It backsourcing: from ‘make or buy ’ to ‘bringing it back in-house ’

Since the early 1990’s, IT outsourcing has become a popular strategy with contracts valued at billions of Euro, and durations ranging from five to ten years. Stories in the computing and business press together with reports of analyses by consultants highlight that during the life-time of some contracts, organisations have reconsidered their original decision to outsource. With this rethink, the options available are to continue with the existing vendor and the existing contract, to re-negotiate some or all of that contract with the existing vendor; to re-tender the contract or part of the contract and seek new vendors; or to backsource, bringing some or all of the previously outsourced activities back in-house. This last option has major implications for the organisation yet there is little empirical research on this final part of the outsourcing process. This paper introduces backsourcing as a legitimate strategy in the outsourcing process. An exploratory study identifies some recent examples where companies have made the decision to backsource, surfacing the rationale behind those decisions. From an analysis of the data, an end-to-end model for the outsourcing process is presented. The paper concludes with an agenda for future research

Service User Involvement and COVID-19—An Afterthought?

We are researchers and activists working in the field of service user involvement for many years in the UK and internationally who are concerned that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, years of progress in service user involvement have been unravelled by service users being left on the outside of key decisions and matters affecting their lives. Instead, we argue, they have become an afterthought. As authors, we combine both academic and service user experience and have been involved in advancing practice, understanding and guidance about the significant contribution that service users bring to knowledge production. This article examines the issues by focusing on the journey of service user involvement before and during the pandemic, as well as on what should come after. Turning to the experiences of disabled people as a case study example, we argue that going back to ‘normal’ would be fundamentally flawed, as evidenced by the marginalised way in which service users have been treated during this period of societal crisis. Our article concludes by urging a reflexive stance to ensure service user involvement re-establishes its pivotal position in public policy and practice

Global Access to Safe Water: Accounting for Water Quality and the Resulting Impact on MDG Progress

Monitoring of progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) drinking water target relies on classification of water sources as “improved” or “unimproved” as an indicator for water safety. We adjust the current Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) estimate by accounting for microbial water quality and sanitary risk using the only-nationally representative water quality data currently available, that from the WHO and UNICEF “Rapid Assessment of Drinking Water Quality”. A principal components analysis (PCA) of national environmental and development indicators was used to create models that predicted, for most countries, the proportions of piped and of other-improved water supplies that are faecally contaminated; and of these sources, the proportions that lack basic sanitary protection against contamination. We estimate that 1.8 billion people (28% of the global population) used unsafe water in 2010. The 2010 JMP estimate is that 783 million people (11%) use unimproved sources. Our estimates revise the 1990 baseline from 23% to 37%, and the target from 12% to 18%, resulting in a shortfall of 10% of the global population towards the MDG target in 2010. In contrast, using the indicator “use of an improved source” suggests that the MDG target for drinking-water has already been achieved. We estimate that an additional 1.2 billion (18%) use water from sources or systems with significant sanitary risks. While our estimate is imprecise, the magnitude of the estimate and the health and development implications suggest that greater attention is needed to better understand and manage drinking water safety

Stimulated Secondary Emission of Single Photon Avalanche Diodes

Large-area next-generation physics experiments rely on using Silicon Photo-Multiplier (SiPM) devices to detect single photons, which trigger charge avalanches. The noise mechanism of external cross-talk occurs when secondary photons produced during a charge avalanche escape from an SiPM and trigger other devices within a detector system. This work presents measured spectra of the secondary photons emitted from the Hamamatsu VUV4 and Fondazione Bruno Kessler VUV-HD3 SiPMs stimulated by laser light, near operational voltages. The work describes the Microscope for the Injection and Emission of Light (MIEL) setup, which is an experimental apparatus constructed for this purpose. Measurements have been performed at a range of over-voltage values and temperatures from 86~K to 293~K. The number of photons produced per avalanche at the source are calculated from the measured spectra and determined to be 40$\pm$9 and 61$\pm$11 photons produced per avalanche for the VUV4 and VUV-HD3 respectively at 4 volts over-voltage. No significant temperature dependence is observed within the measurement uncertainties. The overall number of photons emitted per avalanche from each SiPM device are also reported.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure