Cloud and BPO to dominate agendas

A new report from Ovum has argued Cloud Computing and business process outsourcing (BPO) are set to become two of the key trends tasked with driving through efficiencies with the UK's public sector in 2011.

According to Jessica Hawkins, Ovum analyst and author of the report, consumption-based and shared delivery models are expected to gain momentum over the next 12 months, as organisations become "more open" to the efficiency benefits offered by Cloud Computing. "However issues of privacy and security will mean some governments will remain cautious," she added.

"Alongside this, for those economies most severely affected by the crippling deficits we expect to see an increase in outsourcing, particularly in back-office processes, in a bid to find cost savings and fast."

As for BPO, the report believes it - together with Shared Services and on-demand access - would become increasingly open in 2011. "However, governments should push beyond knee-jerk cost-cutting measures and adopt a long-term vision of how fundamental changes to the way they deliver services will bring efficiency," Hawkins said.

"Many will look to their IT vendor to guide them through the new technologies that can help them achieve this and vendors should be ready to do this."

"With every penny counting and governments keen to ensure there's more visibility and accountability of how taxpayers' money is spent, in 2011 agencies will look at new ways of procuring services. In addition there will be changes in how contracts look - in some cases we will see consolidation."

The report partially contradicts a recent report from Socitm, the Society of IT Management, which argued Cloud Computing should be put at the heart of any organisation's ICT strategy - at the expense of other initiatives including outsourcing ICT services.