Category Archives: The Future of Outsourcing

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

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

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

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

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!

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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The dreamSource files… I can train my people to have technical skills, but I can’t give them a personality transplant

Debbie_Rajesh

And over at dreamSource, where 48% of the buyers have experienced strategic skills becoming more important than tactical skills for managing their outsourcing engagements, since they embarked on their initiative

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The dreamSource files… you really think, in three months, you can transform what took us 30 years to build?

Watermelon-sourcing

Welcome to dreamSource, where 73% of providers worry they may get fired for only delivering what was agreed in the contract

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If there’s something strange with your processes, who ya gonna call? Ghoshbusters…

Afraid of no processes:  Genpact's solution head Shantanu Ghosh

Anyone close to business services over the last decade would have crossed paths with one little guy with a huge brain: Genpact’s Shantanu Ghosh.

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

Click to listen at noon Eastern time today

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

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

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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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The dreamSource countdown continues… Meet Mads (Part II)

Madelein Smit is ready for dreamSource... are YOU?

If you have recovered from the mental impairment caused by the really awful governance dancing, it’s time to get back to the serious discussion about the narrowing onshore/offshore cost gap, and diversity in sourcing…. so let’s visit the final part of our recent interview with Madelein Smit, outsourcing head at the global logistics giant, CEVA Logistics

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The dreamSource countdown… Meet Mads

Madelein Smit is VP, Outsourcing at CEVA Logistics

Step-up Madelein “Mads” Smit, head of both IT and F&A outsourcing for CEVA Logistics

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Marketing’s Holy Grail in the modern age: Getting actionable insights from an integrated marketing optimization platform

HolyGrail

The role of the CMO is probably the most thankless job in the modern organization: company’s executives expect great branding and messaging to be propelled through all the optimal channels to market to maximize awareness and, ultimately, increase sales.

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Step aside Magic Quadrant, hello Blueprint

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?

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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

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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Why the mid-market is the mother-in-law of outsourcing

I want the best SaaS platform, some great BPO and a bunch of data scientists...

When it comes to outsourcing, dealing with the middle-market has been somewhat akin to dealing with the mother-in-law: can be awkward to deal with, very hard to please, and always has complex demands on your patience and resources.

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If SAP is like “pouring concrete into a company”, isn’t it time to reinvent business processes?

Susan_Scrupski

I wanted to introduce a spectacular new personality into the HfS family, Susan Scrupski, a legendary figure in the worlds of disruptive technology and social business – and Fast Company’s “Most Influential Women in Technology” in 2010 – who’s embarked on a pivotal new project with us entitled “Business Process Reinvention”

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

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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

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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