Posted in : Talent and Workforce

As an addendum, many of you have reached out to us since publishing this blog, regarding whether this was the right time for an emerging star in automation, like Genfour, to sell. There is a lot of runway in Intelligent Automation and there is no doubt in my mind that Genfour’s architect, James Hall, could have held out for longer and continued along his growth path as one of the few attractive pureplays in the space worth acquiring.

As our recent analysis of them revealed, the current bunch are not very well established, hence some want a quick cash-out and exit, while others are hunkering down to play the longer game.  It is our view that Intelligent Automation and AI will evolve like the digital market, with service providers crying out for “press release buys” that give them credibility.  Hence, this is as good a time as any to establish your own pureplay Intelligent Automation shop and throw yourself into the mix.  But good luck finding the talent… there’s a real shortage of it out there!  

So why did Accenture acquire Genfour and does this make market sense?

In times of disconcerting political and macro-economic events, where #fakenews and a traditional outsourcing model officially running out of value, getting predictions right is becoming increasingly difficult for an analyst.  Hence, the more pleasing it is when you can gloat about predicting an acquisition.

Case in point, Accenture’s acquisition of UK-based Genfour, a pure-play automation services provider that will become the cornerstone of a newly formed Center of Excellence (CoE) for Intelligent Automation, located in Wales. Back in December 2016 we did gaze deeply into the automation crystal ball and suggested that similar to the acquisition of Alsbridge by ISG, the leading pure plays will be quickly absorbed by the leading management consultancies. Gloating aside, the point that this acquisition reinforces is that Intelligent Automation is at an inflection point and we are poised to see these Intelligent Automation deployments scale far beyond just RPA.

The shift from bots to data

The sense of increasing maturity and the progress toward transformational projects was also tangible at HfS’ Digital OneOffice Summit last week in New York. While tired of all the buzzwords and the lack of education and definitions, buyers were clear what they expect from their partners. They want support on their journey from bots to data and their move beyond technology. Buyers want guidance on the best organizational model to leverage and integrate automation, but also a realistic guidance on the throughput of data of the leading RPA and automation tools. Similarly, they are desperate for tapping into the talent that can advise them on the most effective architecture in order to accelerate the journey toward truly Intelligent Automation. At the same time, buyers were almost unanimous in expecting the industry to move beyond an FTE-centric mindset on automation, be it around go-to-market messages, around discussions on business cases or where exactly they require support from their partners.

The messages from New York to automation vendors, service providers and advisors were loud and clear. Yet, another message was equally clear, when we asked the buyers in the room what would improve most the quality and outcomes or their current (primary) services relationship, 49% responded with rolling out a long-term RPA and Cognitive Computing roadmap with their providers’ expert management and support. Thus, the opportunities are far greater than any challenges.

Accenture’s Genfour acquisition is all about execution

Against this background and despite the fact that financial terms were not disclosed, we view the acquisition as a strong positive for both sides. Genfour gives Accenture proven execution capabilities in Europe that allow both to fulfil strong demand around RPA but also to leverage Accenture’s broad Intelligent Automation capabilities in those deployments. (For Accenture’s and Genfour’s Intelligent Automation capabilities see the HfS Intelligent Automation Blueprint). Another way of looking at it is that Accenture gains nearshore capabilities. Crucially those capabilities are at the top end of the market as the Genfour team are the first mover with proven credentials on integrating RPA and other innovative technologies into process chains and workflows. These skills sets are extremely scarce in the market. Conversely, Genfour is selling its business just at a time when the RPA market is starting to commoditize. To move forward, it would have required deeper, external investments as the market is moving toward broader automation capabilities in particular around AI and Cognitive. And culturally it is a good fit as Genfour founder James Hall spend his formative years at Accenture.

From an IP point of view, Accenture will add its holistic automation strategy to Genfour’s Autonomic Platform which did integrate broader automation partners such as Celaton or Enate. Accenture’s capabilities focus on the Accenture Intelligent Automation Platform that integrates Business Workflow Management, Delivery Management, Intelligent Automation, and Analytics and Insights, with a neutral ERP interface at the core. This is further enhanced by the Accenture AI Engine that provides an architecture abstraction layer for interacting with various Autonomics services, such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. Thus, the combined entities will accelerate deployments geared toward more data-centric models.

James Hall will move into a more sales-oriented role driving customer engagement across Europe, while Accenture will move the CoE to Cardiff and ingest as well as expand existing capabilities. There is another reference point, in addition to the depth of Accenture’s capabilities, that the deal should be seen largely from an implementation and execution perspective. But again, on the danger of sounding like a broken record, these implementation capabilities are scarce. In summary, the only challenge for Accenture is to keep the Genfour team happy in a bigger and much more process-centric, if not bureaucratic, environment.

