To compete effectively, companies today must build and maintain full-featured Web sites that showcase their offerings clearly and creatively. Yet the high up-front design fees, as well as the ongoing costs and complexities of managing a dynamic Web site through third-party design firms, have turned this business necessity into a business nightmare for many organizations.

To eliminate the challenges of Web site design and maintenance, SharePoint360 LLC, a San Diego-based SharePoint hosting and consulting firm and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, launched SharePoint360 Web. This cost-effective service provides businesses across the globe with a simple, non-technical method for transforming the way public-facing Web sites are created and managed.

SharePoint360 Web is a unique hosted solution utilizing the SharePoint Web-based collaboration and document management platform. As the fastest growing product in Microsoft's history, SharePoint literally changes the way business is done. Now, SharePoint360 LLC is taking advantage of its highly specialized SharePoint expertise to allow organizations to produce and maintain their own Web sites in a matter of hours, with built-in Web 2.0 features such as blogs, calendars, alerts, RSS feeds, wikis and search capabilities. Best of all, any existing staff member can utilize the service, without the need for a webmaster, an FTP site, Web design software or even entry-level programming skills.

"The old model of having an outside design firm controlling your site and your ongoing updates is antiquated, inefficient and can be very frustrating and costly," said Paul West, one of the principals for SharePoint360 LLC. "With SharePoint360 Web, we demystify the design and maintenance process so that the customer is in complete command of one of the most important aspects of their business – their Web site."

The SharePoint360 Web approach is already paying off for StarvingStudent.net, a new social networking community to serve as a resource for millions of high school graduates, college students and their families. StarvingStudent.net had elaborate Web site requirements that challenged the capabilities of most Web design and development software, including the ability to customize profiles for individual campuses nationwide, while allowing users across all campuses to exchange information, collaborate on projects online and download resources.

"We tried working with a design firm that used its own Web building software, but we were unhappy with the level of flexibility available to us," said Anthony Rodriguez, president of StarvingStudent.net. "After some research, we came across SharePoint360 Web, and it allowed us to quickly and effectively jumpstart our site development. Now we not only have a Web site that is exactly how we envisioned it, but we can also do much more on our own than we ever thought possible."

Use of the service begins with selection of a domain. Customers can then choose to produce a Web site that is as basic or as sophisticated as they want. Although a standard template can be used at the onset for instant deployment, businesses can customize their sites to suit specific requirements, whether that means embedding Google Analytics, creating image libraries or adding Flash animation or collaboration capabilities. Companies can explore even more creative options by using SharePoint Designer, Microsoft's latest Web design software.

After a customer's initial Web site is up and running, non-technical users can continue to manage the system, performing ongoing updates in seconds. Designated administrators simply sign in and post documents in real time. In addition, new pages can be created and added in minutes, and images can be uploaded quickly using an intuitive SharePoint360 Photo Webpart.

"SharePoint360 Web is a great entry point into SharePoint," said Cliff Smeed, co-founder/principal for SharePoint360 LLC. "Its user friendly interface and customizable features simply trump the traditional, static Web site model. Plus, once you have been exposed to the Internet version of SharePoint, you begin to appreciate all the benefits the product offers for internal purposes as well. Creating intranet and extranet portals can be done with the same level of ease, but with significantly more horsepower, allowing employees, partners, and customers to contribute and have a much richer collaborative experience."

Now available, SharePoint360 Web packages range from basic to custom-designed sites that allow customers to manage and maintain content. Visit www.sharepoint360.com for a full menu of cost-effective Web site packages.

About SharePoint360 LLC

Founded in 2006, SharePoint360 LLC is a leading SharePoint information and solutions provider whose customers span the globe from San Diego to South Africa. SharePoint360 is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that provides comprehensive services in consulting, hosting and business intelligence. More information is available at www.sharepoint360.com

India's largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services today announced the global implementation of an integrated financial management system for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The company has helped IOM roll-out its financial management system to first six locations - Geneva, Manila, Moscow, Skopje, Sarajevo and Budapest as per the project schedule and budget.

The system would help in providing transparency to member states of IOM, donors and other stakeholders across the globe. It would also improve reporting times and support the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) in IOM.

TCS has also been awarded the contract for rolling out the financial management system across 140locations of IOM.

"This go-live of the first six missions and our subsequent appointment for IOMs full global roll out, comprehensively demonstrates TCS capacity to deliver highly customised solutions to global organisations," TCS Europe Director Girish Ramachandran said.

