We were pleasantly surprised when Gautam Thakkar got the nod to take on the reins at InfosysBPO last month. Here Phil Fersht and Gautam discuss his new role and how he intends to take the InfosysBPO forward

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.

Missed last week's Banking & Financial Services webinar? Well fret no more, as we have the replay now available for your viewing and a full slide deck for our premium research subscribers. Enjoy!

Make no bones about it: 2012 was a pretty dire year for the industry known as "outsourcing". However, brand new data from our State of Outsourcing 2013 Study conducted with the support of KPMG, and the largest-ever research survey focused on IT and business function outsourcing, clearly shows that the majority of enterprises are not only aggressively focused on increasing their outsourcing portfoilios, but many are now taking a more mature and realistic approach.

We are very close to capacity for our upcoming Blueprint Sessions 2.0 taking place October 23-25, 2012 in Boston event so Register Now to secure your spot!

Life been just dandy since you took 30% off your department's fixed costs, that you'll never need to do anything much again in your career... except stare at a spreadsheet? Just love keeping those lights on and squeezing penalty payments of your provider? No need to improve anything, because the way your firm does this is just, simply, perfect? Then you won't need to waste time with us and leading buy-side organizations from the HfS 50 Executive Council in Boston this October...

After one year, our elite peer group of sourcing buyers has doubled in size - making this our biggest, baddest and most discussion-rich meeting to date.

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

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.

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.