Bottom-line: Change in mindset and forward-looking strategy on talent is where the automation rubber hits the road

The key value that the automation pure plays like Genfour add to the market, is having the talent that can assess innovative technologies like RPA as well as AI and advise on the implications of those tool sets on process chains and workflows. As the first mover of those pure plays, GenFour deserves credit for educating the market while the service providers remain coy at the side lines. This education always focused on understanding RPA as part of holistic automation strategies with a view to progress to an end-to-end process view. Not that we intend to gloat yet again, but we expect that the leading pure plays will be absorbed with a similar deal logic. That is unless we will see somebody take the bold step and invest significantly to scale out and to accelerate the journey toward an AI-enabled OneOffice strategy.

Posted in : Cognitive Computing, intelligent-automation, Robotic Process Automation

We’ve talked long and hard about the extent of digital disruption of traditional business models, so we decided to extend our research coverage into growth markets where the impact of digital is always positive.  When you look at the premium whisky, for example, our research shows its impact promotes new ideas, helps foster greater team collaboration and can even provoke new Design Thinking principles. Let’s have a look at how the leaders in this space are positioned, based on our Blueprint Research Methodology:

At HfS we are expert analysts at peering into markets and evaluating the performances of the major players, so we thought “why not extend our coverage into adjacent markets where some of our analysts have years of practical, hands on experience?”.  Personally, I have had more innovative client discussions comparing the various merits of single malt whiskies than which automation tools vendors have better control features.  

So let’s talk to a few of our contributing analysts to understand how this market played out:

Bram Weerts, COO, HfS Research:

“I’ve tried each and every one of these buggers and you can’t beat the old Yama 18.  I do love the Mac, but Yama hits the spot everytime”

Tom Reuner, SVP Intelligent Automation Research:

“I believe I’ve sampled all of these whiskies, especially when I am out at analyst conferences. I haven’t a clue which is the best, but wanted my name on the report, so I endorse whatever Bram and Phil came up with.”

Derk Erbé, VP Research:

“I believe the whisky market is ripe for digital transformation.  Emerging brands like the Walmart Fireball are poised to rip the bottom out of the market”

Jamie Snowdon, Chief Data Officer:

“There’s no way I could get through our quarterly forecasts without sampling a few of these first.  And the way the industry’s going, the old Walmart Fireball will only increase in popularity”

Phil Fersht, CEO:

“We may worry about robots stealing our jobs, but those bastards will never be able to drink our Scotch.”

Bottom-Line:  This is only the beginning, HfS is going to extend into new markets everywhere as digital disruption takes hold

We believe we are qualified to become experts on any market where money changes hands and greats ideas emerge. Stay tuned for our forthcoming blueprints:

“Tequila Transformation – it can really change things”

“The least disgusting low-carb beers of 2017” and

“Organic wines that you really want to avoid As-a-Service” 

And of course… this was an:

Please, please don’t tell me you fell for this again!  …And I know some of you did =)

And while we’re reminiscing about falling for April Fools’ gags, here is 2016’s classic:

HfS launches new unDigital magazine

And 2015’s 

HfS announces its entry into the outsourcing advisory market

And 2014’s 

HfS and Blue Prism partner to develop automated analyst solutions 

And 2013’s 

Phil Fersht steps down as HfS CEO

And 2012’s

Merriam-Webster to remove the term Outsourcing for IT and Business Services

And 2011’s

Painsharing exposed: HfS to reveal the worst performers in the outsourcing industry

And 2010’s:

Horses for Sources to advise Obama administration on offshore outsourcing

Oh, and here’s 2009’s which I really hope you didn’t fall for too (and many did):

Horses Exclusive: Obama to ban offshore outsourcing

Posted in : Absolutely Meaningless Comedy, Digital Transformation, HfS Blueprint Results

Oh dear – here are the private views of about 60 outsourcing clients we polled today at the HfS Summit in New York.  Close to half the room are either feeling let down by their provider over-promising, or merely feel they are only really getting cheap labor from their relationship. Moreover, barely a third of them actually believe their provider can come up with the goods, provided they pay for them via the legacy FTE pricing model. Now, these buyers are highly experienced and sophisticated, so this data is particularly hard for the outsourcing industry to digest.

So a few simple takeaways from this:

Service providers have to stop the over-promising and start over-delivering.  Over-promising may result in some short-term wins, but the implications of long-term damage caused by missing client expectations are much more hazardous. Sadly, investor pressures to sustain unrealistic growth is forcing several service providers to over-sell without the talent resources to deliver anything beyond low grade offshore delivery.

