Report of the Board of Management

ICT and internet

2004 has been a year of steady growth and measured innovation with Vedior operating companies making investments in people, technology and services. In part, this was in response to better trading conditions and an upswing in recruitment activity. Emphasis was placed on the following broad areas:-

	increasing use of the Internet for business transactions, service innovation and information access including online reporting, e-time sheet entry and temporary worker access to pay-history, benefits and entitlements over secure extranet links,
	upgrading, to more flexible web-based front office systems keeping Vedior at the vanguard in the deployment of new generation recruitment products
	catering for additional transactions, larger payroll processing, better network utilisation and larger data-storage capacity,
	improving network security, developing better disaster recovery procedures, minimising unsolicited email, and observing compliance issues,
	improving relationships with key software vendors.

Despite these many initiatives, IT spend was contained through more efficient business models, corporate procurement programmes and the use of tactical outsourcing.

Vedior’s Database of On-Line Vacancies (DOVA) entered service in June 2004 and reached a peak in December with over 20,000 listed temporary and permanent vacancies making it one of the world’s largest international databases of online jobs. These diverse jobs are uploaded from Vedior’s operating companies around the globe in multiple languages. Consolidated jobs are advertised on www.vedior.com, providing additional visibility and maximising the potential for candidate response. DOVA is a very flexible and leading-edge tool which will enable Vedior to compete with the most advanced online business models. Further development and functionality is planned in 2005.

VediorBis completed a major project to consolidate databases thereby providing its consultants with a customer relations management system. This project is being complemented with a candidate-facing employee management system to enhance temporary workers’ relationships with the company.

Another important milestone, for both VediorBis and the French staffing industry was the joint initiative undertaken with Adecco and Manpower. This project was approved by the EU competition regulators and resulted in the creation of Pixid - a managed service to provide French customers with the advantages of a standards-based approach to eProcurement and consolidated reporting. As 2004 concluded, the first customers were entering pilot operations. In time, it is intended to gradually extend the functionality of the Pixid service to include a fuller range of eBusiness functionality. Pixid is HR-XML SIDES compliant, the first major non-English language product to adhere to this important data standard.

2004 was the year when mobile phone sales in many parts of the world reached saturation point making cellular communications truly ubiquitous. A number of operating companies are linking front office consultants with jobseekers and temporary workers using SMS text messaging which has proven to be a very cost-effective contact medium.

Vedior (Holdings) plays an important role in supporting its operating companies in technology matters. Half-yearly conference calls have been established for all the Group’s senior technology personnel providing them with an insight into IT trends, risks, opportunities and challenges. These calls are complemented with more regular contact among the ICT Directors of our largest operating companies and the provision of a monthly update via our corporate intranet. The monthly update includes project progress reports together with a range of papers and links informing our ICT staff about a wide variety of technology related topics. Given our global scale and decentralised structure, this efficient and open sharing of information ensures our companies are well-informed, mitigates risk, prevents duplication of effort and improves services.

Vedior also takes advantage of economies of scale through global and national framework agreements with leading software and hardware vendors. Vedior operating companies work cooperatively to achieve best pricing and services from suppliers. During 2004, a new global enterprise license was negotiated which enables Vedior companies to download and deploy advanced anti-virus software products for all its employees. This has led to a noticeable decrease in virus attacks and improved efficiency, especially among the Group’s smaller operating companies.

Vedior (Holdings) continued to facilitate improved telecommuni­ca­tions provision during the course of 2004 via new MPLS based IP networks which deliver improved service levels and bandwidth at a reduced cost. IP Telephony solutions will be trialled in 2005. While the business case for VoIP and IP Telephony is becoming more and more credible, Vedior will take a cautious approach to ensure that service levels are not compromised.

Vedior’s ICT systems are constantly under review and we continuously seek ways to improve performance, efficiency, security and, wherever possible, reduce costs.