example, the app is running on that old DEC Alpha in a long-forgotten corner of the data centre.

The problem is how to sell this concept to the business while the economy is collapsing. Squeezing budget from the board during financial apocalypse is always tricky, and consolidating applications is going to be an expensive process no matter which way you cut it.

In times of frantic belt-tightening, the pitch has to be a little different. Instead of agility, cost cutting and efficiency are more appropriate talking points. Even then, the impetus may be towards other projects.

“It will consume bandwidth and effort that may not be available,” says Andy Bates, chief technical officer of Infrastructure transformation services at Capgemini UK.

“You’re always in competition with other business change initiatives. On the one hand, I could save dollars by shaving applications, but I have to create functionality for this new department. A lot of organisations know that there’s a business case there, but they don’t have the bandwidth to deliver.”

To read the full article on The Register, please click here: Old apps must die when you migrate to the cloud

Related Links:

• Capgemini Publication: Application Landscape Report 2011 Edition
• Service Overview: Application Services

Consulting services, technology services and local professional services continued to report sustained growth of 6.1% on average, with the greatest increase recorded by technology services at 7.2%.

The company’s outsourcing services posted an average rise of 2.7%, while BPO enjoyed remarkable growth of 20%.

France with a growth of 7.8% in the first-half of the year remained the company’s leading country, while UK and Ireland region, still affected by public sector spending cuts, reported more moderate growth 1.3%.

North America reported a growth of 5%, while the other regions reported average growth of 10.4% (12.4% for the Nordic countries), said the company.

The decline in revenues was only seen in Benelux region, which reported a decrease of 5.7%, reflecting the economic crisis which continues to affect the Netherlands.

Third quarter bookings totalled €2.21b with outsourcing services recorded a slight decrease, while consulting services, technology services and local professional services saw their bookings increase 6.4% on average.

To read the full article on CBR, please click here: Capgemini Q3 revenues grew 13% to €2.38b

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini confirms its objectives for 2011

Like-for-like growth is 4.7%, with the difference between the two rates mainly due to acquisitions by the Group during the last 12 months (particularly CPM Braxis in Brazil and Prosodie in France).

Capgemini said Consulting Services, Technology Services and Local Professional Services continued to report sustained growth, 6.1% on average, with the greatest increase recorded by Technology Services - 7.2%. Outsourcing Services reported an average rise of 2.7%, while BPO enjoyed remarkable growth of 20%.

North America revenues increased by 5.0%; France – which retains its position as the Capgemini’s leading country – reported improved revenue growth of 7.8% on the first-half of the year; the United Kingdom and Ireland region, still affected by public sector spending cuts, reported more moderate growth of 1.3%, while the other regions reported average growth of 10.4% (12.4% for the Nordic countries). Benelux was the only region to report a contraction in revenues (-5.7%), reflecting the economic crisis which continues to affect the Netherlands.

Bookings in the third quarter 2011 totalled €2,208 million: Outsourcing Services recorded a slight decrease in bookings (although it should be noted that Q3 2010 levels benefited from the early renewal of several major contracts), while Consulting Services, Technology Services and Local Professional Services saw their bookings increase 6.4% on average.

To read the following article on Consultant-News, please click here: Capgemini confirms objectives for 2011

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini confirms objectives for 2011
• Industry Overview: Retail

So to find out whether its Big Data or Big Con ask the following:

• Can you replace the phrase ‘Big Data’ with ‘Big Database’ if you can then its just an upgrade
• Do they have things that mean old school DBAs et al can handle Hadoop?
• Can the ‘advance’ be reduced to ‘we’ve got an EAI connector’?
• Is it basically the same product as 2009 with a sticker on it?
• Is there anything that solves the data gravity problem?
• Is there anything that moves process to data rather than shifting the data?

Finally do they describe Big Data in the same way that the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy described space

“Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space, listen...
Then you really know its Big Con.  Big Data is evolution not revolution and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

Related Links:

• Thought Leadership: MDM: Mastering the Information Ocean
• Global Service Line: Business Information Management

There is no doubt that cloud computing offers government an unprecedented opportunity to transform its operations while reducing costs. This fact has already been seized upon by a handful of governments. In the US, for example, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra launched the Federal Cloud Computing strategy in February this year. President Obama’s administration is adopting what it calls the ‘Cloud First’ approach and from 2012 federal agencies must default to cloud-based solutions.

In the UK, we first heard about the proposal for a government cloud, the G-Cloud, back in 2009 from the then government CIO John Suffolk. It’s taken two years, but in early October this year The Cabinet Office announced plans to begin the procurement of services for the G-Cloud with the publication of a tender notice for a framework contract later in the month. 

So things are moving ahead and not just in the US and the UK. For example, the Australian Government has been working with technology vendors on the development of government cloud services. In a draft strategy paper released in early 2011 the Australian Government gave December 2012 as its target date for the development of a web-based “storefront” or service catalogue of pre-approved cloud computing services for federal government agencies to choose from.

This move towards cloud computing in government reflects a journey already well advanced in the consumer and business worlds. Where would we all be without the ubiquitous Google, for example? Most people accessing Google maps have no idea where the content and the infrastructure that support it actually sit. All that matters to them is that the information is there when they need it. How many people realise that this is achieved with no transfer of data, in an intrinsically safe manner?

Diverse possibilities

In government, this on-demand cloud-based approach has the potential to improve the quality of the services delivered through centralised data and shared platforms. In the Nordic region, Capgemini is already working with a number of public sector CIOs to explore a ‘Nordic Cloud’. This could make select public data transparently available so that diverse government organisations can tap into it from inside their organisational boundaries, rather than working from their own siloed data stores. This approach to cloud use is referred to as ‘inside-out’, as opposed to using Cloud technology to deliver the new generation of citizen services externally which is called ‘outside-in’. This model reduces the huge cost and complexity of operating numerous siloed IT systems, many performing similar tasks, by sourcing the same technology, information and services from a single source outside the organisation.

The Nordic CIOs are amongst a number that are fast recognising the huge range of possibilities that cloud creates in terms of new ways of serving customers or running corporate functions. In Scotland there is another great example of what is, in essence, a private G-Cloud. eProcurement Scotland (ePS) is a multi-agency procurement platform launched in 2002. It has evolved into a scalable, ‘as-a-service’, multi-tenant system to which new users and organisations can always be added. It currently represents about one third of total public procurement in Scotland. It has made a marked improvement to public sector efficiency, and created significant public value.

In the Netherlands, a security-sensitive cloud implementation known as the Information Pool is currently being piloted. Designed for use in emergency situations, the system enables multiple public agencies to exchange their data on a single platform to enable high speed information sharing ‘on the fly’ at times of crisis. In the UK the Information Workplace Platform (IWP) at the Department for Education facilitates on-demand content management, collaboration, workflow, management information, and sophisticated enterprise search via a web browser. It allows the government department to provision new business information and collaboration services quickly, cheaply and with a high degree of user engagement.

Five features of cloud computing

The above are just a few of the use cases already demonstrating the impact of cloud computing. They all exhibit some or all of the five essential features of cloud computing as defined by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). These features are:

• On-demand service: users provision computing capabilities when needed
• Broad network access: capabilities can be accessed over a network via diverse devices
• Resource pooling: computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers
• Rapid elasticity: capabilities can be quickly provisioned, in some cases automatically
• Measured service: resource usage can be monitored, controlled and reported.

The argument in favour of the value, flexibility and quality these features provide is so compelling that Capgemini believes the transition to cloud will define the technology landscape of government in the coming decade. However, starting the journey to the cloud is proving a challenge for some governments. Many are daunted by the complex questions that cloud appears to pose around data security, business roles and commercial models.

A simpler approach

This complexity needs to be unravelled. In Capgemini’s recently published point of view ‘The Government Cloud: Time for Delivery’ we offer a pathway through these questions and argue that denial and delay are not a good strategy when it comes to the G-Cloud. Those who implement first will realise savings soonest, and those could be as much as 25% of running costs in some areas. In departments and agencies trying to accommodate budget cuts, this kind of financial benefit cannot be overlooked.

Wider social change will continue whether or not governments move towards cloud, and it risks engulfing those public administrations that resist the changing shape of citizen behaviour and demands which has been fuelled by the boom in web-based, on-demand services. For example, citizens, public servants and politicians alike are using social networks such as Facebook to comment on and compare government services. Governments need a strategy to take advantage of the opportunities this offers, or risk such social media becoming an unmanaged source of false information and criticism.

A new mindset

Adopting a cloud strategy demands a change in mindset. Government leaders across the fields of business and technology need to consider the impact of cloud on the overall strategy of their organisations and on their service delivery models. They must approach cloud adoption in a cohesive manner, assessing all the potential cloud touchpoints, including internal stakeholders and partner agencies.

The impact of new models on frontline services and corporate functions should be explored to ensure that the technology aligns with the direction of the business. By moving corporate functions from inside an organisation to an external cloud, costs can be reduced while improving performance and flexibility. Equally, innovative cloud models can bring the outside environment – customers, partners, and the service delivery chain – into the heart of an organisation and continue the progress being made towards greater customer-centricity, choice, data sharing and joined-up service provision.

Capgemini defines this as the ‘outside-in’ model in contrast to the traditional IT model that supports the internal government services and operates as ‘inside-out’. In the ‘outside-in’ model, we see government engaging the customer in its service delivery. The flexibility of cloud computing allows services to be developed that are centred on events making sense to the customer. In ‘outside-in’, flexibility and citizen-centric delivery can be achieved without the constraints or security issues of existing ‘inside-out’ IT.

As technology fundamentally changes the way citizens want to interact with their governments, it is now time for government agencies to appoint a leader for cloud, set out a strategic roadmap involving business and technology, and test its potential with a pilot cloud implementation. Capgemini’s own EU eGov annual survey now incorporates cloud provisioning and new business models, allowing peers across EU governments to benchmark their own journeys to the cloud.

Do more with less, now!

It’s typical for governments in this time of austerity to want to do more with less, but this objective must be approached with the understanding that the ‘more’ relates to meeting citizens’ expectations for a new level of sophistication in online services, in which Cloud technology has a crucial role to play; and that the ‘less’ refers to reducing the cost of existing IT systems, which calls for a completely different approach to deploying cloud technology.

A cloud strategy can help to meet the prevailing demand to do more with less and balance departmental costs with citizen expectations. However, we must not underestimate the change that government IT and its business partners will need to go through to achieve this. There is a huge difference between how we use technology in our current IT systems and how technology is delivered in the cloud. Nonetheless, the way in which governments use cloud as a tool for improvement and to help address current budgetary, efficiency and customer focus challenges will shape public sector service delivery over the coming years.

Related Links:

• Capgemini in the News: G-Cloud’s time is now

The company noted that this 4.7% growth in revenues, on a like-for-like basis, breaks down by business and by region. Bookings during the third quarter of 2011 totaled 2.21 billion euros. Outsourcing Services recorded a slight decline in bookings, while Consulting Services, Technology Services and Local Professional Services saw their bookings rise 6.4% on average.

In addition, Capgemini Group maintained its objective for fiscal 2011, thereby expecting 9% to 10% growth in revenues on published figures, and an improvement in the operating margin rate of over 0.5 points on 2010. Given the unfavorable trend in stock market prices in recent months, the redemption by the Group of its convertible bonds due January 2012, is now probable, the company added. Further, in order to retain maximum financial flexibility, Cap Gemini S.A. inked a 500 million euros additional credit facility.

To read the full article on RTTNews, please click here: Capgemini Q3 consolidated revenues rise; backs 2011 targets

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini confirms its objectives for 2011

To read the full article on the Reuters please click here: Europe Factors-Shares set to rise; SocGen eyed

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini confirms its objectives for 2011
  
  

This 4.7% growth in revenues, on a like-for-like basis, breaks down as follows:

• by business, the so-called “cyclical” activities (Consulting Services, Technology Services and Local Professional Services) continued to report sustained growth (+6.1% on average), with the greatest increase recorded by Technology Services (+7.2%). Outsourcing Services reported an average rise of 2.7%, while BPO enjoyed remarkable growth (+20%).
• by region, North America increased 5.0%; France – which retains its position as the Group’s leading country – reported improved revenue growth (+7.8%) on the first-half of the year; the United Kingdom and Ireland region, still affected by public sector spending cuts, reported more moderate growth (+1.3%), while the other regions reported average growth of 10.4% (12.4% for the Nordic countries). Benelux was the only region to report a contraction in
  revenues (-5.7%), reflecting the economic crisis which continues to affect the Netherlands.

Bookings in the third quarter 2011 totaled €2,208 million: Outsourcing Services recorded a slight decrease in bookings (although it should be noted that Q3 2010 levels benefited from the early renewal of several major contracts), while Consulting Services, Technology Services and Local Professional Services saw their bookings increase 6.4% on average.
With respect to recruitment, Capgemini maintained the balance between the “historical” regions and “offshore” countries of the Group, while focusing particularly on young graduates who accounted for half of all recruitments in the third quarter. The Group had 43,931 offshore employees (including 35,413 in India) as of September 30, 2011, representing 37% of the total headcount at this date of 117,428 employees.
Despite current uncertainties regarding the economic environment in the coming quarters, Capgemini Group maintains its objective for fiscal year 2011 of:

• 9 to 10% growth in revenues on published figures (and of at least 5% like-for-like)
• an improvement in the operating margin rate of over 0.5 points on 2010.

