At your service: the UK is geared up for business

The UK is a world-leader in business services and business support – a premier location for everything from convention halls to contact centres.

With its world-leading business services industry and conference and events sector, the UK has developed a global reputation for enterprise support. It is geared up to receive and serve global businesses operating across all industries.

The UK’s hospitality arena, for example, attracts delegates and organisations from across the world, with every major city in the country served by state-of-the-art conference and meetings venues.

In 2009, the world-famous Birmingham NEC hosted the International Rotary Convention (the annual event organised by the US-based Rotary International organisation) with 20,000 delegates from 150-plus countries in attendance. Paul Thandi, Chief Executive of the NEC Group, called it a “truly international convention.”

Ipex, meanwhile, is the world’s largest international trade event for the print, publishing and media industries, with almost half of all visitors coming from overseas. The 2010 Ipex event took place at the NEC in May, attracting over 50,000 visitors from 135 countries, plus 1,000 exhibiting companies from 40 international locations. Key exhibitors included Japanese-based Canon, German-headquartered Heidelberg HP, and US-based Kodak and Xerox.

International dimension

UK skills in the conference and events sector is second-to-none and sought after by countries around the world. The Birmingham NEC, arguably, was the venue which gave the UK’s conference and meetings industry an international dimension when it first opened more than three decades ago. Now the NEC management – which has undertaken consultancy in locations such as Hong Kong, North America and Europe – has been chosen to run The Convention Centre Dublin, which is set to open in September 2010.

But because the UK’s history, surroundings and cultural landscape are powerful draws, it is not simply major city centre conference venues which are a pull for overseas delegates.

Indeed, international companies are drawn to venues such as stately homes and academic establishments, which may be smaller but still offer outstanding corporate facilities. The picturesque Dundas Castle near Edinburgh, for example, owned by Sir Jack Stewart-Clark, has been in the conference business since 1997 and hosts 170 events a year. Says Lucy Scillitoe, Dundas’ Commercial Director: “The fact is that American, European and Asian clients enjoy the traditional surroundings of a Scottish castle but also the contemporary services on offer.” Such as Norwegian company Samlerhuset, a large rare coin distributor, who recently took over the castle for two nights for a meeting and social program.

Then there are more unusual venues, such as the new Concorde Conference Centre near Manchester Airport, which features the iconic Concorde aircraft in the conference hall itself.

Increase in outsourcing

The UK is also able to offer business support to firms – and in every area from IT to HR. In 2009, a study undertaken by leading independent business advisory firm EquaTerra showed that the outsourcing of business functions to third party providers is on the increase, due, in part, to the impact of the global economic downturn. Companies from all sectors are involved in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) – when, traditionally, these functions would have been carried out ‘in-house’.

Major international companies offering outsourcing services operate in the UK, including German company Arvato; French company Capgemini; Ireland-headquartered Accenture; Genpact, whose global locations include the US and India; and Australian company Stellar, which has UK offices in Irvine, Ayrshire and Paisley, Renfrewshire.

Then there is Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), owned by US giant Xerox, which performs ITO, administration, HR and finance and accounting BPO services for its clients. ACS has UK locations in London, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ipswich, Manchester, Reading, Newport, Basingstoke, Bristol and Cheshire.

Sound commercial sense

In March, ACS unveiled a state-of-the-art flagship data centre, designed and built by IBM, that could serve as an industry model by simultaneously cutting carbon emissions and reducing energy costs. The £2 million, 4,500 square feet facility, located in Telford, Shropshire, was opened by ACS CEO Lynn Blodgett.

She noted: “This new data facility’s innovative design makes good environmental sense as well as sound commercial sense. By making environmentally conscious decisions, we can make informed business decisions to ensure our clients are more competitive.”

Also operating in the UK is Sogeti, a provider of software testing and infrastructure services to corporate and public sector clients; and Next Generation Data (NGD), which runs a sophisticated Tier 3 data centre housed in a former LG Electronics semiconductor plant near Newport, south Wales.

NGD opened for business in October 2009, offering firms secure, environmentally-friendly data storage and processing – and, at 750,000 square feet, it is Europe’s largest data centre. In June, in a move designed to take all its power from renewable sources, NGD appointed Smartest Energy – the UK's largest purchaser of electricity from the independent generation sector – to supply the facility with its power usage.

Customer support

Also in June, MIR3, Inc – a US company creating real-time global notification and response technology – established its European headquarters in London. MIR3’s customers include private companies, government departments, universities and other organisations. Its new London operation will provide local support to Fortune 100 clients, and include IT alerting, business continuity and disaster recovery messaging, emergency management, customer relations automation, logistics and human resources communication.

Frank Mahdavi is chief strategy officer and director of MIR3 UK Ltd. He says: “In this day and age, important message delivery is more critical than ever before to global enterprise companies and organisations.

“With our new location, we are well positioned to expand our award-winning notification solutions throughout Europe, while providing current clientele with exceptional local support. We are excited to join London’s thriving economy, and help organisations across Europe enhance their communication abilities.”

Contact centre hub

The UK is also one of the most important locations in the world for customer contact centres (third party service units, dealing with phone calls, emails, faxes and written correspondence). In 2007 there were approximately 6,000 contact centres across the UK, employing around 860,000 people. It is estimated that by 2012, 1 million people will be working in UK contact centres.

A recent survey conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) also identified an upswing in the use of shared service centres (SSC). These are centralised business units which undertake internal business functions for divisions or subsidiaries of a particular company.

The CIPD report discovered that some 28 per cent of organisations have introduced centralised provision of shared administrative services. Respondents also anticipated a general shift towards more outsourcing of their HR shared services, with some 11per cent expecting that these will be fully outsourced in three years’ time.