London, 1st October 2006. HBS, one of the leading providers of business support services to the public sector, today announced that it has joined the 'BPO Services Powered by SAP‘ programme.

HBS has been a pioneer in service provision to UK local government, including formation of the first multi-service PPP (Public Private Partnership) in local government, with Lincolnshire County Council. HBS specialises in using its unique customer centric transformation approach to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the services it runs for its customers, whether through complex multi-service relationships or large-scale single service provisions. HBS uses market leading SAP® applications to support delivery of redesigned processes, following its best practice approach for rapid implementation.

HBS will be providing the first UK market specific BPO (business process outsourcing) programme with SAP. The primary focus of the programme will be Public Sector. This new partnership with SAP enables HBS to offer its broad range of high-quality back-office and customer relationship services directly to the public sector, without the need for software investments for the customer.

Members of the "BPO Services Powered by SAP" programme, provide respective business expertise and services based on SAP solutions and the SAP NetWeaver® platform. Partners, such as HBS, must meet rigorous certification standards, and they must be recertified on a regular basis to ensure the continual delivery of high-quality services. Through this partnership, SAP and HBS are working together to transform business processes and increase efficiencies, while reducing risk and operation costs.

Martin Fuller, Professional Services Director at HBS said, "Previously, to take advantage of the benefits of SAP applications, the public sector typically had to make significant upfront investment in software. This partnership now allows HBS to offer a complete ‘pay as you go' service including the software license. This, coupled with our unique transformation approach and Centres of Excellence for delivery of key services, create a compelling proposition for radically enhanced service delivery for citizens and reduced costs for our customers."

HBS was chosen for its extensive specialist knowledge of the UK local government market and has been working with SAP in this market for five years, starting with the first ever local government implementation of SAP R/3 ERP, for Lincolnshire County Council, and followed by further end-to-end implementations in Middlesbrough and Milton Keynes. HBS also provides managed services supported by the SAP solutions for a range of local government clients including councils, education establishments and government agencies.

HBS' Human Resource and Payroll services, now part of the "BPO Powered by SAP" programme, include payroll provision, personnel administration, recruitment consulting, employee development and training management, and health and safety consultancy. Future SAP-based Finance and Accounting Services under this programme are intended to include Budget Management and control, management of procure to pay processes, debt collection, council tax revenue collection and financial management. HBS also provides customer service business solutions across all of its public sector partners in contact centres as well as distributed customer access points. Under the planned extension of this partnership, HBS will also be able to offer these customer services including the software licensing of the relevant complementary SAP applications.

Commenting on the announcement, HBS CEO Peter Manning said, "Our partnership with SAP supports our strategy to transform service provision throughout the UK public sector and to provide a vastly improved end citizen experience, by enabling us to bring the benefits of SAP technology to the full range of public sector clients. We are delighted to continue to be at the forefront of innovative service provision with SAP and to offer our customers the benefits of this new business model."

"SAP recognises a growing interest in UK Public Sector organisations to consider BPO as a way of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the public services they offer their citizens," said Simon Etherington, Director and General Manager for Public Services & Utilities, SAP UK & Ireland. "SAP is therefore delighted to be partnering with such an established BPO provider as HBS to offer leading BPO services supported by our mature and very successful 'BPO Services Powered by SAP‘ programme".

For more information, please contact:

Lucy Kelly at Financial Dynamics
020 7269 7256 / lucy.kelly@fd.com

Martin Fuller, Professional Services Director at HBS
01908 247 300 / martin.fuller@hbs.uk.com