Given the unfavorable trend in stock market prices in recent months, the redemption by the Group of its convertible bonds (“Oceane”) due January 2012, is now probable. Furthermore, in order to retain maximum financial flexibility, Cap Gemini S.A. signed a €500 million additional credit facility. The intention is to refinance this loan - when market conditions are deemed satisfactory - via a capital market transaction in order to further optimise its debt profile in terms of maturity.

Press Relations:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.: +33 1 47 54 50 76
Investor Relations:
Walter Vejdovsky
Tel.: +33 1 47 54 50 87

The alliance will combine PolarLake’s unique RDM software with Capgemini’s vast financial services domain expertise and global delivery capabilities to provide existing and prospective clients in financial services markets significantly improved data management platforms that add scalability and efficiencies. This offering will also help clients cut down on the considerable costs associated with updating and maintaining complex, legacy enterprise data management systems that are often custom-made. As part of this alliance, Capgemini will establish PolarLake Centres of Excellence at its Global Delivery Centers.

Increases in regulatory pressures, the need for clean reference data and verified transparency around sourcing and management are compelling companies to retrofit their data management capabilities, which can lead to higher total cost of ownership. The agreement between PolarLake and Capgemini will provide organisations with a reference data management solution that is specifically designed to meet these growing needs and provide a platform to meet future needs.

“Financial institutions worldwide are under pressure to find solutions to achieve compliance, gain efficiencies, reduce costs and add product delivery capabilities that will enable them to remain competitive in capital markets,” said Aloke Paskar, Head of Capital Markets Business Unit, FS GBU Capgemini. “Capgemini established an alliance with PolarLake to combine its unique platform with our global execution capabilities, allowing our customers to implement data management solutions that encourage speed to market, flexibility and extensibility this competitive market demands.”

“Our partnership with Capgemini will help current and future clients manage their enterprise wide data management and distribution platforms with increased agility, speed and adaptability while empowering the business and IT,” said John Randles, CEO, PolarLake.

About PolarLake
PolarLake’s Data Management Platform enables some of the largest firms in Financial Services to acquire, manage and distribute Financial and Reference Data with speed, agility and control with embedded Security not seen before in the Data Management Market.

Financial Services Clients using PolarLake products include 6 of the top 10 Investment Banks, 2 of the top 5 Prime Brokers and 2 of the top 10 Asset Managers. Clients have used PolarLake to make in house and commercial Data Repositories easier to distribute and consume data from. Others have used PolarLake in the end to end Data Supply Chain, sourcing, linking, validating and distributing data.

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^TM, and draws on Rightshore ^®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About Capgemini’s Financial Services Global Business Unit
Capgemini’s Financial Services Global Business Unit brings deep industry experience, innovative service offerings and next generation global delivery to serve the financial services industry. With a network of 17,000 professionals serving over 900 clients worldwide, Capgemini collaborates with leading banks, insurers and capital market companies to deliver business and IT solutions and thought leadership which create tangible value.

More information is available at www.capgemini.com/financialservices.

Capgemini Press contact:
Cortney Lusignan
Weber Shandwick
Tel: +1 212-445-8192
E-mail: clusignan@webershandwick.com
PolarLake Press contact:
Cliff Cunningham
Tel: +1 353-449-1010
E-mail: cliff.cunningham@polarlake.com

To view the video on Public Technolgy, please click here.

Related Links:

• Thought Leadership: Simplify your journey to the Cloud
• Publication: Cloud readiness assessment

Overall, Capgemini’s revenues grew by 13% to €2.4 billion. That growth rate includes the effect of two recent major acquisitions, those of Brazlian IT services company CPM Braxis and of French rival Prosodie. Without those acquisitions, Capgemini’s year-on-year revenue growth would have been 4.7%.

The company revealed that its outsourcing division saw a “slight” year-on-year decline in bookings during the third quarter, although other divisions saw a 6.4% increase.

It also revealed that half of all the company’s new recruits during the month were “young graduates”.

To read the full article on Information Age, please click here: Capgemini’s UK business still sluggish

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini confirms its objectives for 2011
• Also see media coverage by FT.com, Sourcing Focus, Reuters, RTTNews

“It is not like three years ago, after Lehmans fell, when company budgets were instantly cut. Everyone is a bit cautious but demand has not collapsed,” he said.

Shares in Capgemini rose 5.4 per cent to €27.93 in early trade on relief that the company had beat estimates. Third-quarter sales rose 13 per cent to €2.38bn ($3.27bn), and Mr Hermelin said that sales for 2011 as a whole would be 9-10 per cent above last year. The operating margin will be 0.5 point higher than last year, at the lower end of previous guidance for a 0.5 to 1 point advance.

To read the full article on FT.com, please click here: Capgemini confirms strong IT demand
Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini confirms its objectives for 2011

• by business, the so-called “cyclical” activities (Consulting Services, Technology Services and Local Professional Services) continued to report sustained growth (+6.1% on average), with the greatest increase recorded by Technology Services (+7.2%). Outsourcing Services reported an average rise of 2.7%, while BPO enjoyed remarkable growth (+20%).
• by region, North America increased 5.0%; France – which retains its position as the Group’s leading country – reported improved revenue growth (+7.8%) on the first-half of the year; the United Kingdom and Ireland region, still affected by public sector spending cuts, reported more moderate growth (+1.3%), while the other regions reported average growth of 10.4% (12.4% for the Nordic countries). Benelux was the only region to report a contraction in revenues (-5.7%), reflecting the economic crisis which continues to affect the Netherlands.

To read the full article on Sourcing Focus, please click here: Capgemini Group Q3 Financial Results

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini confirms its objectives for 2011

Given the importance of making the right decision, and the potentially disastrous consequences of making the wrong one, it is clearly more vital than ever for the CIO to understand how best to choose, and what factors must be considered. As the Financial Times reported in June, it seems almost every country in the world is hoping to become the new India and emulate their $76 billion IT and business processing outsourcing industry.

The paper quotes the latest AT Kearney Global Services Location Index (GSLI), a biennial ranking of 50 outsourcing locations worldwide.

It shows China and Malaysia hot on India’s heels, with many other nations, from Brazil and Poland to Vietnam and Morocco, pushing hard for a slice of the action.

It identifies three major factors as key to success:

• Financial attractiveness
• Availability of skills
• The business environment

The GSLI contains a wealth of statistics that are interesting and useful. But statistics can only take you so far. I would suggest that for the CIO choosing an offshore destination, is rather like choosing your children’s school. You want to look for yourself behind the statistics.A personal visit by the CIO to the location of choice can be invaluable before the die is cast.

There are lots of things to look out for and which I would suggest you ask about.

Can the outsourcer explain:

• How do the offshore and onshore teams work together, including their management and financial relationship?
• Are they fully integrated as ‘one team’ working effectively together on your behalf?
• Is the offshore unit treated as an arms-length contractor?
• What governance structure and controls are in place to ensure that you get what you expect?
• How much do they use third-party subcontractors?

Subcontracting may work well if highly specialised services are needed, but you will need to satisfy yourself that it is properly managed and controlled.

Your company may already have offshore facilities, in-house or outsourced, whether in IT, manufacturing or business services. In that case you should consider the benefits of co-locating.

A crucial question in my opinion is what impact will future economic variations make on the cost-effectiveness of your choice of location.

Outsourcing contracts can vary from being essentially output-based to input-based, and in the latter case it is important to understand what is happening and the future impact at this location.

Another key factor is what experience this location has of working globally, especially if your company is multinational.

The best match for your needs will likely be an IT partner with:

• A global footprint
• Plenty of local expertise wherever you need it
• Cost-effective offshore centres

For global rollout of packages it is essential to choose an IT partner with all three of these capabilities. Most important of all, based on my experience, is recognising that success is down to the individuals providing the services. In the same way that relationships are key to successful onshore delivery, so are they for offshore. Despite the uncertainties, more and more UK organisations are discovering the benefits of offshoring.

Here’s what two UK companies told us recently about what they looked for in a supplier and what they achieved:

“Effective IT is vital to everything we do, from planning, constructing and maintaining our water and waste management infrastructure to serving and billing our customers”, said Chris Boucher, Director of Information Services at Anglian Water.

“We were attracted by offshoring with its promise of high quality at relatively low cost but were not prepared to take a risk with reliability or consistency of service. However with clear evidence of the track record and professionalism of the proposed centres in India and Romania, excellent references, and contractual safeguards, we decided to proceed, and to sum up we have gained significant benefits ever since. We have no regrets about incorporating offshore into our IT business model.”

Pete Trainer, IT Director of retail leader Matalan, is also a convert to offshoring: “We were impressed by the quality and professionalism of the Mumbai operations we evaluated, and by the way they combined a UK team at our doorstep with highly cost-effective support from India”, he said. “This has already enabled us to reduce costs and boost quality, and we look forward to continuing and accelerating these trends.”

Experience is key. Companies with substantial offshore operations can guide you through the challenges and potential pitfalls to ensure that you reap the considerable benefits of offshoring and enjoy the experience.

Related Links:

• Sector Overview: Technology
• Service Overview: Outsourcing

Christine Hodgson is Chairman of Capgemini UK

• Mark Skilton – Global Director in Strategy, Global Infrastructure Services at Capgemini will discuss how technology is changing the way we work.
• Matthew Thorogood and Christian Murray, HR Services Partners at PwC will talk about people management for the future and the results of PwC’s global survey of 3,000 “millennials” from the US, China and the UK who have just joined the workforce, discovering their views and expectations of the future of work.
• David Williams - Partner and Kathryn Dooks – Employment Associate at Kemp Little will then talk about the legal challenges for HR Managers and practitioners in the future.

To register for the event please book your place here

For more information, please contact Jon Mills at Capgemini.

I have been meaning to get around to reading an IBM Research report entitled ‘From social media to Social CRM’. In an illustration of social networking this was highlighted by a colleague working on social CRM to those of us who are registered as interested in this topic via our Capgemini internal social network, in itself a useful example of the power of social tools to help people share experiences, knowledge and content without bombarding each other with emails.

The research backed up what many practitioners will feel they have experienced already with facts about how customers are using social networks to learn about product experiences, but this is still pretty well unconnected with the actual marketing of products. The report draws the obvious conclusion about the need for a more structured approach rather than the hit and miss of relationships of customers and enterprises which all too often are centered on the complaints department and make public all the wrong kind of messages!

Well, an enterprise has internal IT so that’s the structured end for sure, but if you reflect on the value proposition of the external use of social technologies and business use of social media then the benefits are all about seizing unstructured opportunities. So the big question is how do you go about doing this, and back to the headline, how do you get the linkage between an enterprise’s structured internal IT and the unstructured but opportunity-rich series of events and people that social media, networks, collaboration, etc supports? At this stage I should warn you that this blog is not focused on CRM but is focused on the challenge of enterprise integration in supporting this issue.

I got the closest answer I have seen yet in terms of an enterprise-level major technology vendor in Prague directly after Oracle OpenWorld when I was invited to be the guest speaker at an internal Oracle event training their European staff on the collection of capabilities that make up Oracle WebCenter. This is nominally described as being part of Oracle Fusion Middleware which provides the integration backbone to support and connect both traditional IT and the four major parts of Oracle WebCenter: Web Experience Management, Composite Applications & Mash-Ups, Enterprise Content Management and Social Networking & Collaboration.

I say nominally because the headings don’t really convey how much there is ‘in the red stack’ and most of all exactly what Oracle means by being a full stack vendor in terms of some different and genuine business benefits in this new area. This blog is about what we need and what we gain from this, but it is well worth taking a closer look at some of the Oracle content to gain a real feel for their thinking and capability, so based on the event and talking to their key staff, here’s a recommended paper that is low on sales, and high on insight:

Transforming business processes in Social by Design. I suspect that many CIOs react to Oracle’s terminology ‘a full stack’ by thinking of this in terms of technologies and products with the implied technology lock-in and are rightly suspicious. This might be true in the core IT back office, but when you get to the new world around the front office the way Oracle uses the term is around process and event integration moving through the stack of capabilities. If you get into the detail it’s pretty interesting, and lays out an approach to the headline challenge that’s worth reflecting on whatever your product and vendor strategy.

Oracle is perhaps able to do this as I think it is alone in having the three core blocks of business functionality as well as the underlying technology to be able to make it function, for everyone else it’s a technology integration task in parallel to the process orchestration and integration. That’s not saying it can’t be done, it can and at Capgemini we are doing this, but it does give Oracle the opportunity to provide a thought-provoking view on what good looks like. So what are the three business blocks?

Clearly, the new ‘go-to-market’ activities around Web-based social models, content and interaction is the first, and the third is the ERP and data engine. The second fits between these two and is often overlooked even though it’s just as important; best of breed vertical sector specialist applications. Oracle has been buying, and integrating specialist vendors in this market for some time, and if you are successful in ‘managing’ your interactions with the market, customers and experienced employees, it’s specialised vertical sector applications you are most likely to need to use to actually capture the opportunities into process, and then on into the transactions of core ERP to produce the structured data.

Interestingly, the big debate with the Oracle folks was about how specialised vertical software crossed with horizontal software through common user interfaces; the user experience had better be good or the capabilities are not going to be usable. So that’s why it’s interesting to take the time to understand the Oracle point of view on ‘the red stack’ even if you are not an Oracle customer, because it’s really about a view of business process integration across the stack from the one player with all three business blocks as well as the enabling technology.