The implementation of such a complex financial management system within deadline and within ascribed funding provides a testament to a strategic IOM and TCS partnership, including TCS's global presence and the commitment to succeed, said IMO Director of Resource Management Ovais Sarmad.

IOM is an inter-governmental organization managing migration by addressing the multi-faceted challenges of migration in partnership with governments and other public and private sector entities. It is headquartered in Geneva and has 125 member states.

Deloitte has announced today an agreement to acquire Recombinant Capital, Inc. (Recap), a leading life sciences subscription database and advisory services firm. Included in the acquisition is Recap's unique database that provides more than 1,500 subscribers with access to over 20 years of historical data used to track significant publicly available information in the life sciences industry, ranging from alliance formations to intellectual property ownership and clinical trials data.

 

Deloitte's life sciences consulting practice was ranked number one by Kennedy Information in 2007 in terms of revenue and market share. Deloitte will further reinforce its market leadership position with the acquisition of Recap.

 

The transaction also extends Deloitte's portfolio of services to include subscription database services, further complementing the consulting, financial advisory, tax, audit and enterprise risk services currently offered to life sciences clients.

The addition of Recap's services will enhance Deloitte's litigation support, M&A, licensing and valuation capabilities.

"New business models are emerging that require life sciences companies to consider new strategies for growth, including forging alliances, entering emerging markets, executing mergers and acquisitions and developing new types of drugs," said Terry Hisey, vice chairman and US industry leader for Deloitte LLP's Life Sciences industry group. "With the addition of Recombinant Capital, Deloitte will be uniquely positioned to provide clients with unparalleled access to information and analyses critical to management in their development of future growth plans."

"The choice to integrate Recombinant Capital and Deloitte merges Recap's unique strategic data with Deloitte's scale, scope of services and client base, creating a powerful combination," said Mark Edwards, founder and managing director of Recombinant Capital. "Our clients will benefit from Deloitte's proven industry track record, and our people will benefit from the opportunity to continue to develop their careers with one of the world's leading professional services firms."

Recap's customers include approximately 90 percent of the top-tier biotech and pharmaceutical companies by market capitalization. The company also serves as a supplier of data to organizations, including venture capital firms, major law firms, universities and medical centers. The acquisition is expected to be completed within the next month. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

About Deloitte

As used in this document, "Deloitte" means one or more subsidiaries of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries.

About Recombinant Capital

Recombinant Capital (Recap) is a San Francisco Bay Area-based subscription database and advisory services firm. Recap's mission is to ensure availability of adequate resources for biotechnology enterprises by providing comprehensive and timely advice and analysis related to the environment for corporate and product development and alliance formation. Recap's clients include biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, plus several universities, investment banking and venture firms active in the biotechnology area.

 

To browse the latest job openings at Deloitte, please visit our IT consulting job board.   

Tom Captain, a 27-year industry veteran and a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP has been named vice chairman and global and US leader of Deloitte's Aerospace and Defense (A&D) industry group, which provides audit, tax, financial advisory and consulting services to commercial aerospace, military aircraft, defense electronics, missile defense, land & naval platforms and space companies, along with their suppliers, investors and customers.

He replaces Jim Schwendinger, who is retiring.

In his new role, Captain will provide industry specialization to client teams and spearhead initiatives to enhance Deloitte's position in the marketplace. He will continue to be actively involved in major client assignments within the industry, providing consulting services to Fortune 500 companies in the A&D industry.

He specializes in strategy, operational improvements, product development and program management across multiple functions.

"The A&D industry faces multiple challenges and Tom brings exceptional problem-solving capabilities to our clients," said Edward Carey, national managing principal, US Industries, Deloitte LLP. "He is one of our most experienced leaders in the A&D industry, and understands the importance of delivering industry insight and perspective to clients. Jim did an exceptional job guiding the strategic development of the practice, and we're confident that this sector will continue to prosper under Tom's leadership."

"Tom will be instrumental in strengthening our capabilities in strategic regions and markets across the globe as we continue to deliver services to help our A&D clients achieve sustainable profitable growth," added Hans Roehm, Deloitte Touche Tomatsu global Manufacturing industry leader.

"Over the past few years, A&D industry growth has been fueled by the global war on terrorism and the recovery in commercial aircraft," said Captain. "However, companies in this industry face a number of ongoing challenges in areas including increased emphasis on cost control, global supply chain complexities, the innovation imperative, regulatory compliance and a critical talent shortage. How well companies respond to these challenges will determine their success going forward."

