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Posted: Mon, April 11, 2005
Interview: LogicaCMG and the Welsh Assembly Government
Sali Earls attended the launch, and spoke to Andrew Davies, Minister for Economic Development and Transport, Welsh Assembly Government, and Kevin Radley, Chief Operating Officer and Finance Director UK, LogicaCMG to find out what this development means for Wales, and the future plans of the organisation. What does this development means for LogicaCMG as a company, and for Wales?
Andrew Davies: I think it helps put Wales on the map, as LogicaCMG have set this up as a Western European centre of outsourcing; but it puts Wales on the map in terms of a place to do business, not just in terms of outsourcing, but the whole area of IT, it really raises our profile. But of course it means creating very well paid jobs, highly skilled jobs, provides opportunities for young people - the old adage of "you have to get out to get on" in Wales is no longer true - for example graduates from Swansea University, I know, are working for LogicaCMG, and those jobs would not have been available five or ten years ago but increasingly they are. Having a company like LogicaCMG here is a huge vote of confidence in Wales as a place to do business. Why did LogicaCMG choose Bridgend as a base? Kevin Radley: We chose Bridgend for three main reasons. The main reason was the quality of the workforce; the second reason is that we had a presence here already, and we had a good experience of that presence here - one of the significant factors is staff loyalty, we create a good service environment down here, and have quite a low attrition rate - so that's a good experience; and the third reason was the support from Team Wales. This development is going to bring 765 jobs to the area, what sort of jobs will they be?
What is LogicaCMG doing to attract and retain the really high calibre computing graduates? Kevin Radley: We are succeeding in attracting high quality graduates. LogicaCMG always has a very significant graduate intake in the UK, and that's the way we have been operating for years. We've slightly changed the emphasis of that to recruit more graduates from Wales. Last year we recruited 20, this year the number will be higher, from a variety of universities - Swansea, Cardiff, Glamorgan, and Aberystwyth. It's the opportunities that you get from a company of our size. We obviously offer a good package and we offer a lot of opportunities, with 34 countries and the whole portfolio of IT services. Does the Welsh Assembly Government have any further plans to retain high quality computing graduates within Wales? Andrew Davies: Very much so - this is the future. We're trying to create the Dragon Economy, the knowledge based economy here in Wales, and LogicaCMG's investment is a tangible result of that vision and plan. Obviously we don't see this as the end, we're already worked with LogicaCMG on for example on supporting the bid for the Ministry of Defence information infrastructure, which is the new integrated IT system that the MoD is developing. In addition to that, we're obviously delighted that the ATLAS consortium in which LogicaCMG are a key player in have been awarded preferred bidder status for the contract. We've also had meetings with LogicaCMG to look at where we can expand their business and they can help expand the economy here in Wales. Those meetings have been very fruitful, and we think that this is the start of the process, not the end. Further Information: |
LogicaCMG opened a new facility near Bridgend in South Wales at the end of March. The new facility builds on the success of the
company's outsourcing services operation in Wales, and houses the expanding onshore business process outsourcing capability which includes a new document handling facility, a customer call
centre and applications development holding.
Kevin Radley: It's our most
significant investment in outsourced services across the whole group, so when we made the decision just over a year and a half ago, it really takes us into a
growing market in the IT services sector, which is outsourced services, so it's right at the forefront of our strategy.
Kevin Radley: There will be a wide range of jobs. The first recruitment ads we put in, the
range of salaries was something like £11k to £48k. Helpdesk Analysts; Systems Designers;
Implementation Engineers; IT Consultants; and of course Managers, because of course we need people to manage these 765 people. So it's a very wide range.|
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