The National Outsourcing Association Awards (NOAAs) took place last night (10th November), at the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel in London. Now in its 8th year, the NOAAs celebrate best practice in outsourcing projects, and reward end-users, suppliers, advisors and destinations.

The awards were presented by comedian, Imran Yusuf. After the presentations and speeches, there was a Bollywood dance workshop courtesy of Indian BPO provider, Wipro. The party continued well into the wee small hours.

The proud winners were:

BPO Contract of the Year

National Rail Communication Centre and National Rail Enquiries

This contract delivered very real benefits to the general public through improved information and continuous performance improvements throughout the year.

IT Outsourcing Project of the Year

Wipro Technologies and Diversey

The judges felt the project was a powerful example of continuous IT service improvement and demonstrated various improvement techniques working together to generate impressive benefits, whilst streamlining the budget spend on IT infrastructure and new application development.

Financial Services Outsourcing Project of the Year

Co-Operative Banking Group, Operational Partnerships Management, Implementation of alternative format provision

This project involved a developing a future-ready scalable solution for customers with dyslexia or learning difficulties. The bespoke service allows for documentation to be designed to meet the specific needs of the customer, including the use of MP3 and Wav technology, as well a secure pin process for the visually impaired.

Public Sector Outsourcing Project of the Year

Arvato and Chesterfield Borough Council

Judges were impressed with Arvato’s transparent approach to service delivery – flagging, discussing and resolving issues in ways that prioritise citizen satisfaction and value for money.

Telecommunications, Utilities and High-Tech Outsourcing Project of the Year

Efficio Consulting Ltd and Thames Water

The panel felt that this award reshaped the procurement outsourcing space, by moulding the best features of a classic consulting engagement and a traditional outsourcing model. The results gave compelling benefits, enabling Thames Water to exceed all of the original project objectives.

Offshoring Operation of the Year

RR Donnelley and Anglian Water

This offshore pilot has proved a resounding success – delivering an effective solution for processing the large amount of correspondence generated by Anglian Water’s customers. This operation was recognised for bringing together the best outsourcing operations with excellent workflow technology.

Outsourcing Professional of the Year

KPMG – Shamus Rae

The judges felt that Shamus showed deep domain expertise, extraordinary creativity and was a very strong candidate based upon his industry experience helping organisations with strategy, implementation and execution of change programmes focused on corporate services.

Outsourcing Service Provider of the Year

Luxoft

The judges felt that Luxoft’s submission showed excellent depth in all key areas of successful outsourcing, along with copious good examples of corporate social responsibility across all of its collaborations.

Outsourcing Contact Centre Provider of the Year

bss and Office for National Statistics and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency

The 2011 Census contact centre handled nearly 1 million phone calls, in 10 weeks, without any downtime. This project won due to its complexity, while not getting in the way of delivering a solution to the massive benefit of the authorities and the public alike.

Outsourcing Advisory of the YearHogan Lovells International LLP

Over the last year, Hogan Lovells has advised on most of the key outsourcings in the asset management, insurance and life and pensions sectors, including Aegon, F&C and Scottish Widows. This was a closely fought award; however, the judges felt that Hogan Lovells consistently delivered a wide variety of innovative and high-profile solutions throughout the year.

Offshoring Destination of the Year

Poland

Poland is the sole European country to demonstrate positive economic growth throughout the crisis. The total value of British investment in Poland has now reached $3.54 billion. The judges felt that the entry from Luxoft was extremely strong and demonstrated that Poland has remained price competitive with the required labour skills. It is expected the Polish IT market will maintain its status as one of the CEE’s fastest growing IT markets over the 2010–2014 forecast period.

Outsourcing End-User of the Year

Thames Water and Efficio Consulting Ltd

Thames Water’s “fully integrated consultancy” delivery model has challenged the market norm, creating compelling benefits. This project has been rewarded for its strong focus on leadership and relationship management. This emphasis on an effective gain-share pricing model has resulted in cost savings far greater than set out in its internal business case.

Award for Innovation in Outsourcing

Serco and Barclays Cycle Hire

Serco delivered Boris Johnson’s vision of making London a genuinely cycle friendly city, whilst having to learn an entirely new business and multi-sourcing with 10 sub-contractors.  With 5000 bikes, and 10,000 docking points, the system is highly complex, yet very easy to use, making a positive contribution to the lives of 1000s of environmentally conscious Londoners.

Award for Best Practice in Outsourcing

Co-Operative Banking Group, Operational Partnerships Management, Supplier Operating Model

CFS’s relationship management capability provides a disciplined consistent, approach to making CFS an intelligent customer. It powers effective collaboration between all business stakeholders within the sourcing lifecycle – nurturing a culture of common language and thinking across the full range Co-operative business units.

Award for Academic AchievementHML – Anu Biswas

2011 NOA Pathway graduate Anu Biswas worked her way to the top of the class with a tailored outsourcing development plan for an actual project, and input these into the HML strategy. Her project focused on development of the right skills, knowledge and behaviours to be able to strategically lead an outsourcing organisation.

Award for Corporate Social Responsibility

Infosys BPO Ltd and Project Genesis

This successful project follows a “train the trainer” model and has reached out to over 85,000 students through 2888 academicians in 1527 educational institutions in India.
Judges agreed this innovative programme provides students with the relevant proficiencies to perform well in this dynamic industry. Additional acknowledgements were made on the range of the industry partnerships and use of technology in analysing skills and enhancing language skills.

ENDS

Contact Glenn Hickling 0207 292 8687
Notes To Editors

• The National Outsourcing Association (NOA) is a non-profit organisation that represents the interests of outsourcing end users, suppliers and support services. Its focus is on delivering education, excellence and collaboration opportunities in all areas of outsourcing, including ITO, BPO and KPO.
• NOAAs have been an annual event since 2003.
• The NOAAs chief aim is to share and celebrate outsourcing best practice.