Category Archives: Current Affairs

Obama’s in-sourcing initiative: does it have the teeth to rescue the US IT industry?

Wonder if I'll get an invitation to Nasscom?

As per usual, election year brings up the age-old argument about how to combat the “threat” of outsourcing. Isn’t now the time, in an election year, to stop the rhetoric and actually make commitments to growing local industries that have a direct impact?

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After 24 years, it’s adios ACS (er… except in Asia/Pac)

acs-xerox

Two years into its $6.4 billion acquisition, Xerox has finally decided to phase out this famous old ACS brand

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What the passing of SOPA could mean for your business

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Friday’s excellent web-discussion involving HfS Research’s Jim Slaby.

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SOPA-thetic: Using an elephant gun to hunt for butterflies

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If you were surprised to find Wikipedia offline yesterday, you weren’t alone: many Internet users were unaware of the widespread one-day online protest against SOPA and PIPA, two bills before the US Congress designed to fight online media piracy.

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Sal’s six stages of sourcing: BPO’s Generations

Mike Salvino is Group Chief Executive, Business Process Outsourcing, for Accenture

The BPO industry has been going though an incredible evolution since the first major deals was cast, barely more than a decade ago, that it’s high time we took stock and take a good look at the phases – or generations – through which our industry has progressed. And there are few people who have lived and breathed these generational shifts more closely that Accenture’s BPO leader, Mike Salvino.

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The Sourcing Raj Part II: “You don’t have to be Indian to be a global outsourcing provider!”

Would you kindly stay on the line to complete a brief customer satisfaction survey?

We complete our investigation into the dominance of India in the world of outsourcing, and whether or not the game’s up for non-Indian providers to come back into the picture

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Smackdown: Where is BPO going?

Like a typical extended family at Thanksgiving, the buy family and the sell families cussed and discussed about the trends and challenges buffeting BPO. They passed the peas and offered some pretty unbridled opinion and insight.  Click to download the highlights

One of the highlights of 2011 was that great web-debate on the Future of BPO where 1,100 people across the globe dialed in to hear from our buy and sell families. Here were the highlights…

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Where did our passion go?

Mr_Passion

Let’s make 2012 the year of getting passionate again! Let’s dig deep to be honest with ourselves about what makes us get up in the morning – what makes us look forward to going to work again

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The defining outsourcing moments of 2011

Horses_Running_Wild

Well, another year goes by and HfS yet again escapes any legal action, terrorist attacks at our office, or disappearing bodies for being thoroughly unafraid to call the industry on its issues. So let’s reflect some of the defining moments of 2011

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Infy procures Portland to soup up its sourcing

Do you procure this australian as your lawfully wedded category specialist?

InfosysBPO has made its first substantial investment in the sourcing and category management space, picking up the lead Australasian provider Portland Group for $37m.

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If you were too hungover to join our predictions webcast, here’s the replay and the deck

View-our-predictions-replay

In case you missed our joint webcast with Ed Caso of Wells Fargo Securities on Friday, fear no more, as here’s the replay

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IBM embellishes its B2B commerce empire… by acquiring Emptoris

wedding-dress

Emptoris’ well-regarded user interface and strong brand recognition among the procurement crowd make it an idea mate for IBM’s technology-driven focus and market leading procurement BPO capability. While the integration of Sterling, DemandTec, and Emptoris will take some time to become “smarter commerce”, there will be some immediate upsides.

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Announcing the HfS 50 Sourcing Blueprint Sessions

HfSBlueprintSessions

This is going to be a defining two-day working session for power-brokers of the outsourcing industry, where leading buyers of both ITO and BPO services will confront today’s critical issues impacting outsourcing, to establish a Blueprint for the industry in 2015. And this time, we will have a vendor/buyer face-off session where leaders from six of the major service providers will join the debate.

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Congratulations to Tony “Governator” Filippone, HfS’ new Head of Research

Tony Filippone

Our core mantra at HfS has always been to tackle the issues and complexities of global sourcing through the eyes of the buyer. One analyst who has spent nine years of his life doing just that, leading BPO governance for the $62 Billion healthcare payor, WellPoint, is our Governator himself, Tony Filippone. No single person in 2011 has written to – or talked with – more buyers about their governance challenges, and we are delighted to reveal to the world today his elevation to Executive Vice President of HfS’ research team.

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Join us next Friday for some perfect hangover fodder

2011-review

We’ve teamed with our esteemed industry colleague Ed Caso, Managing Director and Senior Analyst for the IT/BPO Services Equity Research Team at Wells Fargo Securities, to review the world of outsourcing in 2011… and take a peek at what’s in store for 2012

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It may be for life, but will there be innovation, as TCS inks the mother of all insurance BPO deals

For better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, until many missed SLAs do us part.

TCS’ insurance services delivery subsidiary, Diligenta, has become wedded to in a 15-year, $2.2bn, 1900 employee life and pensions BPO engagement with the UK’s Friends Life. This represents the largest life and pensions BPO engagement by a considerable margin, eclipsing the $1.1bn Prudential contract awarded to Capita in 2007. We believe this move from TCS signals a sea-change in the industry with regards to the growth strategies and ambitions of the leading BPO providers.

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SAP + SuccessFactors = Great for SAP, but could restrict growth potential for the HR services industry

"I'll show you how I feel about your license model..."

With SAP’s move to “Cloudify” its software portfolio with the $3.4bn acquisition of the darling of HR software, SuccessFactors, we do not believe this is particularly good news for BPO service providers and services clients

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Too late to compete with the Sourcing Raj? (Part I)

HfS Research Fellow and Sourcing Change protagonist Deborah Kops investigates whether India has bowled an unplayable delivery to the rest of the world’s ambitious outsourcing businesses, or if there’s still a chance to nick it over the slips and get on the scoreboard… Let’s give Indian-legacy providers their due—they arguably initiated, then accelerated acceptance of  [...]

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As InfosysBPO reaches the $500m mark, is it ready for the big-time?

InfosysBPO is now a major BPO contender in the global marketplace, having quietly gone about building its BPO business streams since its inception via the buyout of FAO provider Progeon, exactly five years’ ago and expects to reach the landmark of $500m in revenues this year. HfS has always been encouraged by the firm’s approach to developing both horizontal and vertical BPO services, and its focus on leveraging its IT heritage to augment its value proposition. Infy is by no means the biggest player in the BPO business nor does it want to be, but it has been able to establish itself as a smart and very respected player in the BPO business.

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Capgemini collects Vengroff Williams to slip into third spot for global Finance & Accounting BPO

Capgemini has made a major move towards strengthening its position in the global F&A BPO market by today acquiring Vengroff Williams and Associates – and leaping to third in the market share spot for F&A globally

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