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini launches Social Media Management (SMM) managed service to deliver business value from social media
• Service Overview: Technology

In the long run, content providers need to evolve beyond only selling content. One way of achieving this is to provide superior digital content consumption ecosystems that provides anytime, anywhere access across multiple devices. In this aspect, cloud-based services will play a critical role in adding significant value to the content proposition. Moreover, such ecosystems are difficult to pirate and they enhance the content’s value proposition. Content owners should also actively work with Governments and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to create legislation modelled on the “three strikes rule” in order to create a credible deterrent and cut down on piracy. In the end, the imperative for the success of content players will be, creation of platforms where consumers get a superior experience, in the most convenient manner.

These multi-faceted challenges have varying impacts on different parts of the telco organisation. Nevertheless, their major impact is seen on the telco IT systems and the way these are currently architected. IT systems in a 4G world will need to support multiple business and operating models spanning multiparty services, which will enable customers to have greater control over services consumed and deal with multiple classes of devices. In order to ensure that telcos make the most of the 4G transition and not allow IT to be a limiting factor, they should strive to remove legacy complexity in the system. Telcos should take a long-term view and create systems that can thrive on partnerships. They should focus on effectively managing the transition as a key to successful deployment of 4G wireless technologies.

• When setting up a new business model (e.g. when consolidating back office processes into a shared service centre)
• When changing the operating geographies and business areas
• When breaking into new geographies and business areas

Cook will lead a team that is helping leading organisations respond to the challenges of the new digital economy. Digitisation can extend the reach of organisations, improve management decisions, and speed the development of new products and services. At the same time, the excessively rapid adoption of technologies can disrupt traditional business models. Capgemini Consulting works in partnership with clients to deliver Digital Transformation, with a concrete strategy to harness its strengths and mitigate its challenges.

Cook brings a strong track record in consulting to clients. He previously worked at Ernst & Young, where his consulting career started in 1988, progressing to partner. He also brings extensive senior management experience from roles at Capgemini in the UK, including head of sales, commercial director and chief financial officer. Tom Blacksell, who currently leads the Capgemini Consulting team in the UK, moves to take up an international role as Global Head of Market Development at Capgemini Consulting.

To read the full article on Consultant-News, please click here: Bill Cook to lead Capgemini consulting operations in the UK

Related Links:

• Press Release: Bill Cook to lead Capgemini Consulting Operations in the UK
• Capgemini Consulting: An Overview

The UK’s Department for Education (DfE) is an ambitious public sector organisation, and was among the first to embrace the Government’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) strategy in a bid to transform decision making, policy development and service delivery. The DfE wanted to showcase how a more natural, consumer-style

approach to business information and collaboration could transform the impact of public services, increasing the value and use of information assets across and beyond the education sector. This meant moving from a silo-based information management strategy to a flexible, borderless Web 2.0 extranet model.

The Solution

The DfE engaged Capgemini to help shape the Department’s Web 2.0 information management and collaboration strategy. The resulting Information Workplace Platform(IWP) is based on a virtualised Microsoft SharePoint platform capable of supporting 25,000 users, and has been recognised as the most ambitious government implementation of the technology in the world. The platform facilitates on-demand content management, collaboration, workflow, management information, and sophisticated enterprise search via a web browser.

The Result

The IWP has successfully delivered a number of substantial benefits to the DfE and the broader education sector including:

Quantifiable Benefits:

• Overall savings of £70-180m depending on ultimate service reach – the overall investment is expected to deliver a payback of multiple times its cost
• Operational efficiency benefits of over 20%
• Reduction in IT costs of around £4m

Qualitative Benefits:

• Improved decision making and personalisation of services for citizens through better cross-sector collaboration
• Better customer insights, and decision-making enabled by rapid access to subject matter experts and high-quality information
• Reduced risk, boosting the Department’s reputation due to secure information access
• Increased agility, capability and responsiveness enabling time to be freed up for staff to focus on higher value activities
• Simplified, ‘on-demand’ IT estate, with infrastructure, platform, software and business processes delivered as a ‘service’
• Re-usable sector-wide services and technology assets which can be extended to the wider education sector
• Enhanced leadership reputation – the IWP has created a secure SharePoint-based template for the Application Store for Government, positioning the DfE as a cross-Government leader in this field.

For employers, it represents a new approach which sees them work with The Open University to grow their own graduate talent rather than relying on the output of traditional higher education. The higher apprenticeship programme instils in new recruits the most relevant technical skills within the context of their organisation and reduces the time employees spend out of the office.

The Open University’s higher apprenticeship programme can be completed around an existing job so you earn while you learn. The first part of the programme  takes only seven weeks with a three-hour session organised at a location and time to suit each student and their employer. From then on the rest of the programme is delivered in the workplace using real-world experiences to provide the learning context.

To read the full article on Computer Weekly, please click here: First steps towards a career in IT

Related Links:

• Capgemini Higher Apprenticeship programme
• New Higher Apprenticeship Scheme for Birmingham

Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, supported by Société Générale Global Research, CMS Bureau Francis Lefebvre and VaasaETT^[1], today announced the results of the thirteenth edition of the European Energy Markets Observatory (EEMO) report. Findings show that although the Japanese Fukushima accident is leading to existing plants stress tests conducted by Regulators,  delays in new reactor construction projects and nuclear phase-outs in some countries, global nuclear energy development is still set to continue. The report also finds that energy consumption growth in developing countries, the Fukushima accident – together with the slowing down of the needed investments made by Utilities^[2] will have negative consequences in Europe on the security of energy supply and greenhouse gas emissions. The report shows that in the longer term one can expect increased energy prices and even more severe consequences on supplies if regulators and governments don’t set the right framework to encourage investments of €1.1 trillion by 2020 in the EU. However, as in 2009, these issues may be mitigated by a second economic slowdown that would lead to decreased electricity and gas consumptions.

The nuclear development should continue
Following the Fukushima reactor accident, governments in all countries around the world decided to launch, in a coordinated way, safety inspections for their existing and future plants. It is too early to assess precisely the number of existing reactors that will successfully pass the ‘safety stress tests’ and comply with requested design and operating mode changes. However, except for German and perhaps Japanese reactors, it appears likely that the vast majority will be allowed to continue operations.

Since the accident, Italy and Switzerland imposed a moratorium on nuclear and Germany took the decision to stop its seven oldest nuclear reactors and not restart its Kruemmel^[3] reactor. The country also decided to phase out, between 2015 and 2022, its remaining nine reactors. However many countries and regions such as China, South Korea, Russia, the Middle East, UK, France, Czech Republic confirmed their commitment to nuclear energy.

More than three quarters of the 62 reactors under construction are in Asia (28 are in China, 5 in India, 5 in South Korea and 2 in Japan) and in Russia (10). These countries are facing high energy needs and except perhaps for Japan, should continue construction. In addition the United Arab Emirates, other Middle East countries and “smaller” nuclear countries^[4] have announced that they will go forward with their new constructions. On this basis, the report concludes that the majority of all nuclear reactors under construction will be completed.

Security of supply
The immediate closure of some of Germany’s nuclear plants is threatening European electricity security of supply. Following its reactors shut-downs Germany started to import electricity from its neighbors, including more than 2,000MW per day from France that had availability capacity owing to the strong performance of its nuclear plants. However during the winter electricity peak, France imports electricity mainly from Germany but this will be no longer possible in the coming years. There is thus a real threat in some countries in “keeping the lights on” for winter 2011/2012, and future winters as the electricity peak demand is increasing year on year – last year’s growth in Germany was +9.5 per cent and +4.7 per cent in France.
In 2010, the EU imported 113 bcm (billion cubic meters) by pipe from Russia, representing 33 per cent of total gas imports. In 2030 gas flowing through Gazprom^[5] pipelines should amount to 50 per cent of all European gas supplies which is a worry for the gas security of supply. In addition, Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power over the next decade should increase Europe’s reliance on Russian gas as illustrated by the German RWE^[6] and Russian Gazprom mid July 2011 deal to secure additional competitive gas supply to RWE.

A changing energy mix
The report also shows the energy mix should evolve after the Fukushima accident.  This conclusion is also shared by IEA^[7] . It  forecasts that,worldwide gas consumption should grow by 50 per cent during 2011 – 2035 and its energy market share should reach 25 per cent – from 21 per cent today – only slightly lower than oil (27 per cent). Fukushima accident consequences should also boost the development of renewables, however because of its lower cost, gas should benefit more. To reach a 20 per cent renewable share in the end energy consumption, Member States, governments and regulators should consider bold moves like in the UK. Facing £110 billion of investments in electricity needs only by 2020 and CO2 reductions tough objectives, the UK parliament adopted in July 2011 the “Planning our electricity future” White Paper.  It includes a carbon price floor, new long term contracts to provide stable financial incentives for investment in low-carbon electricity generation, an emissions performance standard so that no new non-CCS^[8] coal-fired power stations are built, and a power capacity markets mechanism.

Colette Lewiner, Global Leader Energy, Utilities & Chemicals, Capgemini, comments: “Growing energy consumption combined with global events in 2011 and insufficient investments have created an energy environment in Europe of decreased short and long term security of supply, a likely increase in emissions owing to reduced nuclear output and a likely growth of energy prices. Although a second economic crisis might delay these negative effects, the longer term impact will be difficult to face as we struggle to curb the planet’s temperature rise and ‘keep the lights on’ for future generations”.

To download the European Energy Markets Observatory 2011 (Editorial), please visit: /eemo. Keep up to date with the latest comments on Twitter by following the hashtag: #EEMO13

About the Capgemini European Energy Markets Observatory (EEMO)
Capgemini’s European Energy Markets Observatory (EEMO) is an annual report that tracks the progress in establishing an open and competitive electricity and gas market in EU-27 (+ Norway and Switzerland) as well as the progress on the EU Climate-Energy package objectives. The 13th edition is built on a majority of public data sources combined with Capgemini methodology and knowledge, and based on 2010 and winter 2010/2011 data sets. Specific insights on the European energy policy; the financial situation of Utilities and the performance of the sector; and the switching and retail prices are brought by CMS Bureau Francis Lefebvre, Société Générale Global Research and VaasaETT, respectively.

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

With EUR 915 million revenue in 2010 and 12,000 dedicated consultants engaged in Energy, Utilities and Chemicals projects across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, Capgemini’s Energy, Utilities & Chemicals Global Sector serves the business consulting and information technology needs of many of the world’s largest players of this industry.
For more information: www.capgemini.com/energy.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Hester Decouz
Tel: +44 (0)870 904 5758
E-mail: hester.decouz@capgemini.com

^[1] VaasaETT Global Energy Think-Tank is an academic organisation for energy experts
^[2] Utilities are committed to deliver electricity, gas, water and environmental services to end customers
^[3] Following technical issues this reactor (near Hamburg) was stopped since 2007
^[4] Argentina, Brazil, South Africa …
^[5] Russian company specialised in production, processing and transport of natural gas
^[6] German Utility
^[7] International Energy Agency
^[8] CCS : Carbon Capture and Storage

Bill will lead a team that is helping leading organisations respond to the challenges of the new digital economy. Digitisation can extend the reach of organisations, improve management decisions, and speed the development of new products and services. At the same time, the excessively rapid adoption of technologies can disrupt traditional business models. Capgemini Consulting works in partnership with clients to deliver Digital Transformation, with a concrete strategy to harness its strengths and mitigate its challenges.

Bill brings a strong track record in consulting to clients. He previously worked at Ernst & Young, where his consulting career started in 1988, progressing to partner. He also brings extensive senior management experience from roles at Capgemini in the UK, including head of sales, commercial director and chief financial officer. Tom Blacksell, who currently leads the Capgemini Consulting team in the UK, moves to take up an international role as Global Head of Market Development at Capgemini Consulting.

Pierre-Yves Cros, Global CEO of Capgemini Consulting, said: ‘These are exciting times for Capgemini Consulting as we spearhead the response to digital disruptions and innovations through Digital Transformation. In the UK we have a talented and ambitious team of consultants, and I am sure that with Bill’s proven leadership experience, the team will go from strength-to-strength.’

Capgemini Consulting is the Global Strategy and Transformation Consulting brand of the Capgemini Group, specialising in advising and supporting organisations in transforming their business, from the development of innovative strategy through to execution, with a consistent focus on sustainable results. Capgemini Consulting proposes to leading companies and governments a fresh approach which uses innovative methods, technology and the talents of over 3600 consultants worldwide.
For more information: www.capgemini-consulting.com.

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience™, and draws on Rightshore®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Press contact:
Tom Barton
Capgemini UK plc
Tel.:+44 (0)870 238 2491
Email: tom.barton@capgemini.co.uk
 

This is the third consecutive year that Capgemini has won a Teradata Partner award. In 2009 Capgemini won the Teradata EMEA Systems Integrator Partner of the Year Award for leadership and collaboration in Telecommunications and Financial Services, in addition to the Teradata Innovation Award, in recognition of collaboration with Teradata in France. In 2010, Capgemini received the Teradata Partner Impact Award for Innovation for their role in the joint “Smart Analytics for Utilities” initiative.

“Teradata congratulates Capgemini for its outstanding performance as winner of the Epic Award for Collaborative Revenue Contribution. Our shared customers recognise the unique contribution of our partnership, which has delivered strong business value such as the recently announced success at Levi Strauss,” said Bob Fair, executive vice president, global field operations, Teradata. “Analytics are clearly a priority for companies and are getting more complicated. Increasing data volumes, new types of data, real time and mission critical needs are all driving the need for more advanced analytics. Teradata can help companies address all of these requirements with our comprehensive platform family and we are pleased to work with Capgemini to help our clients improve their business results based on better analytics.”