Many providers are proving their competency, but failing as proactive co-innovators.  As we recently revealed, a third of senior management does see real potential in their service providers to become genuine co-innovation partners, but there is a stark difference between fantasy and reality.  Providers need to prove they are willing to share risks, really roll up their sleeves with their clients – and clients need to work harder to create an environment of trust that they’ll stick with their providers, provided they are willing to co-invest with them. Design Thinking anyone?  Maybe it’s time to get in a room together and figure this whole thing out.  

Bottom-line: We’re going to see a lot of chopping and changing of service providers in this volatile environment.  

Several buyers cited they felt their providers were too comfortable with them and were not worried they would get ejected from long-term outsourcing relationships.  However, with advisors, competitive providers and RPA vendors all touting the magic 40% of cost savings through automation, the leadership layers are exerting unprecedented pressures on outsourcing governance leads to demand change. In many cases, buyers are simply bringing in advisors and RPA tools vendors themselves and running their own pilots, but eventually, they are likely to put their existing deals out for rebid to find providers willing to guarantee the RPA savings.  And that is where the market is going – lots of cut-throat rebids, higher degrees of risk-taking to win business and more clients being over-promised.  We’re in a vicious cycle where desperation is trumping good, pragmatic partnerships where both buyers and providers can figure out how to work together in trusted, risk/reward sharing environments.  

Posted in : Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), IT Outsourcing / IT Services

Having opened a fair few presentations and blogs with the dramatic proclamation “RPA is dead”, this title of “RPA is growing up” might sound a tad contradictory to some.  Forgive me, I’m analyst and some days my glass is half full, others it’s half empty.

I am consistently trying to hammer home my plea that we approach RPA in the context of quality service delivery in all its naked complexity – not simply this obsession with individual tools, not looking for some sort of silver bullet, not looking for simple answers.

That is what our research and this blog itself are all about. Yet, for many, RPA is code for short term, guaranteed cost take out of headcount. For others, RPA is a broader placeholder, more similar to what I would term Intelligent Automation. Despite a lot of noise in the industry, RPA and Intelligent Automation are still a very nascent market. Thus, we continue to have a blurred perception around RPA that gets aggravated by the amount of smoke and mirrors spawned out by some tool providers and well as service providers.

Against this background of #RPAfakenews, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the management team of RPA solution provider upstart UiPath in Bucharest to discuss all those implications as well as getting a sneak preview of their development roadmap.

Culture, both internally and externally, underpins UiPath’ growth trajectory

Before I dive into the details, what struck me in Bucharest was the energy and togetherness of the UiPath team. Romania might not be the obvious location for an innovative start-up, but the country has been seeing a rise shared service centers, BPO delivery centers, and their entrepreneurs are part of the global village over the last few years. UiPath’ founder and CEO Daniel Dines, one of the smartest, humblest and nicest guys in the automation community, spent years coding for Microsoft in Seattle before embarking on building his own company. And this varied experience is showing, with UiPath being one of the fast-growing RPA providers and perceived by most buyers as a mandatory inclusion in RFPs next to the likes of AutomationAnywhere and Blue Prism. Clients reference the company culture, sincerity, lack of arrogance and the flexibility in commercial terms as a key reason for partnering with UiPath. From a capability side, the stability operating in Citrix environments and the expansiveness of it recorder function – features so critical to the effectiveness of RPA – is often added to those reasons. But the growth is also underpinned and enabled by smart hires. The most recent example is Boris Krumrey, UiPath’ new Chief Robotics Officer, who was won over from Atos where he had built out compelling automation capabilities around the notion of service orchestration.

Service orchestration is underpinned by operational analytics and cognitive computing

Service orchestration is the segway to understanding UiPath’s strategy. Aligned with the notion of service orchestration, UiPath is driving towards an integrated platform approach with end-to-end business process automation in mind. To achieve this, the company aspires to be an RPA eco-system player that integrates capabilities, in particular around operational analytics and the broader notion of cognitive computing. Examples include the integration of Google and Microsoft libraries, and also partnerships with providers, such as AABBYY and Elastic Search and Kibana for OCR integration and Data Analytics.

The capabilities of Elastic Search and Kibana will also underpin UiPath’s effort to advance to robot orchestration. However, the journey toward service orchestration goes beyond just tools and technologies. UiPath is trying to change the mindset in many RPA discussions and the notion of knowledge transfer is central in that regard. Consequently, UiPath is working on enhancements and tools to overcome the knowledge transfer challenges to create RPAs on robots quicker, but also in technical complex settings. At the same time, the company is beefing up partner support, training and certifications to put the evolving partner ecosystem on a much more solid platform. In a nutshell, UiPath’s platform strategy mirrors the orchestration efforts of the leading service providers that we have covered at great length at HfS. (link to the RPL)

UiPath’ platform strategy embraces the principles of the Digital OneOffice

Boris’ experiences at Atos can clearly be seen in other elements of UiPath’ roadmap and are aligned with HfS’ Intelligent Automation Continuum. Two examples for that: On the one hand, the integration of broad cognitive capabilities into the platform not least to lower maintenance costs. On the other hand, the extension of integrating automation capabilities to notions of a Virtual Agents akin to Atos AVA which Boris introduced there during his tenure. This extension to digital channels and intelligent sensor aligns UiPath strongly with our Digital OneOffice framework that suggests provider must enable customers to connect their back, middle and front offices. Thus, it is not about individual tools but about enabling a Digital Underbelly. As my esteemed colleague, Phil Fersht puts it, “Digitally-driven enterprises must create a Digital Underbelly to support the front office by automating manual processes, digitizing manual documents and leveraging smart devices and IoT where they are present in the value chain.  Enterprises simply cannot be effective with a digital strategy without automating processes intelligently.”

Bottom-line: Service providers must educate, not obfuscate the market

The discussions with UiPath reference the increasing maturity in the market with a shift away from rudimentary process automation towards enabling higher value transformation projects. Yet, for those discussions to become the benchmark for the broader industry, the stakeholders and in particular the service providers, have to start properly educating the market, rather than continue to obfuscate it with smoke and mirrors. RPA clearly is growing up and maturing. But the marketing and broader discussions are not yet reflecting this reality. We urgently need a new set of custodians to translate these insights into publicly available best practices. To support exactly that, we would love to extend these discussions with other RPA providers about their roadmaps and insights.

Posted in : Robotic Process Automation

In retail, capturing data in real-time at the Point of Sale (POS) leads to better stock replenishment and more informed customer interactions and experiences. Now take that same concept into business operations with HR and employees, where transaction or event participants similarly have the biggest vested interest in achieving maximum data accuracy and transaction processing speed.

The principles of real-time data updates and logical transaction ownership led to a lot of new Employee and Manager Self Service functionality in the early days of HCM systems. Let’s also remember, though, that self-sufficiency — as in not having to deal with the occasional black hole that some HR Departments are identified with — is also directly correlated with stakeholder or customer satisfaction.

All of this “transactional mumbo jumbo” can be boiled down to one phrase: Human Capital Management stewardship … and also perhaps one question: Where should primary HCM ownership lie? The “HR as necessary interloper to keep the company out of trouble” model hasn’t really endeared itself to many outside of those running professional HR organizations. So why keep “workforce management activities to drive enterprise value,” aka HCM, strictly in the hands of the HR Department?  No reason. It’s a stupid waste of resources – both financial and human.

HR adds the most value, by far, when it enables line managers to be effective stewards of HCM  

How do you as an HR professional accomplish this?

(1) by truly understanding the business of your internal line manager customers
(2) by being a trusted advisor when it comes to HCM-related opportunities and risks (both — not just risks!)
(3) by syndicating best practices, tools, standards and innovations related to HCM across the organization … whether an HR-borne idea, an internal customer’s idea or something learned at a professional HR organization’s conference.

Business leaders don’t just have P&L responsibility. They interact with their teams every day, in all situations, and they ideally have the “HCM acumen” to know what will drive employee engagement, retention and productivity … or conversely, what will impede these outcomes and how to mitigate those impediments.

Bottom Line: HR Departments must place a huge emphasis on line manager enablement, thereby shifting HCM stewardship to where it belongs – to team leaders, department managers, and senior executives. HR Departments should enable, or get out of the way.

Posted in : Digital Transformation, HR Strategy

I’ve been to a couple of events and listened to a number of presentations recently from IT and business service providers talking about digital strategies –  and how they can help their clients engage better with “digital customers”.

Part of this strategy has included building greater empathy and emotion with customers – superficially this sounds fantastic, but when I think of digital, it’s not about being nice or building an emotional attachment to customers – it’s about speed, efficacy, and awareness – these things trump everything else.

