Welcome to the new country news area of PA's Alumni website, designed to provide you with the opportunity to strengthen and renew relationships with former colleagues, while also keeping you up to date on local events.
To learn more about PA’s current work please refer to our new website.
We will update this area with news from PA in the UK, upcoming events, stories from members of the UK alumni network and news from the PA Retirers Association (PARA). As always your feedback is appreciated and integral to the success of this initiative, so please emails us at alumni@paconsulting.com with any comments or suggestions.
CEO update | Our latest thinking | PA Retirers' Association
In 2008, despite the uncertainty in the world economy, PA delivered a strong performance during a great first half to the year, combined with a second half where we managed to continue to do well despite the general downturn in the economy. We are all proud of the full year's result – another best-yet performance for PA – made even more remarkable as we have all seen many organisations, and a number of our competitors, struggle over the last few months.
As a result of the economic turmoil, our ability to win and deliver work is harder now than it was a year ago and it looks set to be a tough year or two ahead. We are not immune to the market conditions – but our business is built on sound and mature principles that will keep all our people safe in the coming months.
We are in a strong financial position – in the boom times some people were concerned that PA had too much cash and even as the world dipped into negative growth last year some were saying "we should buy a competitor, use the cash, take debt, be ambitious, grow headcount". Well we are glad we did not – our approach allows us all to share in the security of having no debt to service and no loans to renew.
We have always been a well managed firm. We take care not to carry too much cost, we set our headcount to match our sales and we have systems that allow us to see, on a weekly basis, what we have done and what we can expect to do in the coming weeks. Many organisations do not have this luxury.
This will be a challenging year for everyone, inside and outside of PA, but we feel we are both well positioned and well prepared to prevail and I look forward to updating on our continued success in six months time.
Outsourcing – what lies beneath: PA’s international IT outsourcing survey 2009
We recently released the results of PA Consulting Group's International IT Outsourcing Survey 2009 of large-scale enterprises across the UK, Europe and the US.
The analyst community agree that the global outsourcing market is set to grow by 8.1% in 2009 (Source: Gartner), as organisations look to impose tighter cost control over IT expenditure. However, PA's IT Outsourcing Survey reveals that short-term cost gains are likely to be achieved at the expense of fast rising corporate risk. In a bid to mitigate this risk, organisations are likely to see unexpected costs rise significantly in forthcoming years.
The key themes and findings of the report are:
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Organisations are going to use more outsourcing suppliers (multi-sourcing) to try and reduce costs. However over 30% of all respondents have no appreciation of the total cost of managing their sourcing contracts – the 'retained governance organisational cost'. In light of the strong trend over the next three to five years towards multi-source contracts – confirmed by almost 75% of respondents – over a quarter of respondents with IT sourcing contracts identified integrating multiple providers as the top risk with multi-sourcing, with the need for strong internal governance as the second.
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The combined trends of multi-sourcing and sustained cost focus are also putting pressure on the supplier relationship. Programs that define and manage IT sourcing contracts are being sacrificed in the name of cost saving, undermining the effectiveness of the supplier/customer relationships. 35% of client organisations are increasingly using non-performance clauses as reasons for initiating contract renegotiations, with 75% planning competitive and cost-saving approaches to the restructuring. This is instead of mending failing relationships, leaving the client company with persistent relationship failures across multiple suppliers and high remedial costs.
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Innovation in IT outsourcing (ITO) has generally been sidelined in favor of quick cost improvements. Currently, over 25% of respondents report receiving no innovation at all, and of those that do, fewer than 5% deliver innovation that identifies new sources of revenue growth.
Click here to find more information on the study.
Viewpoint on Corporate Environmental Sustainability
Designing and implementing innovative corporate environmental sustainability (CES) strategies had initiatives with the public and private sector have been a featured cross-cutting theme of our work for over 20 years. This issue of Viewpoint focuses on what businesses can do in real terms and offers concrete examples of how fact-based analysis tied to corporate strategy can generate bottom line results.
These articles touch on:
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enhancing shareholder value
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sustainable emission control
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aligning CES and business strategies
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improving risk management
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optimizing strategic planning
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reducing costs
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increasing innovation.
Click here to find more information on the study.
The PA Retirers' Association (PARA) is a great way to keep in contact with ex-PA colleagues and receive occasional updates on news about PA itself. Over 500 PA pensioners and alumni enjoy being members of PARA.
The PARAnews newsletter is distributed three times each year, and contains a wide variety of articles on subjects ranging from updates on the pension scheme to members’ experiences and activities.
PARA organises regional social events, usually lunch-time gatherings in pubs or restaurants, that are becoming increasingly popular. The Annual General Meetings present a special opportunity to get together with former colleagues from far and wide. There is also an annual golf tournament in the UK.
Membership of PARA is open to everyone who has spent a considerable proportion of their career in PA, or their widowed spouse.
For more information on PARA, please contact:
Chris Buckley
Tel: +44 (0) 1883 650 420
E-mail: teletraveller@btinternet.com
