isoft may need further uk redundancies

ISoft may need further UK redundancies
17 March 2011 Sarah Bruce

ISoft has entered into a consultation that may result in further positions being made redundant.

Last month, the company posted a net loss of �52.9m (AUS $84m) for the six months ending 31 December 2010.

It also said that as part of its drive to cut costs it had reduced its fulltime headcount by 28% over the preceding 12 months.

One source told EHI that iSoft staff are concerned that the latest round of restructing will leave UK trusts with a "skeleton crew" and limit the company's ability to carry out new implementations.

However, iSoft said it was focusing on a �proposed reorganisation of the professional services (implementation, delivery, and consultancy) function to ensure we have the right people in the right positions to meet future customer and market needs.�

A spokesperson said the company plans to introduce a �clinical� and �solution� focused implementation and consultancy capability, and a new systems integration function.

He said this would focus on an interactive, teamwork enabled design studio approach, using Viaduct for interoperability, and on the specific skills and experience required to successfully implement �Smart Solutions� such as ePMA.

ISoft also insists that the proposals will have �no impact whatsoever on the implementation of Lorenzo,� the system it provides under its contract with local service provider, CSC, under the National Programme for IT in the NHS, or on the development of upkeep of existing products.

The company�s share price has dropped to an all time low and now stands at AUS $0.03
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Readers� comments (2)
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ehealthsolutions
My EHI score: 11



Was / Is Chennai a big mistake?
17 March 2011 09:59

In my opinion iSOFT's biggest strategic mistake was moving it's software development to Chennai in India. I'm sure the idea was to save money on salaries BUT the local lack of understanding of NHS work-flow and integrated care pathways has severely delayed the development of Lorenzo and moved focus away from the development of their current UK product portfolio.

There are definate signs that iSOFT are attempting to remedy this situation by re-focussing on their UK development team and their PatientCentre/Smart Solutions strategy looks like it might provide Trusts with useful software until Lorenzo is ready for wider roll-out


5
My EHI score: 47

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george385


When Experience counts for nothing
17 March 2011 11:17

In response to the previous poster "Was / Is moving Software Development to India a big mistake".....those of us that worked for iSOFT at the time this decision was made said that this was the wrong thing to do; at the wrong time (after winning the NPfIT contract); and for the wrong reasons (we all knew the 90% saving in staff salaries was no coincidence).

At a time when those NPfIT contracts had been won it surely made sense to utilise the healthcare experience of the existing workforce. However many of us were told that "no one is irreplaceable".

That might be true if you had SMEs and developers with 20+years experience standing around on each street corner doing nothing - which there isn't. Most of the developers that were lost in favour of a graduate workforce in India had 20 and 30 years of healthcare IT development experience.

In all in all - in my opinion - iSOFT missed the opportunity of utilising a seasoned and experienced healthcare IT workforce - a naïve, self inflicted (and probably fatal) mistake.

http://www.ehi.co.uk/news/EHI/6723/isoft_may_need_further_uk_redundancies
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