Captain is a member of the Seattle University Business School Dean's Executive Advisory Board and participates in a number of professional, civic and community programs. He contributed to the Puget Sound Regional Council's Prosperity Partnership Aerospace Competitiveness Initiative, and is a member of the Patrons of Northwest Civic & Charitable Organizations Board of Directors, a former trustee of the Museum of History and Industry's Board and a past president of the Institute of Management Consultants, Pacific Northwest Chapter. He received an M.B.A. from Seattle University and a B.A. from the University of Washington. He also completed the executive education program at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business.

ICAP plc, the world’s premier interdealer broker, has selected Accenture to develop and maintain its European Union credit-trading platform under a five-year application outsourcing agreement.

“This initiative is designed to increase the capabilities and cost-efficiencies of our credit-trading platform in order to continue to drive growth in an increasingly dynamic and evolving global marketplace,” said James Dawson, business manager, credit products at ICAP.

Accenture will provide technology development and outsourcing services to ICAP through its Global Delivery Network, which includes more than 50 delivery centers across five continents.

“The leading capital markets firms today are focused on achieving the right balance of cost-reduction, long-term operational excellence and opportunistic expansion,” said Lloyd Altman, a senior executive in Accenture’s Capital Markets practice. “This strategic outsourcing agreement reflects ICAP's sharp global vision for growth and deep commitment to service excellence and shareholder value.”

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With 178,000 people in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$19.70 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2007. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

About ICAP

ICAP is the world’s premier voice and electronic interdealer broker and the source of global market information and commentary for professionals in the international financial markets. The Group is active in the wholesale markets in interest rates, credit, commodities, foreign exchange and equity derivatives. ICAP has an average daily transaction volume in excess of $1.5 trillion, more than 60% of which is electronic. ICAP plc was added to the FTSE 100 Index on 30 June 2006. For more information go to www.icap.com.

The new issue of Consulting Times has been posted. Some of the topics covered in June include:

 

• Top-Consultant's first Virtual Careers Fair for management and IT consultants
  

• Change programs that have been launched in response to the economic slowdown  

• Booz Allen Hamilton's plan to separate its core businesses 
  

• Hitachi's plan to expand through acquisitions and recruitment 

• The reasons why management consultancy is so popular among MBA students   

 

To read the latest issue of Consulting Times, please  visit http://www.consulting-times.com. 

Leading global technology and consulting firm Cognizant has announced the acquisition of all the assets of Strategic Vision Consulting, Inc. (SVC), a Los Angeles-based technology and management consulting company that provides services to the media and entertainment industry. SVC has more than 60 employees. The exact terms of the deal have not been disclosed.  

Strategic Vision Consulting specializes in technology planning and strategy as well as program and project management. It offers high-impact consulting and systems implementation to various media companies, including major studios, broadcasters and interactive media companies. 

Cognizant president and CEO Francisco D'Souza said:

"We welcome the SVC team to Cognizant. This acquisition will expand our consulting capabilities in the media and entertainment industry and will allow us to help media and entertainment companies respond to the opportunities brought about by the digital transformation of the industry. The combination of SVC's strong relationships in the entertainment industry and Cognizant's global delivery model positions Cognizant as a services leader within the fast-growing media and entertainment industry."

Franl Leal, managing principal at SVC, added:

"We are very pleased to join the Cognizant family. The combination of our market-leading consulting capability in the entertainment segment and Cognizant's strengths as a top global services player will allow us to deliver superior services to our collective clients by providing them with a broader range of services. We found a great cultural fit between both companies in terms of commitment to unparallel client satisfaction, entrepreneurial spirit, corporate culture, and overall vision for the future of the global services industry."

Global technology and consulting giant IBM has launched an integrated approach to managing enterprise content with innovative new business software.

IBM's Business Content Services strategy helps companies across business sectors deal with the enormous growth of data and content, created independently or collaboratively in international workgroups. Clients and organizations can opt for a complete solution from IBM or for the ECM offerings that allow them to manage content created in a number of different applications: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, IBM Lotus notes, etc.  

The strategy is part of IBM's Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software portfolio and combines IBM's ECM capabilities with a large number of collaboration options and social software.  

Lee Roberts, general manager of IBM Enterprise Content Management, said:

"IBM's commitment to delivering market-leading ECM infrastructure solutions allows workers to create content in familiar desktop applications and document collaboration tools, while enabling organizations to more efficiently and cost-effectively meet their content management and compliance goals. Our Business Content Services approach is focused on bridging the gap between the simple management of business documents and a comprehensive ECM infrastructure."  

To help clients develop a plan to effectively deploy the new ECM offerings and advance the ECM technologies in their organizations, IBM is offering design and consulting services. You can find more information on IBM's Business Content Services on IBM's website.  