Capgemini’s Global Business Information Management (BIM) Service Line has over 7,000 BIM consultants, with a dedicated Centre of Excellence in Mumbai, India which was enhanced by a Customer BIM Experience (CUBE), launched in September 2010. The BIM services provided by Capgemini include strategic information management blueprinting; data architecture, warehousing and management; business analytics and performance reporting; electronic file management and retrieval, and collaboration portals.

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model. Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
Hester Decouz
Tel: +44 (0)870 904 5758
Email: hester.decouz@capgemini.com

It seems the Government is one step closer to Cloud adoption with the Cabinet Office confirming it is to procure a Cloud framework. But this will cover a limited number of services and will only be short term with a longer term plan expected next year. It seems to be a rather tentative response. Like swimming without wanting to get your hair wet – the technology is already all around us, but still the Government do not want to become fully immersed. Nevertheless, the opportunity is now there for suppliers and public sector customers and they must come forward prepared to test the potential of the G-Cloud.

However, the problem still remains that many are sceptical, confused and cautious about how to use Cloud in the public sector, and what using it might mean in practice. With such feelings, it is perhaps not surprising that the response to Cloud computing has been slow, and the evidence of results is hard to come by. Like its meteorological name sake, Cloud Computing is hard to pin down the term has been to used either re-brand an old offering or to conceal the lack of any real solution. But, as more public and private enterprises make use of the cloud, both the distinctiveness of the offering and the reality of the benefits are becoming clearer.
The temptation for public administrators to delay the adoption of Cloud technology should be resisted for two simple reasons:

• Firstly, those that are in the vanguard of this initiative – and who are tackling it competently – will benefit earliest. With the potential for savings of as much as 25%  they will remain in financially far healthier positions. Thus, they will be able to service their core role better.
• Secondly, change will continue regardless and it risks engulfing those public administrations that resist. You only have to look at the extent to which the public are taking things into their own hands, individually and collectively. For example, people, including public servants and politicians themselves, are using social networks like Facebook to comment on and find out about government services. Governments need a clear strategy in place to take advantage of the opportunities this offers for gathering customer feedback and connecting with the public. Without this strategy, social media will become an unmanaged source of false information and avoidable criticism.

Recognising that this involves a mindset change as much as it does any other, Capgemini believes that a leadership community, frequently involving people and roles from more than one public organisation, needs to come together collectively. This community should re-evaluate the context, share views and concerns, and re-set the context within which its operations and services will work. This then creates a basis for making specific decisions about particular initiatives.
Crucially, approaching this in the traditional manner with “boards, chairs, and briefing papers” is not as effective as taking a far more engaging visual and story-telling approach. To that end, Capgemini has developed an outline framework for the “Journey to Cloud in the Public Sector” which sets out to:

• Accelerate the awareness building, learning, and decision making for an organisation or group of agencies
• Personalise generic, internationally relevant public sector material and make it specific, relevant and meaningful
• Enable the business and its constituent services to be broken down into manageable components; allow the evaluation of options and priorities to take place; and support decision making to phase the reconstitution of services in potentially different (Cloud) models, with potentially different partners
• Provide a framework for learning, and leading practice sharing, between public agencies

Cloud discussions too often launch into technical features of the clouds on offer – private, public, hybrid, or ‘X-as-a-service’ offerings. Instead, Capgemini adopts a simpler description, with two contrasting yet complementary models for how Cloud can help an organisation or family of organisations improve their operations. These models aim to tackle the two broad classes of challenges that face any organisation delivering public services:

• “Inside-out” – Public agencies deliver hundreds of services, many of them do similar functions, however they have been designed and implemented in isolation with their own systems and at a significant cost. If these existing business processes are allocated to the cloud, public organisations could reduce their costs significantly.
• “Outside-in” – The public sector also faces pressure from the outside; from the changing of public behaviour and increased demands. The government should do more to embrace these practices like engaging through social media channels. The public sector’s approach should bring customers to the heart of the service delivery chain and an external Cloud can support new types of interaction between government agencies and the public to reduce the time, cost and complexity of delivering services.

Cloud is here. The technology has matured at an exceptionally challenging time for public administrations. How they choose to use it will help determine how successfully they address these challenges in the years to come.

Andy Mulholland is CTO at Capgemini.

How IT can help sustain or create a competitive advantage has never been more apparent than today through the use of cloud computing. This technology boasts benefits such as reduced costs and scalability, just to name a few, but many companies fail to find the right fit for cloud within their business.

This is because cloud computing is not one size fits all. Performance, network bandwidth, security, and total cost concerns can be allayed through a better portfolio and investment approach that considers the multitude of options available.

How cloud computing fits

In industries where working capital bears a high price and is in short supply, businesses often have to make ends meet and have limited investment available. Therefore, being able to source the lowest cost and drive efficiencies even further is critical to growing business and market share.

For companies with limited working capital resource or cash flow funds, the use of on-demand services becomes an attractive option for consumers to avoid upfront costs or maintenance of services. Likewise, companies seeking to provide better profitability from their operation and vendors managing their cost center can leverage on-demand models to target areas of their portfolio to reduce cost and maximise return.

When adopting cloud computing, companies are often driven by cost effectiveness, rather than looking at the bigger picture and asking what cloud solution is the best fit for the business.
When adopting cloud computing, companies are often driven by cost effectiveness, rather than looking at the bigger picture and asking what cloud solution is the best fit for the business. Cost savings, longevity of product, and performance aren’t mutually exclusive, and all should be factored into the decision-making process when researching and purchasing a cloud solution.

Here are four questions, which include key metrics and drivers, to ask when researching cloud solutions that will maximise the value of cloud computing for your organisation:

• Key Metric: The balance of percent of investment on non-core commodity IT
• Key drivers: TCO needs to consider where to focus IT investment

• Key Metric: The cost of storage and archiving, recovery and continuity
• Key drivers: Latency of network and storage costs can be targeted through considering the whole IT portfolio, not just niche use cases of cost-performance. Look at the bigger picture.

• Key Metric: Size of markets and effectiveness of sales channels, both internal sales and external direct sales and reselling
• Key drivers: Total cost of acquisition can include the creation or use of third-party distributed marketplaces and self-service portals and platforms

• Key metric: Speed of IT delivery and its cost and quality of service.
• Key drivers: Performance can be offered through selected service provisioning. Question whether all knowledge needs to be in-house. Skills can be as-a-service too.

Open Group Cloud Computing Book

The Open Group recently published Cloud Computing for Business –The Open Group Guide to address many of these key questions. The book is intended for senior business executives and practicing architects responsible for defining corporate strategy, and it identifies how to select and buy cloud computing services to achieve the best business and technical outcomes.

You can purchase a copy of the book from The Open Group here or download preview sections here:

Cloud Computing for Business – Preview – first 30 pages
Cloud Computing for Business – Section 1.8
Cloud Computing for Business – Section 4.1

Related Links:

• Thought Leadership: The Government Cloud
• Event: The 9th International Cloud Expo

The award is in particular recognition of tGov, Capgemini’s full stack Oracle based solution to drive transformation, cut costs and bring about a broad base of operational efficiencies. In the UK the solution has been used within several local government councils to bring transparency and sustainable efficiency into back-office functions such as finance, procurement, HR, performance management and reporting.

The t-Gov solution has also been adapted for other uses across the public and private sectors including t-Police for the Police force and t-biz for the commercial sector.

Jean Claude Viollier, Corporate Vice President, Global Channels & Partner leader, along with Mark Pulling, Oracle Leader from the UK were present at the Oracle OpenWorld to collect the award. Connie Cservenyak, Global Oracle Partner Executive at Capgemini said: “We are delighted to be recognised with this important award. We won Innovation Awards in the UK for our t-gov solution but this is the first time we have been recognised at an EMEA and Global level. The award reflects our strength in implementing Oracleapplications globally and in delivering projects that involve Oracle technology.”

Dermot O’Kelly, Senior Vice President EMEA Hardware Sales

congratulates Mark Pulling, Oracle Leader from the UK on Capgemini’s award.

The Quarterly Benchmarking Index is an additional reporting tool that is open to all participants in the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. The Quarterly Index tracks over 40 key performance indicators across 7 categories, leading to unique insights into the performance of the UK e-retail sector.

The Quarterly Index has been launched based upon six quarters of data and throughout that period, the average sales via mobile leapt up from 0.4% at the beginning of 2010 to 3.3% in Q2 2011/2012 (see note on quarters below), as confidence in the channel grows and mobile sites become more sophisticated. The highest percentage of sales through mobile for participating retailers was just under 7%. The percentage of visits via mobile is also increasing, from an average of 1.4% in Q1 2010/11 to 7% in the latest quarter. The rate of mobile visits is as high as 12% for some retailers.

In a sign that retailer sites are becoming more engaging for consumers, both checkout and basket abandonment rates have dropped over the last six quarters, from 37% to 32% and 63% to 59% respectively.

David J Smith, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at IMRG, commented: “Mobile has been discussed for a while now as an important channel for retailers to engage through, and with some retailers having up to 12% of their traffic coming through that channel, its popularity among consumers is clear. The Quarterly Index provides invaluable data for retailers that can greatly assist with spend decisions, for example revealing the best periods in the year for ROI and how your bounce rates compare with your competitors. This Index is open to retailers of all sizes and sectors and can perform an important role in helping to shape marketing strategies.”

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini, says: “This Quarterly Index provides us with a unique set of data from online retailers. It allows us to monitor specific aspects of a business and discover emerging trends in consumer interaction, which ultimately provides retailers with the right intelligence to evolve their business accordingly.

“The report has revealed that the average basket abandonment rate for UK e-retailers is currently 59%. If we consider this in a physical sense, we can see how alarmingly high this figure is – if three fifths of shoppers, having chosen and queued, walked away from the till, shop keepers would clearly act. Likewise online businesses need to be similarly concerned and follow the example of the major eRetailers, such as Amazon. Clarity of pricing and delivery charges is essential, so there are no surprises at the checkout, and one click ordering is a very effective way to streamline the process through the checkout.”

Only a brief overview of the findings from the Quarterly Benchmarking Index are made available to non-participants. Participants in this initiative receive the full report with all of the key performance indicators outlined in the ‘About the IMRG Capgemini Quarter Benchmarking Index’ section below.

About the IMRG Capgemini Quarter Benchmarking Index
The Index tracks over 40 key performance indicators across 7 categories, leading to unique insights into the performance of the UK e-retail sector. The categories/KPIs are:

• Website Performance: visitor bounce rate; basket abandonment rate; checkout abandonment rate
• Customer Acquisition & Retention:  active customer retention rate; percentage of new customers
• Commercial:  average selling price per item; average order value
• Channel:  percentage of sales via mobile; percentage of visits via mobile; percentage of click & collect sales
• Marketing:  PPC ROI ; affiliate ROI; online marketing ROI; revenue split by marketing method – paid, affiliate, email, natural, direct, social, display & other; visits split by marketing method - paid, affiliate, email, natural, direct, social, display & other; orders split by marketing method – paid, affiliate, email, natural, direct, social, display & other
• Order Fulfilment:  percentage of total orders cancelled due to fraud; percentage of units returned; no. of items / products per order
• Geographical Split:  percentage of sales within the UK; percentage of sales within the EU 27 (excluding the UK); percentage of sales rest of the world (excluding the UK and EU27)

Around 20 retailers are currently participating in the IMRG Capgemini Quarterly Benchmarking Index: Bank, Blacks, Boden, Clarks, Co-operative Travel, Crocus, Debenhams, Freeman Grattan Holdings, Home & Cook, JD Sports, John Lewis, Joules, Lyco, M and M Direct, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Milletts, New Look, Schuh, Scott, Shop Direct & Size.

The quarters run as follows:

• Quarter 1 - February to April
• Quarter 2 - May to July
• Quarter 3 -  August to October
• Quarter 4 - November to January

It reported mobile sales up from 0.4 per cent of total online sales at the start of 2010 to 3.3 per cent in Q2 2011/12, with some retailers reporting nearly seven per cent of total sales coming via their mobile site.

The percentage of visits via mobile also increased over the period, from an average of 1.4 per cent in Q1 2010/11 to seven per cent in the most recent quarter, with some retailers reporting that 12 per cent of all their visits come via the mobile channel.

Another interesting indicator of the growth of m-commerce came on Friday when John Lewis announced it would become the first UK retailer to provide free Wi-Fi in all of its stores.

To read the full article in V3.co.uk, please click here: M-commerce on the rise as consumer confidence grows

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online shoppers reward belt tightening with cheaper treats
• Industry Overview: Retail

In a sign that retailer sites are becoming more engaging for consumers, both checkout and basket abandonment rates have dropped over the last six quarters, from 37% to 32% and 63% to 59%, respectively.

To read the full article in Internet Retailing, please click here: IMRG Capgemini study shows that retail sales over mobile have exploded from 0.4 to 3.3% since 2010

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online shoppers reward belt tightening with cheaper treats
• Industry Overview: Retail

The quarterly Index tracks customer acquisition, basket abandonment rate and order fulfilment across retailers including John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Debenhams.

The findings showed that the percentage of visits to retailer’s websites via mobile devices had increased to 7% in the first quarter of 2011, up from 1.4%.

It also said that checkout abandonment rates dropped from average of 37% to 32%.

To read the full article in Marketing Week, please click here: M-commerce sales rise 2.9%

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online shoppers reward belt tightening with cheaper treats
• Industry Overview: Retail

This award is formal recognition of the early and strong commitment Capgemini made to the Guidewire InsuranceSuite; as well as it’s unique market leading capabilities in transforming the policy, claims and billing operations of leading Global Insurance Carriers. As an early believer in the Guidewire product capabilities and commitment to excellence, Capgemini has many firsts to its credits in this space.

