Atos

 

Atos Origin was formed in October 2000 following a merger between the French company Atos and Origin B.V. from the Netherlands. Prior to that, both companies were the creation of other smaller mergers and acquisitions starting from around 1976. In 1996, Origin B.V. was created after a merger of the Dutch company BSO and the Philips C&P (Communications & Processing) division, while a year later in 1997, Atos was created following a merger of the French companies Axime and Sligos.

The next five years saw considerable further growth and changes for the company. In 2001, Atos Origin sold its Nordic operations to WM-data. In 2002, it made a major acquisition by buying KPMG Consulting in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands. Then in 2004, it acquired SchlumbergerSema, the IT service division of Schlumberger and took over the infrastructure division of ITELLIUM, a subsidiary of KarstadtQuelle.

At the same time (2004), the company underwent some major organisational changes with the creation of a new subsidiary, Atos Worldline, and the renaming of its consulting activities as Atos Consulting. Also in 2004, Atos Origin Australia, originating from Philips, was sold to Fujitsu. In 2005, Atos Origin sold its activities in the Nordic region, which had become part of the company with the acquisition of Sema Group, to WM-data^[3] while in 2006, Atos Origin sold its operations in the Middle East to local management.

In October 2007, Philippe Germond replaced the long-time CEO Bernard Bourigeaud as CEO. But a period of instability followed as two large shareholders, the hedge funds Centaurus Capital and Pardus Capital, tried to gain control over the company’s future strategy via the supervisory board.^[4] However, in November 2008 the boardroom battle came to an end when Thierry Breton replaced Philippe Germond as chairman and CEO.^[4]

In August 2010 Atos Origin acquired Venture Infotek, a leading player in the Indian payment market.Created in 1991, Venture Infotek operates in merchant acquiring, card processing, loyalty programs, government benefits programs and ATM management on behalf of the Indian Banks and major retailers. Venture Infotek operates in the major cities of India. Atos Origin has been attracted by the entrepreneurial spirit of Venture Infotek, by the quality of its technological platforms and by the portfolio of its existing customers.

In December 2010 Atos Origin agreed to acquire the IT Solutions and Services subsidiary of Siemens for €850 million. As a result of the purchase Atos expects to raise its sales to between €9-10 billion and its operating margin to 7-8% by the year 2013.^[5] As part of the transaction, Siemens agreed to take a 15% stake in the enlarged Atos, to be held for a minimum of five years.^[5] In addition, Siemens concluded a seven-year outsourcing contract worth around €5.5 billion, under which Atos will provide managed services and systems integration to Siemens.

The company dropped the "Origin" suffix of its name in July 2011 after completing its acquisition of the Siemens unit, becoming simply Atos S.A.^[6]

Atos provides IT services such as consulting, systems integration and managed operations as well as services such as hi-tech transactional payment services. Atos employs some 74,000 people and has a client base of international companies across all traditional market sectors.

The company’s annual revenues are €5.1billion and it is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market trading as Atos Worldgrid, Atos Worldline and Atos Consulting.

Atos is the official IT integrator for the Olympic games from 2002 until 2016.

Atos’ Zero Email initiative comes in response to the challenges organizations face as a result of the continuing explosion in data and seeks to find a better way to communicate and collaborate. ^[7].

An ongoing program was launched in early 2011 ^[8] using social business solutions and tools such as Office Communicator (OCS) for quick questions or by using Live Meeting to organize online meetings and sharing documents.

Atos’ CEO has stated the company aims to eradicate all internal emails by the end of 2013. This has led to a debate within the industry about how realistic and achievable such an ambition is. ^[9][10][11]

In the autumn of 2008, Atos Origin was one subject of a government enquiry after it attracted comment from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who said that the company would have "to explain itself" after a memory stick with passwords and user names for an important government computer system was found in the car park of a public house.^[12] The DWP, who had awarded Atos Origin the Government Gateway contract, later confirmed that the memory stick had only held the data of just a handful of people and all of their password information was encrypted.

Atos Healthcare, a division of Atos providing consulting in the UK health sector, employs over 3000 people, two-thirds of them medical professionals; it claims to "employ the largest number of doctors outside of the NHS."^[13] Its most prominent business process outsourcing contract is with the Department for Work and Pensions, under which it "conduct[s] disability assessments for people claiming a range of disability benefits including Employment Support Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Disability Living Allowance and Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit."^[14] Initially awarded to Schlumberger's Sema Group (subsequently purchased by Atos) in 1998, the contract was renewed for a further five years in March 2005.^[15] The company also provides occupational healthcare at over 150 centres in the UK.^[16]

Atos Healthcare in May 2010 was awarded a contract by Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust to deliver a solution that is designed to accurately and efficiently forecast resource requirements and in-patient demands. The Dr Foster website is the leading UK provider of comparative information on health and social care services. It produces "Hospital report cards" on the performance of UK hospitals.^[17]

