VAR500: Capgemini Drills Down On Social Media; Accenture Survey Cites High Return Costs

VAR500 Solution Providers In the News

In CRN's weekly check in with VAR500 solution providers that made headlines, social media took center stage as a Capgemini Exec was featured in a webniar on the subject. Also, an Accenture survey quantified the costs of returned products; Insight sold its one millionth cloud computing seat; CGI and CDW delivered separate government solutions and HP moved an earthbound agribusiness to the cloud.

Capgemini Exec Featured In Social Media Webinar

Paul Cole, Capgemini vice president of BPO Customer Operations, will discuss "Strategies for Analyzing and Acting on Social Customer Feedback" during a webinar, at 2 p.m. EST, Thursday.

"Looking at Social Media Through the Prism of the Customer Lifecycle" is a complimentary webinar from Attensity with partner Capgemini that will focus on how social media is creating a global network of real-time relationships with companies and fueling the need to hear, understand and respond to social customer feedback. Register for free online at: http://www2.attensity.com/capgeminiwebinar

Accenture Study Cites High Cost of Returns

Customers returning electronics products will cost U.S. consumer electronics retailers and manufacturers almost $17 billion this year, an increase of 21 percent since 2007, according to a new Accenture research report. Ironically, the vast majority of those returns are characterized as "No Trouble Found." Although the customer perceived a fault, the manufacturer found no problem.

Accenture’s report, A Returning Problem: Reducing the Quantity and Cost of Product Returns in Consumer Electronics, finds that solving this No Trouble Found problem -- or even reducing it slightly -- is critical. For example, a 1 percent reduction in the number of No Trouble Found cases could translate to annual savings of 4 percent in return and repair costs, or $21 million for a typical large consumer electronics manufacturer.

Insight Hits Million Mark In Cloud Computing

Insight Enterprises president and CEO Ken Lamneck said earlier this month that the IT solution provider has sold more than 1 million seats in various cloud offerings. Insight's cloud computing portfolio includes messaging, security, infrastructure and collaboration. "We are seeing IT workloads like the collaboration suite (e-mail, messaging and conferencing), security solutions, test and development environments and, in general, 'compute on demand' as the early movers to the cloud," said Bill McCarthy, senior vice president of Cloud Services for Insight North America. "In fact, more and more of our client conversations are around which workloads do they move first to the cloud and how do we help them get there."

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Syngenta Goes To The HP Cloud

Syngenta, a Switzerland-based global agribusiness, will move parts of its technology infrastructure to a private cloud computing environment using HP Cloud Computing Solutions supported from HP data centers. HP will deliver a set of HP Security Services that provide oversight of the private cloud environment as well as a tiered services model for Service Desk and Site Support Services. That will modernize Syngenta's digital workplace, including support for desktop and notebook PCs and printers, for the company's 26,000 users spread across 90 countries. That includes virtual desktop as a service for roughly 5,000 users. HP will deliver these infrastructure services from HP global delivery centers in Argentina, Bulgaria, China, India, the Philippines and Slovakia.

CGI Group Delivers West Virginia ERP Solution

The State of West Virginia will implement CGI Group's AMS Advantage enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution statewide. The contract is valued at $98 million over eight years. The IT solution provider's ERP software meets the regulatory and processing requirements unique to the public sector. CGI's AMS Advantage will streamline processing and increase access to information, providing a single point of accountability for software and services as West Virginia moves forward with its phased implementation.

CDW Provides Electronic Health Records Services To California

CDW Healthcare is partnering with the California Health Information Partnership and Services Organization (CalHIPSO) to deliver IT services and solutions in support of electronic health record (EHR) adoption in California. CDW Healthcare will work with physician practices throughout the EHR implementation process, from choosing the application to post-implementation training and support. CalHIPSO supports more than 6,000 clinical provider members assisting them in EHR selection and contracting. CalHIPSO's members have access to an online portal for the easy selection and acquisition of supporting IT infrastructure. CDW Healthcare offers supporting hardware and software through that portal. Beyond access to its product catalog, CDW Healthcare also delivers comprehensive services, tailored EHR infrastructure bundles and other technology solutions to CalHIPSO members.