Since early 2004, Capgemini consultants have worked on over 60 Guidewire engagements and marquee clients and Capgemini has been directly responsible for successful delivery of the industries most exciting Guidewire programs. Capgemini’s Guidewire practice is also one of the few that has the ability to provide strong local presence with the scale of leading global provider of technology focused consulting services.

The Guidewire practice at Capgemini is actively supported by a dedicated training, certification, mentoring program and active centralised GW program support in each of the major delivery and program management disciplines. Capgemini is focused on driving predictable business outcomes and maintains a market leading perspective on transformation al change. For Capgemini and the clients they serve, solutions like the GW suite are critical ingredients to achieving reliable results.

“We appreciate being recognised by Guidewire as Partner of the Year,” said John Mullen, vice president, Insurance with Capgemini. “We have enjoyed a successful relationship with Guidewire. Our teams are aligned first and foremost on driving measurable business results for our clients. Throughout our relationship we have continually strived to refine our skills, tools, and methods to help our clients deliver predictable results. We are pleased to have a partner like Guidewire in serving the market and we look forward to more opportunities ahead.”

“I would like to extend a thank you to all of our alliance partners and their ongoing contributions to our success as well as our customers’ successes. We congratulate Capgemini on their accomplishments and their well earned recognition as Partner of the Year -- 2011,” added Marcus Ryu, chief executive officer, Guidewire Software. “The Capgemini/Guidewire partnership is an outstanding example of what can be accomplished when companies collaborate and work together with a clear focus on customer success.”

• FEAR: Psychology In The Pursuit Of Quality – Rik Marselis, Sogeti, The Netherlands
• Houston We Have A Problem - Rien van Vugt & Maurice Siteur, Capgemini, The Netherlands
• Catching A High Speed Train: End-To-End Testing At NSHispeed Fyra - Nathalie Rooseboom de Vries, Capgemini, The Netherlands

• You Say “Kvalitet”, I Say Quality - Colin Cherry, Capgemini, Australia

• Happiness As Quality Measurement - Jeroen de Cock, HP Enterprise Services, Belgium

• Revolution, Evolution and Lean: A Test Process Improvement Diary From Copenhagen To Manchester - Tapani Aaltio, Sogeti, Finland

Related links:

World Quality Report

Testing Services

Sogeti

HP

This award is formal recognition of the early and strong commitment Capgemini made to the Guidewire InsuranceSuite; as well as it’s unique market leading capabilities in transforming the policy, claims and billing operations of leading Global Insurance Carriers. As an early believer in the Guidewire product capabilities and commitment to excellence, Capgemini has many firsts to its credits in this space.

Capgemini was the first Guidewire partner to develop a dedicated Guidewire Practice and repeatable capability to deliver Guidewire ClaimCenter and PolicyCenter projects; the first to develop accelerators and a proprietary implementation methodology CapGEM (Capgemini Guidewire Engagement Methodology); the first to create a RightShore™ Distributed GW Delivery capability utilising a network of Global Delivery Centers in the US, India, France and UK; the first to lead an independent GW upgrade and create an upgrade factory; and the first to provide SLA based application management services for Guidewire ClaimCenter and Guidewire PolicyCenter.

Capgemini has unsurpassed experience and credentials to meet the needs of insurance carriers regardless of size, complexity or geography. The Capgemini Global Guidewire Practice has over 600 professionals in the US, Canada, France, India, UK, Spain, Mexico and Asia-Pacific that are highly experienced in driving Policy Administration, Claims, and Billing transformation enabled by the Guidewire Insurance Suite.

Since early 2004, Capgemini consultants have worked on over 60 Guidewire engagements and marquee clients and Capgemini has been directly responsible for successful delivery of the industries most exciting Guidewire programs. Capgemini’s Guidewire practice is also one of the few that has the ability to provide strong local presence with the scale of leading global provider of technology focused consulting services.

The Guidewire practice at Capgemini is actively supported by a dedicated training, certification, mentoring program and active centralised GW program support in each of the major delivery and program management disciplines. Capgemini is focused on driving predictable business outcomes and maintains a market leading perspective on transformation al change. For Capgemini and the clients they serve, solutions like the GW suite are critical ingredients to achieving reliable results.

“With our unwavering commitment to deliver the best software and services to our customers in the Property/Casualty market, we are pleased to have Capgemini on our partner team,” said, Michelle Lynch, director, Alliances with Guidewire. “Capgemini’s strong commitment to its Guidewire practice is evidenced by the growth of its worldwide practice and its close relationship with the Guidewire team.”

About Guidewire PartnerConnect

Guidewire PartnerConnect members provide a wide range of services to the property/casualty insurance community, including: business transformation consulting and strategy, and IT related services. To date, world-wide, Guidewire practices include 1397 consultants, 599 of whom are functional and technical consultants certified on Guidewire products. PartnerConnect member benefits include: a close working relationship with the Guidewire team, senior executive sponsorship, training discounts, and Guidewire product strategy previews. For more information, visit PartnerConnect. About Guidewire Software Guidewire Software is a leading provider of core systems that enable Property/Casualty (general) insurers to deliver insurance the way they want to. Guidewire builds high-quality software that consistently works as promised. Designed for maximum flexibility and scalability, Guidewire solutions give insurers the capability to deliver excellent service to policyholders and agents, and to increase market share – while lowering operating costs. Guidewire InsuranceSuite™, consisting of Guidewire PolicyCenter®, Guidewire ClaimCenter® and Guidewire BillingCenter® spans the entire insurance lifecycle – underwriting and policy administration, claims management and billing. Guidewire is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices in Beijing, Dublin, Hong Kong, London, Munich, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, and Toronto.

For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com. Contact: Diana Stott Public Relations Manager Guidewire Software, Inc. +1.650.356.4941 dstott@guidewire.com

NOTE: Guidewire, Guidewire Software, Guidewire ClaimCenter, Guidewire PolicyCenter, Guidewire BillingCenter, Guidewire InsuranceSuite, Deliver Insurance Your Way, and the Guidewire logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Guidewire Software, Inc

The companies endorsing The Communiqué, which calls for an effective global deal, represent a range of sectors including construction, energy, finance, manufacturing, mining, retail and telecommunications. Capgemini is proud to be a signatory. As a global organisation, we strive to reduce negative environmental impacts in the areas most relevant to our business, in particular energy use, travel and waste management.

To find out more, please click here: 2°C Challenge Communiqué

Related Links:

• Capgemini Corporate Social Responsibility: Environment
• Merlin: the world’s most sustainable data centre

The organising principle of the Cloud Expo is to ensure - through an intensive four-day schedule of keynotes, general and breakout sessions, and the bustling Expo Floor - that you leave with abundant resources, ideas and examples you can apply immediately to leveraging the Cloud to maximise performance, minimise cost and improve the scalability of your enterprise IT endeavors.

At the end of the event you will leave 9th Cloud Expo with dramatically increased understanding of the entire scope of the cloud computing spectrum, from storage to security.

Register here to listen to Mark Skilton take you through his session where he will discuss how customers and providers of cloud services can target better growth and ROI from cloud.

To view his profile click here.

The business environment has become increasingly complex as the pace of change continues to grow. Consumer and business interactions, the way resources are controlled and the power shift to emerging economies are all impacting manufacturers as they continue to look for solutions to help them understand and manage the complexities of this new way of working. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) helps to address business challenges by managing back-office practices by reducing time constraints and overhead costs whilst enhancing flexibility within an organisation, allowing it to concentrate on its primary purpose. Historically, the sector has often outsourced non-core processes such as human resources, procurement and supply chain management but many manufacturers are beginning to further expand their outsourcing to higher-value services such as product design and innovation; marketing, sales and service management; and social media.

Analysts are predicting the BPO market within the manufacturing sector will grow sharply. BPO is evolving and the industry is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 10% driven by enterprise-wide performance improvements and greater competitive advantage.  Manufacturing organisations want solutions that can deliver business outcomes and effectively support them in addressing these challenges.

1. Cost Pressures

Recessionary pressures are easing, however uncertainty still exists. As a result, manufacturers remain focused on reducing their operating cost base but organisations are not structured to be flexible enough to respond to changes in revenue.

A BPO approach can address this challenge by delivering significant cost savings by levering locations such as India, China and Eastern Europe, which can deliver BPO services at significantly lower costs than current onshore operations. With resources dedicated to continual improvement and projected savings supported by the commercial model, BPO can drive best practices, thereby sharing the cost savings. Mature pricing models reduce the impact of stranded costs, enabling resourcing and pricing to be adjusted to meet changes driven by economic conditions.

2. Agility and Flexibility

While some manufacturers are rationalising and divesting non-core assets, others are more opportunistic and are looking to maximise the benefits of integrating business acquisitions. BPO can help companies get the right structure in place to improve their agility and flexibility in a variety of ways:

Reactivity: Through scale of delivery, resources can be dynamically reassigned to react to temporary and permanent business volume changes or fluctuation.

Flexible Delivery: A flexible delivery model and Software-as-a-Service options make it easier to adapt to changes in the organisation.

Capability: With wider organisational or alliance networks, most BPO partners can provide a greater breadth of experience in managing business processes with the ability to bring the right capabilities to the fore as and when required.

3. Sustainability

As legislation is introduced requiring companies to be more accountable in their use of resources, manufacturers are looking for support to implement and manage the necessary solutions. There is an increasing awareness that some natural resources are becoming scarce and consumers are also demanding more accountability about the sustainability of the supply chain.

BPO supports supply chain management not only for a more efficient supply chain but a more sustainable one, through the aggregation of loads and the use of the most recent “green” approaches. As manufacturers are increasingly recognising that green supply chains can lead to reduced costs, BPO providers are beginning to offer tools and processes to manage the complexities of recording and reporting carbon accounting.

4. Access to Skills

Organisations are looking at ways to reduce the cost of required specialist skills as an alternative to more expensive consulting or accounting resources. BPO can offer delivery teams the right mix of transactional and analytical skills to ensure that issues are not just identified, but dealt with efficiently. As a result, the business environment will be better understood and specialists can be deployed quickly on an as-required basis to address specific business issues.

5. Master Data Management

Manufacturers are more aware than ever of the value of their master data, from innovation, through the supply chain and into business support functions. To reduce costs and drive new revenue streams, companies will need to get control of their master data.

A BPO approach provides a more effective delivery mix to quickly release savings from the management of reference data without significant changes. Those savings can then be directed towards transformation of the master data function. With an improved understanding of master data requirements, BPO can help a manufacturer determine strategy and policy, and implement the tools best placed to manage data.

6. New Markets

As growth in mature markets slows, developing markets in China, Brazil and India continue to grow and manufacturers are looking for solutions to help them enter these markets and provide services. However, this often involves moving production and also shifting focus to the consumers in these markets. BPO can assist companies as they make the move into these new markets. As new markets open up, outsourcing – using a scalable delivery model – can quickly adapt to take into account changes in an organisation. Being able to leverage this scale, as well as language and industry-specific skills allows a manufacturer to quickly deploy resources in line with organisational changes.

7. Evolution of Social Media

The relationship between manufacturers and consumers is changing quickly. The rapid adoption of social media over the past five years has driven a significant shift of power to the consumer. A customer operations management approach leveraging BPO can provide companies with an end-to-end solution incorporating customer services, order management and content management. This type of integrated approach that combines “social listening”, business analytics and market research services offers greater insight into customers, products and the markets in which a company operates.

There are three prongs to this strategy:

• Customer Operations Management: This approach provides the process and technologies to effectively manage multi-channel contact management.
• Social Analytics: Tools and processes enable effective analysis to help companies keep up with the dynamic state of social media technology.
• Architecture: Integrated frameworks that bring together the best-of-breed tools can deliver customised web services reducing the cost of implementation and maintenance.

8. Information Overload

Companies are producing terabytes of information, but are struggling to understand the value of this data, as well as the external information from customers, suppliers, products and markets. BPO can help companies make sense of the information overload through sophisticated business analytics tools enabling companies to filter and analyse these data sets and provide meaningful analysis to support business objectives. A BPO approach ensures benefits are sustained, trends are captured and information is managed cost effectively.

9. Service Management

As manufacturers try to drive greater client intimacy, they are increasingly looking to provide more extensive service to their customers. Manufacturers are placing greater value in after-sales servicing of products, but do not always have the capabilities in-house to provide the infrastructure to move to this new business model.

BPO can help companies make the shift to service management without losing focus on their core manufacturing operations. A customer operations management approach can provide a comprehensive solution for customer support across multiple channels. Such a global platform reduces the need for capital investment and shortens the implementation cycle. And an outsourced supply chain, based on sustainability principles, can ensure that a company is fully supported with no impact on the core manufacturing processes.

10. Managing Innovation

As the pace of change increases, manufacturers are under constant pressure to innovate, not just in the products they sell but also in how they manufacture and support those products. BPO can help manufacturers better manage innovation throughout the product lifecycle. This includes a robust innovation management process combined with a balanced delivery model to help manufacturers maximise their research and development investment, by focusing on innovation itself and not day-to-day project management. The right platform and processes to manage technical content will allow organisations to be more responsive and react to change. A good example of this is business analytics with ongoing product profitability analysis.

Cap Gemini has produced a white paper called Government Cloud, time for delivery.

Andy Mulholland, CTO of Capgemini said the company produced the paper because it came to the realisation that the cloud involved a completely new service delivery model that was based on an ‘inside out and outside in’ approach.