The performance of Atos Healthcare in the UK in respect of medical assessments has been and continues to be criticised by UK Parliamentary Inquiries, by individual UK MPs and by the Tribunal judiciary; as well as by advocacy groups such as the Citizens Advice Bureau,^[18] disabled people's organisations and individual disabled people. The UK Department of Work and Pensions is reported in 2011 to have by far the highest number of decisions overturned at appeal of any UK Department of State.^[19] Tribunal appeals against Employment Support Allowance eligibility are documented by the Department of Work and Pensions own statistics. They show that around 9% of all decisions made are successfully appealed. Of all decisions taken to appeal around 38% are successful and around 70% of appeals made are successful when an advocacy group is involved.^[20]

Atos Heathcare does not make the decision. Atos assessors are not required to be familiar with disability healthcare prior to recruitment. Around 60% are doctors, and 40% are nurses or physiotherapists. Doctors receive 8 days of training in disability before being allowed to assess patients and nurses receive a 17 daytraining course accredited by the university of Derby.^[21] Particular criticism has been directed at Atos over the ability of its staff to deal with complex mental health issues and patients with varying conditions.^[21][22] Following the Harrington Review which was published in November 2010, Atos Healthcare has worked with the DWP to appoint Mental Function Champions, whose role is to provide support, guidance and coaching to all healthcare professionals as well as arrange and manage educational events and activities to promote best practice in their local area. A very common complaint is the refusal of the assessors to make eye contact,^[21] aggravated by them working from a computerised script (LiMA) which tries to distill the complexity of disability into yes/no answers. Assessors have repeatedly found patients with terminal cancer or severe multiple sclerosis to be fit for work^[23] and some have even complained that the LiMA programme makes it almost impossible not to do so.^{[citation needed]} Attempts by advocacy groups, and even MPs, to secure access to LiMA in order to demonstrate its weaknesses have been refused on the grounds of commercial confidentiality, however the DWP handbook for the conduct of Work Capability Assessments is openly available and has been found to contain instances in which forms of testing are suggested that fall short of the situation supposedly being tested, for instance testing hearing loss at 3m instead of 9m.^[24]

Professor Paul Gregg, one of the designers of ESA stated that the WCA is "badly malfunctioning. The current assessment is a complete mess."^[23] Meanwhile, Professor Harrington who has been asked by the Government to carry out the first two of 5 statutory independent reviews of the WCA concluded in the first year that the WCA was not broken. In response to grassroots campaigning against them by disabled people and groups, Atos has recently threatened several websites with legal action, alleging libel and misuse of the company's logo ^[25] Since January 2011, there have been numerous demonstrations against Atos in the UK by disabled people and their allies, including the occupation of Atos offices in Glasgow and Cambridge and the picketing of other Atos facilities, notably the corporate HQ in London ^[26] Recruitment days for medical staff have also been targeted with disabled demonstrators attempting to draw the attention of potential assessors to the nature of the treatment they have received from the company ^[27]

In an article for the BMJ,^[21] Doctor Margaret McCartney attended an Atos recruitment seminar and then detailed her experience, concluding that she did not feel it was possible for a doctor to work as an Atos assessor and simultaneously adhere to their professional responsibility to place the needs of the patient first at all times. In response to a comment^[28] by a reader of the article that Atos doctors did not owe claimants their normal duty of care, the Standards and Fitness to Practise Directorate of the General Medical Council issued guidance ^[29] that Atos assessments are indeed a doctor-patient interaction and that doctors have to make the interests of their patients their first concern at all times, closing the guidance with a reminder that "Being open and honest and acting with integrity is also an essential part of medical professionalism."

In August 2011, press reports revealed that twelve doctors working for Atos as disability assessors had been placed under investigation by the General Medical Council because of allegations of misconduct in relation to their duty of care to patients.^[30]

Some disability campaign groups have called for a boycott of the 2012 Paralympic Games due to Atos's position as a worldwide partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.^[31]

Atos claims all of its assessment facilities meet the legal accessibility requirements. However both the Disability Discrimination Act and the Equality Act require that a service provider make pre-emptive access provision based on the likely needs of its service users. In the case of Atos assessment centres those service users are overwhelmingly disabled, many being wheelchair users, or having limited walking capability, or have difficulty with sitting for long periods or rising from chairs, yet Atos's own documents ^[32] show that of its 55 assessment centres 28 do not have on-site disabled parking, 16 are more than a 5 minute walk from the nearest bus or train station/stop (DLA mobility assessments hinge on whether the claimant can manage to walk 50 metres), 29 are not wheelchair accessible and 15 fail to offer chairs with the arms which might be needed for disabled people to use them safely, with a half dozen more centres having only limited numbers of chairs with arms, in some cases as few as a single seat. When called before the Parliamentary Work And Pensions Select Committee a senior Atos representative admitted that they routinely overbooked appointments by at least 20%, apparently without heed to the limited ability to sit on poor seating for extended periods that affects many of their clients. Atos Healthcare also explained that nationally 30% of customer who have appointments do not attend. (Q103 Andrew Bingham:)

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