Category Archives: Current Affairs

HfS Research’s Blueprint reveals Accenture, Xerox and Cognizant are best positioned to support October’s healthcare chaos

June 14th, 2013
Adam Luciano, Principal Analyst, HfS Research (Click for bio)

The three service providers that we found best placed currently to service the healthcare payers are Accenture, Xerox, and Cognizant

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Why the Indian WITCH providers have yet to break the IT Services Top Ten

June 8th, 2013
Jamie Snowdon is EVP Research, HfS

It would be easy to forgive anyone for assuming that the Indian services majors Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and HCL (aka the “WITCH” providers) are dominating the global battle for services supremacy, given the hype that surrounds India’s dynamic IT outsourcing economy. However, In spite of their impressive growth over the past ten years, none of the WITCH providers have yet to make the HfS Top 10 of global IT services firms, despite dominating the application development and management busines

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HP and CSC beware: Dell is quietly becoming a major threat to the traditional IT services providers

June 2nd, 2013
Michael Dell is on a no-nonsense stealth services journey with his business

It is my personal belief that the likes of HP and CSC will be sweating from the oncoming threat from the Austin-based firm’s $8.5 billion services arm in the not-too-distant future, not to mention some of the flagging Indian firms struggling to rediscover their mojoes.

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156 billion reasons why Lars and SAP were never meant to be

May 28th, 2013
Lars_Dalgaard_ex_SAP

Lars leaving so quickly symbolizes SAP’s struggle, in my mind, to change its culture and approach to disruptive business models. The economics of the cloud cannot print anywhere near as much money for our German friends as the current legacy ecosystem of clunky enterprises, whose IT managers simply do not want to invite change or disruption. If your clients don’t want to change, why should you?

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Congratulations and welcome to Christa, Ned, Tom and Jamie!

May 22nd, 2013
hfs-announce

It gives me great pleasure to announce some imminent new analyst arrivals at HfS, in addition to announcing the promotion of a couple of guys who’ve been instrumental in the development of this business, which has literately sprung from nowhere in three years to the monstrosity it has become today

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So… are these the world’s best outsourcing advisors?

May 8th, 2013
Click to Enlarge

The IAOP has announced it’s 2013 “best outsourcing advisors”, and kudos to my former employer, Deloitte, for coming top. Credit has to go out to Peter Lowes and his Outsourcing Advisory Services group for their achievement. In addition, KPMG’s Shared Services and Advisory Group, led my Cliff Justice, finished in second place – a strong showing and justification of their 2011 acquisition of EquaTerra. The biggest surprises, however, are the absences of ISG, the largest transaction advisor of outsourcing contracts, and PwC…

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The dreamSource files… it’s not fair to place the change management onus onto the provider, it’s our accountability to change

May 1st, 2013
Who can identify these chappies?

And over at dreamSource, where 72% of the buyers work in company’s where the CEO on down focus predominantly on cost…

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Hear Phil Fersht talk to Bill Kutik about analysts, HR and outsourcing…

April 28th, 2013
Click to listen at noon Eastern time today

Hear Phil Fersht talk to Bill Kutik about analysts, HR and outsourcing…

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Is the day of the rock star analyst officially over?

April 21st, 2013
Rock-Star

There’s been a lot of backchannel lately regarding high profile analyst departures to vendor organizations, with Thomas Otter, Gartner’s hugely popular VP for Human Capital Management, hopping to SAP’s recent acquisition, SuccessFactors.

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Why American firms are more progressive with outsourcing than the Europeans and Asians

April 18th, 2013
Click to Enlarge

Why is it always the Americans at the head of the queue when it comes to increasing quarterly profit margins? But, even more intriguingly, why are they also leading the way when it comes to attempting to improve their capabilities when they outsource? Our recent State of Outsourcing Study 2013, conducted with the support of KPMG, clearly shows the differing mission-critical business motivations across the main three global regions, when it comes to outsourcing

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Step aside Magic Quadrant, hello Blueprint

March 24th, 2013
Click to access the first HfS Blueprint Report (premium HfS subscribers only)

After three years of hard labor, we, at HfS, are proud to launch our first “HfS Blueprint” that we believe is the a revolutionary crowdsourced methodology for evaluating business and IT service providers.

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Cheap and cheerful: Is this really as good as it gets for IT Outsourcing?

March 17th, 2013
Click to Enlarge

ITO maybe a commodity business, but a new wave of collaborative BPO services is beginning to show the way

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No Payne no Gain for a Chief Customer Officer… Part II

March 13th, 2013
Bill Payne is IBM's CRM Services lead

In case you missed IBM’s CRM Chief Bill Payne’s return to blog-stardom during Part I, he discussed his vision for the creation of a “Chief Customer Officer” position within companies, who would report directly to the CEO. In Part II, Bill discusses shifting mindsets, the impact of analytics and evolution of outcome-centric engagements impacting the marketing function…

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It’s true! Freakonomics’ Stephen Dubner is coming to dreamSource…

February 28th, 2013
dreamsource image

If you’ve ever had some to read Freakonomics, you’ll know how excited we are to announce that co-author Steven Dubner has agreed to speak at our dreamSource event this spring.

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No Payne no Gain for a Chief Customer Officer… Part I

February 25th, 2013
Bill Payne is Vice President, CRM and Industries at IBM Global Services

IBM’s Bill Payne talks to HfS about his refining vision for the future marketing function and, perhaps most importantly, how today’s businesses need to manage their most precious assets in the face of such fundamental change – their customers.

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HfS Market Index shows Outsourcing of IT and Business Processes to Grow by 4% in 2013

February 22nd, 2013
Jamie Snowdon is Director, Market Forecasting and Data Products at HfS Research

Yes, you heard it here first, folks: outsourcing expenditure is mushrooming at the warp-speed clip of 4% this year to surpass $950 Billion, and expected to average a 5% clip each year through 2017

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HfS rated in the top right-hand-corner of analyst firms for influencing buyers and journalists

February 19th, 2013
AnalystEquity_Influence_Ratings

HFS Research was an outstanding performer in the Analyst Value Survey. Buyers of analysts’ services rate HFS Research as one of the most valuable providers, and one of a handful of firms whose influence grew most impressively in 2012

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Why middle management is often as influential as the C-Suite when it comes to outsourcing

February 15th, 2013
Insanity

The official definition of insanity in sourcing: recounting how many times a service provider has said to you, “We’ve got to get to the C-suite to pitch innovative ideas because middle management is too risk adverse.”

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Genpact joneses after JAWOOD to capitalize on healthcare insurance mayhem

February 9th, 2013
Tony Filippone

Get ready for the healthcare market to heat up over the next three years as a result of state health insurance market places, the rapid expansion of accountable care organizations, and ICD-10 implementations.

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Banking in 2013: Control freaks who just can’t let go face their toughest challenges yet

February 7th, 2013
HFS' Michael Koontz, author of Business Services Outsourcing in Banking and Financial Services: 2013 Market Report (click to view)

Financial services are poised to have a huge year; there will be mergers, systems upgrades, global expansion and new product launches all designed to regain their positions as industry leaders.

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