“What we’ve realised is that we’re building true cloud – what we didn’t realise was how it was being used. We were approaching this as if it were enterprise IT, thinking about it being IT on one side and about front office and how it was market facing,” he said.

To read the full article on DatacenterDynamics, please click here: UK suppliers await Government Cloud tender

Related Links:

• Thought Leadership: The Government Cloud
• Industry Overview: Public Sector

Oracle overview

Blog on Oracle Exalytics

The IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index has reduced its previous prediction of 18% to 16% annual growth for online spending in 2011.

David Smith, chief marketing and communications officer at IMRG, said: “There has been a slight dip in terms of the growth levels. This equates to a 12-14% increase for the fourth quarter of 2011. Although this is still strong, it does show that the rate of growth is slowing down; total growth in 2010 reached 18%.”

To read the full article on Computer Weekly, please click here: Online spending growth set to slow after 15% year-on-year increase

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online shoppers reward belt tightening with cheaper treats
• Industry Overview: Retail

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online shoppers reward belt tightening with cheaper treats
• Industry Overview: Retail

Home & garden products were also popular with online shoppers during the month, continuing their strong performance from August, with sales up 40 per cent. Overall Britons spent £5.5 billion via the internet in September

Despite the positive results in some sectors, online travel and big ticket items are proving to be a laggard on overall growth for internet retailing, resulting in a revised forecast for the e-tail industry in 2011 as a whole.

To read the full article on Retail Gazette, please click here: Fashion drives e-tail growth in September
Related Links:

• Press Release: Online shoppers reward belt tightening with cheaper treats
• Industry Overview: Retail

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini, said: “Reviewing the results in September, at the end of the third quarter provides us with a good opportunity to assess how the economic turbulence is affecting the shopping habits of British consumers in 2011. It appears that rather than cutting back entirely, we have been more conscientious in our purchases. Faced with uncertainty, shoppers are prepared to cut back on luxuries but not from shopping altogether.

“Smaller items such as clothing and items for the home are considered rewards for our belt tightening or just more sensible purchases.”

To read the full article on Internet Retailing, please click here: Online shoppers spent 15% more in September

Related Links:

• Press Release: Online shoppers reward belt tightening with cheaper treats
• Industry Overview: Retail

The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index have revealed a solid performance in the online sales market for September, with the Index climbing 15% year-on-year  (YOY) and equating to £5.5bn spent online. If the travel sector is excluded, the Index grew at 20% YOY. The strength of these results is highlighted even further when compared with the UK high-street, which according to the latest British Retail Consortium sales monitor, grew just 0.3 per cent on last year in terms of value on a like-for-like basis.

Despite a good performance last month, IMRG and Capgemini have reviewed their original prediction of 18% annual growth for 2011, and downgraded it to 16% - equating to a 12-14% increase for the fourth quarter. Although this is still strong, it does show that the rate of growth is slowing down; total growth in 2010 reached 18%.

The sectors that have performed particularly well during September include clothing, home and garden, and alcohol – as ‘small-ticket’ items continue to sell well. Clothing jumped 21% YOY, alcohol 16% YOY, and for the second month in a row, home and garden saw a huge YOY growth of 40%. ‘Big-ticket’ items however suffered, seeing falls for electricals (9% YOY) and travel, which saw a growth of just 4% YOY and a decline of -17% month-on-month (MOM).

Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini says: “Reviewing the results in September, at the end of the third quarter, provides us with a good opportunity to assess how the economic turbulence is affecting the shopping habits of British consumers in 2011. It appears that rather than cutting back entirely, we have been more conscientious in our purchases – faced with uncertainty, shoppers are prepared to cut back on luxuries, but not from shopping altogether. Smaller items, such as clothing and items for the home, are considered rewards for our belt tightening, or just more sensible purchases.” 

The quarterly results show similar disparity between the ‘low-ticket’ and ‘big-ticket’ items and reveal some interesting trends. Clothing sales have remained consistently strong, reporting growth of 27% YOY in Q1, 29% in Q2 and 23% in Q4. Sales in lingerie have also seen steady quarterly growth this year; 17% YOY in Q1, 28% YOY in Q2 and 29% YOY in Q3. In contrast, the more expensive sectors have been suffering, such as electricals, which has slowed dramatically in the last two quarters, from 18% YOY in Q1, to 8% YOY Q2 and just 2% YOY in Q3. The travel sector has suffered the most thus far in 2011, with Q3 sales up just 2% YOY, the lowest quarterly growth since January 2009.  

David J Smith, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at IMRG, comments: “While consumer confidence in the online market was high in H1 of 2011, with the Index recording growth of 19% on H1 of 2010, there has been a slight dip in terms of the growth levels. We are now forecasting a 16% rise for the market for 2011 as a whole, revised down from our 18% forecast at the beginning of the year, which would equate to around 12-14% for Q4. This will still be an impressive performance, as it is off the back of a very strong Q4 in 2010.

“The tough times for the travel sector are showing little sign of improving any time soon, with consumers focusing on home improvements rather than going on holiday. This is borne out by the strong yearly growth in the home and garden sector, the second consecutive month that it has recorded a rise of 40%. It is clear that both the stagnation in the housing market and the continuing uncertainty over the economic recovery are influencing consumer behaviour in the online market.”

Industry quotes

Russ Carroll, UK Managing Director of Shopping.com, comments:

“Home appliances such as kettles, heaters and irons showed strong growth in September, a sign that people were starting to prepare for winter despite the unexpectedly warm weather. While clothing once again showed very strong year on year growth, confirming that buying clothes online has well and truly arrived.”

Jonathon Brown, Head of Online Selling, John Lewis,says:

“September was another strong month for John Lewis online delivering growth of over 25% across categories. Although we saw transition from summer to autumn, the weather missed this point and especially as we got to the end of the month the Indian summer inevitably impacted our growth. However it was great to see that fashion, an area most affected by seasonal changes, still delivered over 50% growth on last year.
“Home had a good month delivering over 25% year on year growth with notable outperformances in textiles, carpets and furniture, with customers enjoying both our core Value ranges as well as new designer ranges. 

“Finally, in electricals and consumer technology we saw strong performances across the categories, especially in computing with iPads and desktops selling strongly. Streaming and headphones also delivered outstanding sales within audio. So now we are into autumn it’s all to play for as we drive towards our Christmas peak and given the excellent assortment we have online there are many reasons to be positive about the rest of the year.”

Chris Simpson, Chief Marketing Officer, at Kelkoo, comments:

“With summer sun stretching into Autumn alongside reports that homeowners are shying away from moving, online retailers have been able to reap the rewards in the Home & Garden sector, which has seen a 40% increase year on year. Alcohol sales have also benefited from the warm weather as people catered for BBQs and entertaining at home rather than going out. When it comes to clothing, although the unexpected hot spell at the beginning of October is likely to have temporarily affected Autumn clothing sales for next month’s index, overall the results point to a positive outlook for the rest of the year.”

Notes to Editors

About IMRG

IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) is the industry association for global e-retail. Formed in 1990, IMRG is setting and maintaining pragmatic and robust e-retail standards to enable fast-track industry growth, and facilitates its community of members with practical help, information, tools, guidance and networking. Consumers can be confident when dealing with IMRG Members because all interact in an environment where they are encouraged to operate using methods that are Honest, Decent, Legal, Truthful and Fair, and have undertaken to not bring the industry into disrepute. The strength of IMRG is the collective and cooperative power of its members. For more information please visit http://www.imrg.org/ or email membership@imrg.org

About Capgemini

With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.

Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About the ‘IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index’

The IMRG Capgemini Index, which was started in April 2000, tracks ‘online sales’, which we define as ‘transactions completed fully, including payment, via interactive channels’ from any location, including in-store. These sales are predominantly internet-based today, but the Index remains ready to record e-retail sales conducted via whatever interactive channels the market may embrace in the future.

Around one hundred e-retailers now regularly contribute data to the IMRG Capgemini Index, including Airport Parking & Hotels Ltd, Amara, Arcadia Group (Burton, Top Man, Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Wallis, Miss Selfridge), Ask Direct, ASOS.com, Bank, Berry Bros & Rudd,  Binends.com, Blacks, Boden.co.uk, Boohoo.com, Boots Direct, Brandosa.co.uk, Brora, Buyagift.com, BuyItDirect.co.uk, Carphone Warehouse, Charles Tyrwhitt,  Clarks, Cloggs, Co-operative Travel, Crocus.co.uk, Dabs.com, Damart, Debenhams, Ethical Superstore, Figleaves.com, Firebox, First Choice, Freemans Grattan Holdings, Furniture123, Game, Gameplay, Gamestation, Getting Personal.co.uk, Greenfingers.com, Home & Cook, House of Fraser, JD Sports, J D Williams, John Lewis Partnership, Ladderstore.com, Lastminute.com, LK Bennett, Lookfantastic.com, Lyco Direct, M and M Direct, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Millets, My Tuxedo, Naked Wines, NaturalCollection.com, New Look, Next, Peacocks, Perfect Handbags, PetPlanet.co.uk, Philip Kingsley, PIXmania, Prezzybox.com, QVC, Redfoot Revolution, Richer Sounds, Sainsbury’s, Scales Express, Schuh, Scott, Shoe-Shop.com, Shop Direct Home Shopping (Additions, Great Universal, Kays, Littlewoods, Empire, Woolworths,Very, Isme), Serenata Flowers, Size, Sofa and Home, Sunshine.co.uk, Sun-Togs, Tesco.com, The Fragrance Shop, The Health Supermarket, The Natural Store, TUI UK, Turton Wines, Waitrose, Warehouse, Wilkinson Hardware & Wynsors World of Shoes.

Sinclair believes that social gaming does open up new challenges for marketers who are keen to target specific demographics. “In terms of the people that are playing these games, it is a vast array. There are statistics that say there are people that are 12 years old playing these games right through to 60+, so it is very difficult to target a specific audience, and given the way that segmentation has moved, we’re no longer interested in those who are young and those who are old - we’re interested more in those who follow a particular interest. So it is a case of picking the right game and making sure that the audience within hat game is the right audience as well.”
“There needs to be value to the player,” explains Sinclair. “McDonald’s rewarded users with a farm that had the McDonald’s logo on it but that also opened up special powers in the game play so that they got 1.5 times the reward as a normal player. So it has to be meaningful to the player.” Scott also recommends viral promotion and simplicity for effective use of social gaming in campaigns.

To read the full article on MyCustomer.com, please click here: How to make social gaming a marketing success
Related Links:

• Thought Leadership: Social Media Management: Managing Trust and Transparency in the Social World
• Press Release: Capgemini launches Social Media Management (SMM) managed service to deliver business value from social media
  

The Government Cloud: time for delivery is a point of view which looks at how public organisations face a series of game-changing technology shifts as a result of new technology infrastructures, devices and behaviors. To answer these challenges, cloud has long had the potential to help governments delivery savings in an agile manner. The point of views aims to answer the key questions for public sector decision makers: how, when and where?

You can follow the event online via the @CapgeminiUKPR twitter stream or the hashtag: #wof201.

Built on the global World Wealth Report, the Asia-Pacific Wealth Report provides HNWI market sizing with a review of economic drivers, HNWI investing behaviors and asset allocation trends in the Asia-Pacific region. The 2011 Asia-Pacific Wealth Report from Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management and Capgemini looks at the behavior of HNWIs and the responses of wealth management providers in eleven core markets: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.

This year’s feature spotlight section focuses on how wealth management firms in the Asia-Pacific region can meet the unique needs and concerns of HNW clients – especially entrepreneurs and UHNWIs – by capturing the best capabilities of the enterprise across different business units such as investment banking and corporate banking, to better serve these HNWIs.

The report is available in: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Japanese.

“Asia-Pacific remains a region of enormous wealth creation, spearheaded by China, India and Japan, which continues to outpace global levels,” said Michael Benz, head of Asia-Pacific Wealth Management at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management. “The increasing sophistication and demands of Asia-Pacific HNWIs mean that those wealth management firms that can leverage across their businesses are best-placed to better serve their clients’ needs.”

Asia-Pacific HNWI wealth and population still highly concentrated 
The top three countries—Japan, China and Australia— accounted for 74.4 percent of the Asia-Pacific HNWI population and 68.2 percent for wealth in 2010. Japan and China together were home to 68.6 percent of HNWIs in the region and 62.8 percent of regional HNWI wealth, down from 70.4 percent and 64.7 percent respectively a year before.

Japan is by far the single largest HNWI market in Asia-Pacific. Alone it accounted for 52.5 percent of the Asia-Pacific HNWI population and 38.2 percent of its wealth at the end of 2010. At the same time, growth in Japan was less than in other markets due to the slowdown in Japan’s macroeconomic growth and the relatively weak performance of its stock markets. China remained the second-largest HNWI base in the region, and fourth-largest in the world, with 535,000 HNWIs, up 12.0 percent from the previous year.

Australia and India posted robust growth in 2010 as well, with both rising through the world’s top 12 markets for HNWI population. Australia progressed one place to number nine while India became the world’s twelfth largest in 2010, entering the top 12 for the first time.

Hong Kong’s HNWI population surpasses 2007
In 2010, Hong Kong’s HNWI population jumped 33.3 percent to 101,300, recouping the declines posted during the global financial crisis and surpassing the previous peak of 96,000 in 2007. This is the second straight year in which Hong Kong’s HNWI population growth was the most in the world, as it continues to benefit from a healthy economy as well as gains in the equities and real estate markets. The growth rate of Hong Kong’s HNWI wealth was also the fastest in the world, at 35.0 percent, bringing the total figure to US$511 billion.

