Innovation is now the critical ingredient for most buyers of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services –unequivocally proven by a new HfS Research study of 588 shared services and outsourcing executives. This report dives into the experiences and expectations of today’s enterprise BPO buyers when it comes to achieving innovation, and offers actionable recommendations for devising a strategy to improve their innovation agenda with their BPO endeavor.

HfS Research ranks 15th in the latest analyst "power rankings" by ARInsights, a dynamic content rich database that contains comprehensive information on 5,511 analysts from 694 different firms.

Microsoft urgently needs to address its approach to Cloud Computing, together with the closely related tablet and smart phone markets, if it wants to avoid falling further behind the likes of Google and Apple in these interrelated markets.

HfS Research CEO Phil Fersht interviews Xchanging CEO David Andrews

There are a lot of secrets in the BPO business, however, one best-kept secret that is worth revealing, is the Xchanging story. The the UK-headquartered firm is the largest purelay BPO provider today, with revenues over $1.1bn.

Capgemini is one of the largest and most well-known European IT/BPO service providers and consulting firms, with revenues of $10 billion, but has struggled in the past become a household name in the US. However, its recent aggression in the BPO market, resulting in notable client wins such as Bunge and Coca-Cola Enterprises, has helped elevate Cepgemini as a serious contender for global enterprise BPO engagements.

At long last, we come to the final part of our interview with Genpact's President and CEO, Pramod Bhasin. Phil Fersht and Pramod discuss the future of process consulting, where labor arbitrage is heading, more about the Cloud, and a some advice for today's budding sourcing executives.

When it comes to achieving innovation when outsourcing, buyers need to identify where real innovation is possible, and where they only really need operational efficiency. Both buyers and providers need to be honest with themselves to determine whether they are truly prepared to invest in either achieving or delivering innovation. If not, stick to being operationally efficicient and stop talking about an innovation game-plan that will never happen.

If anyone had told you a few years ago that Wipro would have a market cap of more than $30bn, you would have made a few discreet calls to their doctor, or perhaps their math teacher. But today, the Bangalore-headquartered firm has firmly shed the tag of That Indian IT firm which makes the diapers, to become a genuine leading global IT services and BPO enterprise, with 105,000 employees.

The cost of managing IT infrastructure is four to five, or even ten times the license cost. It’s enormous. We’ve eliminated all the cost to manage this stuff, so that’s a huge advantage for BPOs