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Jobs at risk in publisher’s outsourcing move

A regional publisher is set to outsource most of its digital development and IT operations to India

Local World is consulting staff on proposals to transfer its entire IT support service function along with a number of digital development roles to Cognizant, a firm of technology consultants based in Chennai.

The move affects around 20 staff based at the company’s Derby centre as well as a number of staff based in other centres.

Consultation with affected staff began on Friday.  The company has so far not put an overall figure on the number of staff potentially at risk as a result of the move.

Torben Lundberg, chief information officer of Local World said: “This decision in no way reflects upon the service that the IT team has provided over the years.

“This is a strategic decision to enable us to be more competitive in the market place and secure the long term future of the business.”

The proposals affect staff working in a number of different areas of the business including service delivery, infrastructure, network telephonics, applications delivery, programme management, and digital development.

Although LW says the affected staff are based across a number of centres, Derby is particularly affected by the move as it is historically where many of the digital staff have been based.

The digital division was set up in the city in the early 2000s and was known initially as Northcliffe Electronic Publishing and later as Associated Northcliffe Digital.

Although the division is now managed from London, many digital development staff have continued to be based in Derby since Northcliffe became part of Local World in 2012.

Meanwhile it has emerged that outsourcing IT support and services functions contributed to a £6m cost saving by fellow regional publisher Trinity Mirror.

Earlier this year, it confirmed it was planning to outsource to service desk provider Endava from March, moving the function from Glasgow to Romania.

Last week’s half-yearly results showed that operating costs fell by £5.7m reflecting the benefit of structural cost savings of £6m.

“Structural cost savings in the first half have been delivered through the outsourcing of IT support and services functions, the restructure of editorial and advertising functions, the closure of the Reading print plant and a number of smaller offices and continued restructuring of all operating functions,” said the report.

AUGUST 15 UPDATE:  Since this story was first published it has become clear that the scale of potential job losses is higher than originally supposed.

Although Local World has still declined to put a figure on the overall number of roles at risk, HTFP now understands that up to 130 posts could be affected.

The total includes staff across all Local World centres but we understand that IT staff in Leicester and the digital team in London are particularly affected as well as those in Derby.

Local World has declined to comment further.

13 comments

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  • August 5, 2014 at 8:25 am
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    And this story, about a high-profile local firm outsourcing skilled jobs to India, will appear in how many Local World titles?

    Especially as the trend today is for stories that can be slotted in across a group’s titles merely by changing the geographic location.

    My guess is it will not appear in any, unless it is dressed up in an Editor’s self-penned (?) announcement to readers about how this ‘exciting’ news ‘will enable us to better serve you, our readers and advertisers with a more focused delivery of a key digital offer through a multi-platform approach…blah, blah, blah’.

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  • August 5, 2014 at 9:21 am
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    Local World IT…you will REST….IN….PEACE!!!

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  • August 5, 2014 at 9:37 am
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    Why not move the whole thing to Chennai? You could sack the whole management team for a start. Think of the savings. Think what it would do for the long-term viability of the company.

    Romania, India – time for a name change, guys. May I humbly suggest Third World.

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  • August 5, 2014 at 10:15 am
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    And in 5 years the jobs will be restructured and moved back to good ol Blighty!

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  • August 6, 2014 at 8:44 am
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    I don’t really understand this gold rush to India for remote IT support/development. It didn’t really go to well for the development of the NHS National system or indeed the BBC archive, which between them never worked and cost Billions. There will be countless other unreported PLC fiascos.

    Isn’t this just rather weak management not actually getting to grips with properly operating an IT function. I guess in the same way as many didn’t properly get to grips with ad production and ducked the issue of reforming reengineeing this side of the business.

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  • August 6, 2014 at 9:59 am
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    What the hell do you expect – the talented managers left years ago lol!

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  • August 6, 2014 at 11:50 pm
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    They might save a few quid and increase the profits (even further) for the shareholders, but all the newspaper groups are guilty of the same thing.

    By stripping away all the printers, photographers and IT and Digital staff the newspapers are losing their reputation as local employers, and with that the associated influence and status they had because of this in the community and once they lose that – they won’t get it back.

    The public know, lets say for example if you send a journalist out with an iphone to take a snap – that the journalist is doing nothing special – that they couldn’t do themselves and do every day.

    When they see a professional newspaper photographer at work however it makes a big difference, and this is something the bean counters don’t understand – reputation and status for the brands are important.

    And for one, the next time I see a newspaper running a campaign to save local jobs or keep jobs in the UK, I won’t take a blind bit of notice as feel it would be pure hypocrisy.

    It’s also a false economy – give it a year or two and they’ll regret they ever made the decision – as has been proved by outsourcing fiascos before as Edward has said.

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  • August 7, 2014 at 9:29 am
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    Agree with all above. Why can what seem so obvious to us, elude those making decisions – to the extent that they do nothing explain seemingly obvious flaws? I don’t suppose there is a pleasant answer to that.

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  • August 11, 2014 at 7:06 pm
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    It’s not too late to save the business, think long and hard LocalWorld before you hand-over the company and cripple your workers..

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