Category Archives: Outsourcing and Technology

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

January 19th, 2012

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.

2 Comments

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

January 14th, 2012

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.

10 Comments

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

December 9th, 2011

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.

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

December 4th, 2011

"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

21 Comments

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

November 20th, 2011

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.

8 Comments

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

November 15th, 2011

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

8 Comments

Double-Dip Dynamics, Part II: The new tenets of outsourcing – process standardization, global flexibility and better technology

October 29th, 2011

What is motivating buyers to outsource in this current climate? While eliminating cost is still is a huge fundamental, buyers are even more focused on achieving greater flexibility to scale their global operations as a prime motivating factor. Clearly, many executives are getting more experienced and skilled at driving an sourcing initiative, and are confident they can use the endeavor as a change agent to promote and implement much-needed change in their businesses.

12 Comments

Want to get smart about sourcing for Cloud?

September 14th, 2011

This report authored by HfS Research and Loeb&Loeb provides both Business-function and IT executives with a detailed assessment of Cloud adoption strategies, an analysis of business benefits, concerns, challenges and contractual issues that need to be addressed and discusses the key service providers provisioning Cloud Computing services in today’s market.

5 Comments

The undisputed facts about outsourcing, Part 4: Mid-market buyers are enjoying better outsourcing outcomes than enterprises

June 16th, 2011

Outsourcing of IT and business process has always been a game for large enterprises, where well-executed large-scale employee transitions have resulted in profitable endeavors for both providers and buyers. But while the large buyers like saving the money, it’s actually mid-market sector ($1bn-$3bn revenues) which is getting a lot more out of the experience

13 Comments

CMOs need support and guidance from their CIOs… like never before

May 25th, 2011

IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBM Global Services’ executive research group) announced findings from its huge CIO survey undertaken every 2 years. It’s a massive piece of work involving 3000 one hour face-to-face interviews with CIOs from around the world—this year it has some great news for CMOs.

Genpact looks for added bite with Tiger

May 16th, 2011

After 14 years, the effervescent Pramod Bhasin, now in his 60th year, is handing the reins to “Tiger” Tyagarajan, the company’s current COO, and long-serving member of the leadership team

7 Comments

Cognizant: The Future of Work or the Present Forever?

May 14th, 2011

Cognizant is at present the darling of the IT offshore services and outsourcing industry for its consistent and impressive growth and positive levels of customer satisfaction, so we thought we’d share some impressions with our readers.

4 Comments

Join us in London for SIG’s Regional Roundtable

April 10th, 2011

This event represents SIG’s first major foray into the UK, and it promises to set new sourcing standards, featuring integral discussions on global business operations strategy, sourcing, shared services and BPO

Genpact spurns its suitors to IT-enable its BPO, with India’s third largest acquisition

April 7th, 2011

So why did Genpact buy Headstrong, in the third-largest acquisition ever made by an India-based provider, since Wipro picked up InfoCrossing for a cool $600m in 2007, and HCL-Axon for a similar sum, the following year? And, most importantly, what does this mean for the immediate future of the BPO business?

10 Comments

The truth about Latin American outsourcing…

April 6th, 2011

Today’s piece in CIO – “IT Outsourcing in Latin America: 9 Things Your Vendor Won’t Tell You” – sparked some further thinking from HfS analyst Esteban Herrera: The truth about Latin American Outsourcing

8 Comments

“Cloud BPO”? C’mon… stop talking cobblers

February 13th, 2011

“Cloud BPO” is, simply put, a load of nonsense. The core fulcrum processes of BPO are the toughest to move into the Cloud, and only the small-to-medium business sector is going to enjoy any modicum of success of moving genuine “BPO” processes, such as finance and HR, into the Cloud in the near-term.

14 Comments

Learn what 1,000 of your colleagues really think about Cloud Business Services

January 24th, 2011

HfS Research, in partnership with the Outsourcing Unit of the London School of Economics, is hosting a webinar, sponsored by Accenture, featuring the key findings from the groundbreaking study of Cloud Business Services.

6 Comments

Scott Golas, MadMan of digital media outsourcing

January 15th, 2011

Centro is taking the function of advertising-process sourcing to an entirely new level with a new managed services offering, called MediaOps, that will enable advertisers to outsource their entire digital media operations, which are typically onerous to run, and complex to get right. This will allow the ad agencies to focus their talents on creative and targeted ad campaign management.

3 Comments

The Industry Speaks about Cloud, Part IV: Business leaders demand business transformation support – can providers gear-up to help?

December 7th, 2010

Business users want to accelerate to Cloud Business Services while IT wants to mitigate its many risks. We reach an impasse with both business and IT looking for external support to make their move to Cloud Business Services a reality, and the different type of support both sides want point towards a profound reorganization around Cloud.

11 Comments

“Cloud is bullsh*t” – HCL’s CEO, Vineet Nayar, explains why he said just that

December 4th, 2010

Vineet Nayar, CEO at HCL Technologies, has firmly cemented himself as one of today’s outspoken visionaries in the world of IT services. Never afraid to offer an opinion that may rub a few folks the wrong way, the self-styled CEO booked his ticket to notoriety at HCL’s analyst conference in Boston this past week, where he’d decribed Cloud, well, as bullsh*t…

35 Comments