Outlook for Asia-Pacific HNWIs
Asia-Pacific excluding Japan is expected to remain the engine of global economic growth in 2011 and 2012, but increasing capacity constraints are likely to slow the rate of expansion, keeping GDP growth to an estimated 6.9 percent in 2011 and 6.8 percent in 2012. While the region will continue to be the engine of global growth through 2012 at least, the actions Asia-Pacific governments take to restrain inflation, control foreign-capital inflows and deflate potential asset bubbles will certainly affect the pace of that expansion.

Asia-Pacific HNWIs continued to favour equities and real estate in 2010
Similar to 2009, HNWIs in Asia-Pacific were heavily invested in real estate and equities. They ended 2010 with 27 percent of their assets held in real estate. While this was little changed from 2009’s 26 percent, it is far above the global average of 19 percent as many Asia-Pacific HNWIs have long favored real estate – both bricks and mortar as well as other real estate assets such as real estate investment trusts – as an important investment vehicle. Across the region, the majority of HNWIs allocated the biggest single share of real estate holdings to residential investments. In China, HNWIs had 70 percent of real estate holdings in residential investments.

Equities accounted for 26 percent of their investments in 2010, from 27 percent in 2009.  Still, the numbers belie the fact that HNWIs in certain markets are highly exposed to equities. For instance, China’s HNWIs had 42 percent of their holdings in equities, far higher than the global average, compared with 19 percent for Japan.

Looking forward, Asia-Pacific HNWIs are likely to increase their exposure to equities and fixed-income holdings, while cutting the amount held in cash/deposits by 2012. They are also expected to reduce their relative holdings of real estate to 20 percent next year amid concerns that property prices in many Asia-Pacific markets are due for a major correction after the past few years’ gains. 

Wealth management firms need to offer capabilities from other Business Units to better serve Asia-Pacific HNWIs
As the majority of Asia-Pacific HNWIs source their wealth from business ownership, wealth management firms that can generate enterprise value – the ability to leverage capabilities from across different business units - will be able to serve their clients better. More HNWIs in Asia-Pacific than in other regions believe it is important for wealth management firms to create enterprise value, such as leveraging the corporate and investment banking resources, as their businesses progress through different stages.

“Implementing a comprehensive enterprise value approach in Asia-Pacific will require iteration to capture market-specific opportunities, especially in fast-growing emerging markets,” said Jean Lassignardie, Global Head of Sales and Marketing at Global Financial Services, Capgemini. “Among the key components will be firm-wide accountability, appropriate incentives, and integrated IT. Most importantly, firms will need to hone their strategy for each market, and not impose arbitrary standards from highly developed markets.”
The ability of wealth management firms to provide enterprise value is especially pertinent for Asia-Pacific’s Ultra-HNWIs because of the large scope of their wealth and investments which span regions as well as asset classes. In addition, entrepreneurs will likely require investment banking services as well as wealth management services.

About Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management
Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management is a leading provider of comprehensive wealth management and investment services for individuals and businesses globally. With more than 16,200 Financial Advisors and more than $1.5 trillion in client balances as of June 30, 2011, it is among the largest businesses of its kind in the world. More than two-thirds of Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management relationships are with clients who have a net worth of $1 million or more. Within Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management, the Private Banking & Investment Group provides tailored solutions to ultra affluent clients, offering both the intimacy of a boutique and the resources of a premier global financial services company. These clients are served by more than 160 Private Wealth Advisor teams, along with experts in areas such as investment management, concentrated stock management and intergenerational wealth transfer strategies. Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management is part of Bank of America Corporation.

Source: Bank of America. Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management (MLGWM) represents multiple business areas within Bank of America’s wealth and investment management division including Merrill Lynch Wealth Management (North America and International), Merrill Lynch Trust Company, and Private Banking & Investment Group. As of June 30, 2011, MLGWM entities had approximately $1.5 trillion in client balances. Client Balances consists of the following assets of clients held in their MLGWM accounts: assets under management (AUM) of MLGWM entities, client brokerage assets, assets in custody of MLGWM entities, loan balances and deposits of MLGWM clients held at Bank of America, N.A. and affiliated banks.

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Capgemini’s Financial Services unit brings deep industry experience, innovative service offerings and next generation global delivery to serve the financial services industry. With a network of 17,000 professionals serving over 900 clients worldwide, Capgemini collaborates with leading banks, insurers and capital market companies to deliver business and IT solutions and thought leadership which create tangible value.

More information is available at: www.capgemini.com/financialservices

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Note to Editors/Reporters: For more information or to download the 2011 Asia-Pacific Wealth Report, please visit www.capgemini.com/worldwealthreport.

Disclaimer: Please refer to the disclaimer in the 2011 Asia Pacific World Wealth Report which forms a part of this press release.

Press Contacts:
Merrill Lynch Contacts:  
Chia Peck Wong (Asia-Pacific) 
cp.wong@baml.com
+852 2161 7746 

Selena Morris (North America) 
selena.morris@bankofamerica.com
+1 212 236 2272 

Capgemini Contacts:
Pinar Posluk (North America)
pposluk@webershandwick.com
+1 212 445 8242

Marta Saez (Europe)
msaez@webershandwick.com
+ 44 207 067 0524  

                                             
^[1] HNWIs are defined as those having investable assets of US$1 million or more, excluding primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables

^[2] Ultra-HNWIs are defined as those having investable assets of US$30 million or more, excluding primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables

The global supply chain is today facing economic, demographic, technology and ecological challenges, with rising fuel costs, rapid economic growth in the BRIC countries, and the volatile financial markets creating turbulence in the market. Capgemini Consulting’s Supply Chain Agenda 2011 shows that among leading international companies 40% say that market volatility remains their greatest challenge while 45% recognise that visibility of the supply chain is their main focus. And the growing prominence of sustainability is an increasing issue for business both from a legislative and a reputation perspective, particularly as expanding social media use places companies under heightened levels of scrutiny. Added to this, there is pressure on legacy systems traditionally used to manage the supply chain as new, agile, software-as-a-service (SaaS)^[3] and cloud-based solutions emerge.

Capgemini’s Annual Third Party Logistics survey shows that 42% of total logistics expenditures among shippers who use 3PL services are directed to outsourcing and this is predicted to rise. Within Capgemini, Business Process Outsourcing is one of the fastest growing business units and Supply Chain Management is key element to its long term growth plan. Capgemini’s BPO business unit is aiming to extend its industry-leading position in Finance and Accounting, Procurement, Customer Operations and Finance Industry Services to Supply Chain Management.

Capgemini’s BPO Supply Chain Management Services will offer supply chain orchestration and optimisation to enable transaction processing and logistics management on behalf of its clients. At its heart, Supply Chain Management is a business process. By bringing an outsourced managed services delivery model to address supply chain issues, companies can leverage the process, technical and operational expertise that is a BPO service provider’s core capability. The BPO Supply Chain Orchestration services include:

• Order Management and Fulfilment - end-to-end process support spanning Quote to Deliver to maximise the efficiency of each step of the supply chain from: quote, order entry and management, schedule, procure and deliver through to invoice. Designed for companies with high asset-value, complex supply chains that incorporate quote and configuration, and a combination of products and services for delivery
• Logistics Management - focusing on the coordination and shared service support for optimised and independent management of physical supply chains including truck, train, ocean and air freight. Capgemini will independently manage a complex set of vendor relationships between a company and its third party logistics partners to ensure operations best deliver against clients’ business objectives including cost effectiveness and sustainability management
• Sustainability Services - delivered as a bundled offer, leveraging Capgemini’s partnership with CA Technologies, and its industry leading ecoSoftware solution to help customers better manage complex sustainability data collection, challenging reporting demands and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) credentials.

Capgemini has a wide range of supply chain customers including Nokia Siemens Networks with whom it signed its biggest global supply chain BPO deal in 2010. “Capgemini’s excellent reputation and proven track record of maximising efficiency in business processes, along with its global delivery model, were major factors in our decision to select them as our partner and future employer of our logistics experts. We believe that this relationship will considerably improve our order management and delivery performance through shorter lead times, better quality and increased efficiency, while Nokia Siemens Networks will focus more intensely on the customer facing aspects of order management“, said Johannes Giloth, global head of Supply Chain, Nokia Siemens Networks.
Hubert Giraud, CEO, Business Process Outsourcing, Capgemini comments: “Capgemini is a leading global BPO provider with a rich heritage in providing supply chain services to some of the world’s largest and most complex companies. This consolidated offering brings together the wealth of knowledge, techniques and tools that Capgemini’s BPO business unit has honed since its inception, to provide services to meet customers’ needs in the  ever-changing  supply chain landscape.”

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Capgemini’s expertise is recognised in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) with a solution portfolio that spans Finance & Accounting, Customer Operations Management, Procurement, Supply Chain Management, Assurance Management, Human Resources and Knowledge Process Outsourcing services. As part of Capgemini’s Rightshore® delivery network, BPO professionals provide services to clients worldwide 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in 36 languages, from centers located in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Guatemala, India, Poland, Sweden and the United States.
For more information: www.capgemini.com/bpo

About the 2012 Third-Party Logistics Study
2,258 logistics executives from both 3PL users and providers in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, as well as other regions and geographies, participated in the 2012 Third-Party Logistics Study via a web-based survey. The findings were supplemented with a significant number of focus interviews with industry observers and experts, primarily relating to the special topics identified for this year. Facilitated workshops were
also conducted where shipper participants collaborated on shared issues to help provide a better understanding of the survey’s results and to gain their valuable perspective as 3PL users. Though last year the 2010 3PL study was published, this year’s report is called 2012 since that will be when the results will be in active discussion.

About Capgemini Consulting Supply Chain Agenda 2011
In this year’s edition of Capgemini Consulting’s annual global supply chain study, 300 leading companies participated from various sectors in Europe (59%), the US and Canada (25%), Asia-Pacific (10%) and Latin America (6%). In addition to the survey, Capgemini Consulting conducted face-to-face interviews with 30 supply chain senior executives, which provided additional insights. The survey also looks back on bottlenecks for realising supply chain initiatives in 2011 and gives insight in means to overcome them.

Capgemini Press contact:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Hester Decouz
Tel: +44 (0)870 904 5758
Email: hester.decouz@capgemini.com

^[1] Capgemini’s Global Process Model is a map that defines the best flow for each process and sub-process, backed by a comprehensive database of defined, world-class controls and measures representing global and industry best practice.
^[2] BPOpen is an innovative and future-proof global integrated services platform designed to help increase speed to value in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) delivery. Built on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), BPOpen makes the Service Oriented Enterprise a reality, and drives Capgemini’s Rightshore™ delivery of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services including finance and accounting, procurement and human resources.
^[3] Software-as-a-Service provides ready to use business applications, that can be integrated into customer business processes on demand

Understanding these rapidly evolving dynamics is essential to success for automotive companies. Cars Online 11/12 – Capgemini’s 13th annual global automotive study – provides an in-depth look at these trends. The study offers insight into how consumers in both mature and developing markets shop for vehicles, factors that influence their buying decisions, the growing role of aftersales/servicing and how to maintain their loyalty through the vehicle lifecycle.

Key findings from this year’s study include:

• The role of the Internet during the vehicle buying process is becoming increasingly important, with fewer people visiting showrooms until very close to the point of purchase. Web usage for both purchasing and research has increased, with the number of consumers researching online reaching 94 percent. This is driven in part by increased use in developing markets.
  Social media has become more influential. 71 percent of respondents said they would be likely to purchase a vehicle if they found positive comments posted on social media sites.
• Consumer interest in green vehicles continues to increase as electric vehicles take center stage. 44 percent of consumers (up from 41 percent in 2009) said they currently own a fuel-efficient or alternative-fuel vehicle and 39 percent are planning to buy a green vehicle (up from 30 percent in 2009.
• Customer loyalty edges downward. 61 percent of consumers said they were likely to purchase/lease the same make or brand as their current vehicle, down from 65 percent in 2010.
• Increasing demand for alternative buying models reflects a growing shift from products to services as consumers move from traditional vehicle ownership to “power by the hour.” Nearly 40 percent of respondents would consider alternatives such as vehicle-sharing, up from 35% in 2010.

The role of the Internet and social media: Putting consumers in the driving seat
Consumer Internet behaviour, as well as the rise of tablets and smartphones are increasingly impacting the vehicle decision and buying process, with price, guidance and product information continuing to be the primary features consumers research via the Internet. The study also indicates a growing reliance on social media and user-generated content as a source for vehicle and dealer information for the latest opinions and reviews from other consumers and automotive experts. In this year’s study, 42 percent of consumers said they were likely to purchase a vehicle over the Internet, up from 37 percent two years ago. Consumers who are not interested in buying online cite the inability to test drive the vehicle, to receive full product and price information and to see photos/video of the vehicle. These perceived barriers have remained consistent over the past few years, yet they are clearly addressable and should be capitalised upon by dealers and manufacturers with a formal social media and channel management strategy to engage with existing and potential customers.

Alternative buying models: A holistic strategy is needed
The buying cycle continues to shrink leaving dealers with fewer opportunities to interact face-to-face with customers, and the trend for non-traditional approaches to vehicle buying and ownership continues to grow. Interest in alternative buying models, including mobility packages, vehicle-sharing or ride-share programs, was particularly pronounced among younger consumers. If this trend continues it could represent a significant shift in the way consumers think about car buying and ownership and drive the industry to consider alternative business models. Recognising the potential impact of this change on billing systems, cash flow and financial services, some car rental companies are already testing the waters and vehicle manufacturers are experimenting with business models to match this new consumer behaviour.