 

 

Convergys Corporation, a global leader in relationship management, has announced the appointment of Mike Betzer as Senior Vice President, Relationship Technology Management (RTM). He will report to Dave Dougherty, president and CEO of Convergys.

In this leadership role, Betzer will be responsible for the overall success and continued growth of RTM. He will oversee the creation of strategic business plans, delivery of solutions and services to Convergys clients, implementation of existing technologies into solutions for new industries and markets, and the development of new Convergys relationship management solutions such as Convergys' recently announced Multichannel Automation Solutions portfolio.

According to Betzer, this portfolio effectively combines consulting services, best-of-breed technologies, professional services, and flexible delivery models across live agent and self-service, and exemplifies Convergys' unique ability to bring together a comprehensive set of solutions and services to solve key business challenges for our clients.

Betzer brings more than 20 years experience in the RTM space having most recently held the Vice President, Customer Relationship Management Strategy role at Oracle. Betzer had overall responsibility for Customer Relationship Management product strategy for Siebel when it was acquired by Oracle, and for Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, and Oracle Fusion product lines.

Prior to this role, Betzer served as vice president of product management with overall responsibility for contact centers, service, field service, help desk, knowledge management, mobile, wireless, handheld devices, computer telephony integration (CTI) and software as a service (Saas) products for Siebel and the Oracle E-Business Suite product families.

In 1999, Betzer founded Ineto Services, a provider of hosted intelligent routing software for incoming calls, voicemail, IVR, and chat. Ineto was acquired by Siebel in 2004.

Prior to his roles at Ineto and Siebel, Betzer spent 14 years in telecommunications serving in sales and operations positions including vice president of information technologies and vice president of operations with MCI. He also spent two years as vice president of sales for Pioneer Technologies.

Betzer holds a bachelor's degree in marketing from the University of Northern Iowa and a master's of business administration in telecommunications from St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas.

About Convergys

Convergys Corporation is a global leader in relationship management. We provide solutions that drive more value from the relationships our clients have with their customers and employees. Convergys turns these everyday interactions into a source of profit and strategic advantage for our clients. For 25 years, our unique combination of domain expertise, operational excellence, and innovative technologies has delivered process improvement and actionable business insight to clients that now span more than 70 countries and 35 languages.

Convergys is a member of the S&P 500 and has been voted a Fortune Most Admired Company for eight consecutive years. We have approximately 75,000 employees in 85 customer contact centers and other facilities in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and our global headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio.

For more information, visit www.convergys.com

BearingPoint, Inc., one of the world’s largest management and technology consulting firms, announced today that it recently deployed an advanced public safety network for the newly-established Miami Gardens Police Department in Florida.

Miami Gardens is the third-largest city in Miami-Dade County, with approximately 110,000 residents. Though incorporated in 2003, the city relied on police service from Miami-Dade County until deciding to build out its own police department in July 2006.

Targeting a December 2007 start date, the City of Miami Gardens was tasked with quickly building out a nearly 200-member police force essentially from scratch. In 2007, the city turned to BearingPoint to design and manage the installation of the communications network needed to help the city’s new police department more effectively fight crime and enhance citizen safety services. Just 10 months later, BearingPoint has delivered a network that includes computer-aided dispatch and records-management system for police calls, provides wireless computer access in every patrol car, and delivers Voice over IP (VoIP) communications and enhanced 911 services to the department.

The new fault-tolerant network allows the Miami Gardens Police Department to connect to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center and other participating law enforcement agencies within the state. In-vehicle broadband Wi-Fi services include not only the ability to send and receive traditional text data, but also tie to video cameras in every patrol car, allowing the department to record and store important visual evidence related to its cases.

“We not only stood up an entirely new police department in just 18 months, but we have created a communications network that empowers our officers to be where they need to be, when they need to be,” said Chief Matthew Boyd of the Miami Gardens Police Department. “BearingPoint moved very quickly to help us install the critical infrastructure that better serves citizens and officers on the street, and the system is one that can grow as our city grows.”

“Miami Gardens needed a state-of-the-art public safety network, and they needed it fast,” said Cathy Pomanti, executive vice president of BearingPoint’s State and Local Government practice. “By working closely with the client and leveraging our experience in management consulting and public safety, officers now have access to critical applications they need to more effectively do their jobs.”

As a part of the project, BearingPoint provided management and technology consulting services to the city’s office of the CIO. BearingPoint led project management for a records management system installation, designed, installed and configured IT and VoIP networks for the police department, and created a network (with backup access) that allows use of critical Police Department applications wirelessly from patrol cars.