Our editor-in-chief and managing director explore the meaning of ‘O’ in HRO.
 
By The Editors

Sodexo’s Vice President of HRMS and Payroll Lou Fiore has built a successful career by acting as liaison between the business side and technology operations.
 

 The publishers of Corporate Responsibility Officer (CRO), HRO Today, HRO Europe and FAO Today Magazines today announced that Dirk Olin, former National Editor of The American Lawyer, Editor of California Lawyer, and New York Times columnist, is now Vice President and Editorial Director. In this capacity, Olin will lead the company's print and online content efforts.
 

Enterprise HRO provider and payroll specialist Ceridian has launched in the U.K. a new service called HRevolution, which is a web-based, on-demand flexible HR system aimed at the mid-market clients. It claims that the new platform offers all the transformational functionality of an ERP through a subscription that requires no user license fees.

Enterprise HRO market leader Hewitt Associates will sell its Cyborg payroll business which it had acquired five years ago, to Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm focused on investing in software and technology companies. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The transaction is expected to close during the company’s fiscal second quarter.

Cognos, an Ottawa, Canada-based provider of performance management software for HR, finance, and other corporate services , is being acquired by IBM in an all-cash transaction at for $5 billion. The sale is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008. IBM is one of the largest providers of HRO and FAO services globally.

The HROA has issued its final criteria for the 2008 HROA Awards. Nominees and award winners will be honored at the Fourth Annual HROA Awards Gala in New York on April 16, 2008 at the New York Hilton & Towers in conjunction with HRO World New York.  
 

Xansa, the outsourcing and technology company, has been awarded a $256 million, six-year extension of its business process outsourcing contract with BT until March 2014. The service provider will continue to manage BT’s U.K. operations for finance and accounting transaction processing, including ledger and payroll services, through a combination of Xansa’s onshore and offshore capabilities in service centers in the U.K. and India.

ARINSO International, recently acquired by Northgate, said that it has entered into a 10-year HRO agreement with Agilent, a global leading measurement company. The deall calls for ARINSO to administer a number of key HR processes including payroll and time management for Agilent’s U.S. workforce. Financial terms were not publicly disclosed.
    

Randstad has been chosen by Philips Netherlands to provide payroll services in an €80 million contract, the biggest Dutch payroll deal ever, according to sources. The contract will cover 42,000 employees, but the length of the deal was not disclosed. Some of Philips’ employee will be transferred to Randstad.