Green vehicles: Spotlight shines on electric cars
Consumer interest in green vehicles continues to gradually increase as this year electric vehicles made it to the mass market for the first time. This is expected to continue as fuel prices fluctuate, environmental awareness rises and governments provide tax credits and other incentives. In this year’s study 42 percent of respondents expect full-electric vehicles to be a viable sales option (in terms of pricing and availability) within two years, up from 36 percent the prior year. Additional vehicle types identified by respondents include hybrid, biodiesel, hydrogen fuel cell and natural gas. However, price remains the biggest blocker to sales of alternative-fuel vehicles, followed by battery range, reliability and safety. The lack of charging locations is another concern for consumers considering electric vehicles. The automotive industry needs to develop effective solutions and work with government and other third parties to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place to support the move toward e-Mobility.

“Uncertainty in the global economy and volatile fuel prices are still affecting the automotive industry but we are starting to see positive signs of recovery, most notably with an increase in the number of new car buyers in mature markets,” said Nick Gill, Capgemini Global Automotive Sector Leader. “However, as technology evolves in the manufacturing and marketing of cars, the industry must keep up and understand how consumer dynamics are evolving and consider the impact these changes may have on their business in the coming years to ensure profitability.”

For more information and to download the full Cars Online study please go to: www.capgemini.com/carsonline

About Capgemini’s Cars Online 11/12 study
Capgemini worked with SmartRevenue, a Ridgefield, Connecticut-based research firm, to conduct the survey for Cars Online 11/12. All analysis and interpretation of the data has been made by Capgemini in collaboration with the Car Internet Research Program (CIRP) of the University of Ottawa, Canada. In total, more than 8,000 consumers were surveyed in eight countries: Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Fieldwork was conducted in June and July 2011.

All consumers surveyed were in the market for a vehicle (25 percent plan to buy or lease a vehicle within two months; 36 percent in two to six months; and 39 percent in seven to 12 months). The composition of the consumer sample in each country was based on projectable national samples representative of the in-market vehicle-buying population in terms of region, age and gender.

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.
Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

About Capgemini’s Automotive Practice
Capgemini’s Automotive practice serves 14 of the world’s 15 largest vehicle manufacturers and 13 of the 17 largest automotive suppliers. More than 3,000 automotive specialists generate value for companies through global delivery capabilities and industry-specific service offerings such as Integrated Lead Management, B2C Web Strategy, Service and Parts Management, Supplier Transformation, Optimisation of Dealer-Focused Operations, Electric Vehicles and e-Mobility Services, Application Outsourcing for Automotive OEMs and Global Emerging-Market Sourcing. For more information: www.capgemini.com/automotive.

Capgemini Press Contact:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Capgemini global head of Business Information Management Paul Nannetti said: “Our investments and focus on developing a differentiated approach to the delivery of BI programmes, combining consulting, technology and a scalable India-centric delivery platform, have positioned Capgemini as a global leader in the provision of BI transformation services.”
To read the full article on Sourcing Focus, please click here: Capgemini & Deutsche Telekom sign five-year BI framework deal

Related Links:

• Press Release: Capgemini selected as BI partner for Deutsche Telekom
• Industry Overview: Telecommunications
• Solution Overview: Business Information Management

Capgemini said it will support in the planning stage and also undertake the long-term development of key components of the BI landscape.

Capgemini’s global delivery model Rightshore is designed to provide the right resources in the right place, enabling access to approximately 40,000 offshore IT experts.

Capgemini global head of Business Information Management Paul Nannetti said, “Our investments and focus on developing a differentiated approach to the delivery of BI programs, combining consulting, technology and a scalable India centric delivery platform, have positioned Capgemini as a global leader in the provision of BI transformation services.”

To read the full article on CBR, please click here: Capgemini, Deutsche Telekom sign five-year BI sourcing framework agreement

Related News:

• Press Release: Capgemini selected as BI partner for Deutsche Telekom
• Industry Overview: Telecommunications

The award is in particular recognition of tGov, Capgemini’s full stack Oracle based solution to drive transformation, cut costs and bring about a broad base of operational efficiencies. In the UK the solution has been used within several local government councils to bring transparency and sustainable efficiency into back-office functions such as finance, procurement, HR, performance management and reporting. These benefits are delivered by introducing

Oracle E-Business Suite , pre-configured with business processes tailored to deliver value in local government. The applications and leading practices provided by tGov enable local councils to share practices more easily, reduce capital costs, and improve cost-effectiveness. This ultimately aids local governments in implementing more streamlined and integrated operational strategies, including shared services across areas such as social care, housing and health. The phased transformational approach is aligned to world-class benchmarks and offers change management services in addition to technology implementation. The solution embraces Oracle open standards and is easily upgraded and enhanced to continue delivering value while reducing total cost of ownership.

The t-Gov solution has also been adapted for other uses across the public and private sectors including t-Police for the Police force and t-biz for the commercial sector.

Jean Claude Viollier, Corporate Vice President, Global Channels & Partner leader, along with Mark Pulling, Oracle Leader from the UK were present at the Oracle OpenWorld to collect the award. Connie Cservenyak, Global Oracle Partner Executive at Capgemini said: “We are delighted to be recognised with this important award. We won Innovation Awards in the UK for our t-gov solution but this is the first time we have been recognised at an EMEA and Global level. The award reflects our strength in implementing Oracleapplications globally and in delivering projects that involve Oracle technology.”

Capgemini has over 10,000 Oracle professionals globally and was recognised in 2011 as a Diamond-level member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork.

About Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN)

Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialised is the latest version of Oracle’s partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialised offers resources to train and support specialised knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognise Oracle’s growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specialisations. Specialisations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more, visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

About Capgemini

With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience™, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.

Learn more about us at www.uk.capgemini.com.

Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Press contacts:

Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
Hester Decouz
Tel: +44 (0)870 904 5758
Email: hester.decouz@capgemini.com

The contract signed between Deutsche Telekom AG and Capgemini Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of Capgemini Group, will involve experts from Capgemini’s Global BI and Telecom practices. Following last year’s merger of the two business units T-Home and T-Mobile within Deutsche Telekom, the new company Telekom Deutschland GmbH aims to consolidate its business processes and IT systems and consolidate its services portfolio to create synergies. Harmonisation of the BI applications landscape is one of
the largest and most complex projects. The interdisciplinary team has to eliminate heterogeneities and parallel systems, which have become redundant and embed the entire Data Warehousing in a new BI architecture.

Capgemini will support in the planning stage and also undertake the long-term development of key components of the BI landscape. Telekom Deutschland GmbH gives special importance to achieving an appropriate balance between onshore as and offshore services. The Capgemini global delivery model, Rightshore® is designed to provide the right resources in the right place, enabling access to approximately 40,000 offshore IT experts. In addition to the high flexibility in the approach to service delivery, other factors also key in winning the project included access to innovation investments, service quality, and team spirit.

Frank Kuehl, Senior Vice President and Head of BI & Data Management at Telekom Deutschland GmbH says: “We are facing a huge challenge in the area Business Intelligence because of the restructuring that happened last year. Capgemini convinced us particularly with their overall package of outstanding, regional and simultaneously globally reusable IT competency and large offshore capacities at a good price-service ratio”.

Innovation and technology leadership are a key focus for the telecom management at Telekom Deutschland GmbH. The reduction of in-house IT support needed as a result of the project should also relieve the company’s resources to concentrate on the core business and R&D.

Paul Nannetti, Global Head of Business Information Management at Capgemini: “We are very pleased to be selected as one of the two strategic partners for Business Intelligence at Telekom Deutschland GmbH. Our investments and focus on developing a differentiated approach to the delivery of BI programmes, combining consulting, technology and a scalable India centric delivery platform, have positioned Capgemini as a global leader in the provision of BI transformation services.”

Business Information Management (BIM) is a key strategic growth area for Capgemini, as there is a strong demand from organisations interested in new strategies and techniques to retain, organise and gain insight from their most valuable asset – information. Capgemini was positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the leaders quadrant for Global Business Intelligence and Performance Management Service Providers[1]. Its global Business Information Management (BIM) service line was established in 2009 with the aim of serving its global customers better and brings together over 7,000 specialist consultants supporting a global BIM delivery model.

About Gartner’s Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2011 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse
any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model. Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Press contact:
Capgemini Group
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com

Capgemini Germany
Achim Schreiber
+49 30 88703-731
E-mail: achim.schreiber@capgemini.com

What can we in the IT industry do about this? We need to offer an alternative for young people to encourage the next generation of IT professionals into the sector. In my view, apprenticeships offer this opportunity and there is great appetite among our industry colleagues to embrace apprenticeship schemes to ensure the pipeline of talent continues to deliver the talent of tomorrow.

We recently held a roundtable to discuss the issue and the high level of attendance from senior executives from the likes of KPMG, Logica, IBM, Accenture, BBC, Atos, Steria, PWC, the British Computer Society (BCS), and many others demonstrates the importance of the issue to the industry.

During the roundtable we learned that the desire among our colleagues to collaborate, learn from each other on best practice and to find common ground on apprenticeships is strong.

The challenge now is to reach an agreement with the National Apprentices Service (NAS) and our sector colleagues on an industry standard for apprenticeships in terms of entry routes and career structure. At present, there is no national standard for hiring apprentices and we at Capgemini want to change that.

Imagine a 16-year-old who has just left school and is interested in a career in IT. Where do you turn for guidance? With very little knowledge of routes into the industry, let alone knowing which companies to apply to, what chance does that young person have to find the right route into employment?

Our challenge is to provide clearer routes from schools into IT apprenticeships so the supply of talent is not restricted to graduates. The way things stand, there is no way of identifying the demand for apprenticeships and matching that demand to suppliers.

The good news is the government has recognised the need to restructure the GCSE IT curriculum to place more emphasis on designing software and writing computer programmes, which will make the course more business focused. We are working with the government and industry partners to help pilot the revised curriculum which will teach pupils to think of IT in business terms. This will make them more aware of the opportunities out there and more prepared for a role in the IT sector once they leave school.

We at Capgemini already offer a Higher Apprenticeship Programme for 18-year-olds. Our first 24 Higher Apprentices have joined us this year to start with hands on work experience while studying for a degree in Computing & IT Practice from the Open University.

This is an extension of the apprenticeship scheme we established in 2008 and is the first time we have sought an alternative to IT graduates, which have traditionally been the mainstay of IT recruitment not only of our company, but the IT industry as a whole. We expect to have a new generation of qualified developers and engineers who have been through the scheme working on some of our key clients.

The apprenticeship programme is just one channel and if we are to provide clarity to potential employers we need to agree five or six entry routes ratified as an industry standard so everyone can recruit from the same designated channels.

This will ideally lead to a charter with signatures from E-Skills, the National Apprenticeships Service (NAS) and industry partners. But this is no quick fix. Our roundtable has shown there is a broad understanding of the issues around apprenticeships and also the opportunity this presents IT companies.

We hope this is another step towards reaching the industry vision of a signed IT Services Charter in 2012 supporting the recruitment and development of apprentices in our sector.

Ann Brown is vice president at Capgemini UK HR

Related links:

• Career Overview: Apprenticeships
• Announcement: Capgemini proud to support Mayor of London’s apprenticeship campaign

These benefits are delivered by introducing Oracle E-Business Suite , pre-configured with business processes tailored to deliver value in local government. The applications and leading practices provided by tGov enable local councils to share practices more easily, reduce capital costs, and improve cost-effectiveness. This ultimately aids local governments in implementing more streamlined and integrated operational strategies, including shared services across areas such as social care, housing and health. The phased transformational approach is aligned to world-class benchmarks and offers change management services in addition to technology implementation. The solution embraces Oracle open standards and is easily upgraded and enhanced to continue delivering value while reducing total cost of ownership.

The t-Gov solution has also been adapted for other uses across the public and private sectors including t-Police for the Police force and t-biz for the commercial sector.

The Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialised Global Awards recognises partner excellence in five categories, including: Database, Middleware, Applications, Industry, and Server and Storage. The award nominations are submitted by each region based on the winners from their regional awards. Solutions nominees were judged by a renowned team of IDC executives and analysts, as well as their Specialisation investment.

Jean Claude Viollier, Corporate Vice President, Global Channels & Partner leader, along with Mark Pulling, Oracle Leader from the UK were present at the Oracle OpenWorld to collect the award. Connie Cservenyak, Global Oracle Partner Executive at Capgemini said: “We are delighted to be recognised with this important award. We won Innovation Awards in the UK for our t-gov solution but this is the first time we have been recognised at an EMEA and Global level. The award reflects our strength in implementing Oracle applications globally and in delivering projects that involve Oracle technology.”

Capgemini has over 10,000 Oracle professionals globally and was recognised in 2011 as a Diamond-level member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork.

About Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN)
Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialised is the latest version of Oracle’s partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialised offers resources to train and support specialised knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognise Oracle’s growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specialisations.
Specialisations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success.
To find out more, visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

About Capgemini
With around 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organisation, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business ExperienceTM, and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model. Learn more about us at www.capgemini.com.
Rightshore® is a trademark belonging to Capgemini

Trademarks
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Press contacts:
Christel Lerouge
Tel.:+33 (0)1 47 54 50 76
E-mail: christel.lerouge@capgemini.com
Hester Decouz
Tel: +44 (0)870 904 5758
Email: hester.decouz@capgemini.com

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