Understanding customer needs and behavior is important – as it helps to build an efficient and speedy process, but they don’t need to like you they just need to believe that they will get the goods or service when they are told and it is what they asked/paid for. If you think about successful retail organizations Tesco, Amazon, Walmart – I’m not sure too many people like them, they like the convenience of them (Fanboys – I am generalizing so please don’t troll me, of course, some people love them.) People will buy from you and like you if you are cheap, if you deliver when you say you do and will stop when you mess up (for a bit.)

Digital businesses historically had awful customer service and many still do. Amazon in the U.K. when it first started was terrible at dealing with problems –  in 2003 when I ordered a book (remember when they just did books/CDs) which didn’t turn up and they basically said that it was the couriers fault and after trying for a while I just gave up – they more or less told me to sod off. Incidentally, by 2010 they had gone the other way – if you said it didn’t turn up they’d send 3 replacements (I exaggerate). I suspect the balance has now been struck.

However, customer service is still bad with many digital firms –  or digital services to consumers. Particularly when the app business is an intermediary an affiliate based – I have had checkered service from JustEat, Deliveroo, Hungryhouse and Burger King food delivery – don’t judge me I am a hungry early adopter and have a teenage daughter with friends… Usually, something missing from the order and I haven’t had refunds – but I tend to return because the convenience (and my laziness) never goes away. Even poor service won’t kill a digital company if the core proposition is sound and the number of exceptions is low.

Bottom Line – Sell speed and efficiency – people don’t need to feel special and cared for unless you mess up.

So when I hear a service provider try to portray digital experience in terms of empathy or emotion I lose interest. Speed, efficiency, and real-time information make a service digital – this doesn’t need to deliver an emotional response, – the core proposition needs to be good and it needs to work most of the time.

Posted in : customer-experience-management, Digital Transformation

The Business Process Outsourcing industry is going through a significant evolution from a labour-led business model to one that is now a blend of global talent combined with automation, artificial intelligence, and digital technologies.  This is especially the case with the financial function, where CFOs are under immense pressure to deliver the next wave of productivity and value from automation and richer data.

Genpact as a pioneering BPO provider in the era of Digital Finance

Genpact has always been ahead of the disruption curve in the finance and accounting function, being the first to disrupt the market with aggressively affordable and effective offshore solutions in the mid-2000s, taking a significant stake in the market in its journey to becoming one of the largest pure-play BPO providers to service the CFO’s office today.

In recent years, the firm has quietly developed its own consulting capabilities, which now account for close to 10% of its revenues, where it is supporting clients with its unique flavour of digital design consulting with its Lean Digital offering, its robust operational and process consulting capabilities and a sizeable focus in robotic process automation and artificial intelligence, including touchless machine learning, which is bolstered by its new acquisition of artificial intelligence platform Rage Frameworks.  In addition, its CFO Services consulting line is now involved in piloting some Blockchain implementations and an increasing involvement in Supply chain, risk management and order management transformation initiatives.

Moving beyond the table stakes

The most progressive service buyers consider process standardization, quality levels and cost savings as table stakes. As our recent study, Finance In The Digital Age shows, finance executives are challenged to better manage regulatory compliance and financial reporting, better use financial and non-financial data, make the close cycle more efficient, and have paperless audit trails. Further, at the top of the finance and accounting function, today’s CFOs are more ambitious than ever to become more involved in driving future growth for their organizations, beyond oversight on controllership and bookkeeping.

So it is unsurprising that our last analysis, the HfS F&A As-a-Service Blueprint, focused on As-a-Service design and delivery in finance among 18 leading F&A service providers. The resulting Winners Circle service providers have collaborative engagements with clients and are making recognizable investments in future capabilities in talent and technology to continue to increase the value over time. These providers are also leading in incorporating analytics as a service into Finance contracts.

Making the shift to being a consultative BPO provider

In the Blueprint report, we positioned Genpact as a part of this As-a-Service Winners Circle category. Compared with the other service providers in the Blueprint, Genpact is one of the top two, leading in both the Execution of actual services and client management and Innovation to drive future value in the form through the use of talent and technology. With 18 years in the market, Genpact has evolved its traditional Lean Six Sigma process excellence methodologies into what it calls Lean Digital, a framework for working with clients to use design thinking for identifying, aligning and addressing issues and opportunities. It’s a transformative approach to align digital technology and talent with desired business outcomes from F&A delivery. HfS hears encouraging feedback from early client work.

Furthermore, Genpact has developed vertical-specific strengths in pharma, CPG, and manufacturing. Its “CFO and Transformation Services” approach is addressing the key needs of CFOs, which is in line with the market needs we outlined earlier.

The combination of Genpact’s Lean Digital, CFO, and transformation services has helped its sales teams take a consultative approach with F&A, particularly with new clients.

This has accelerated Genpact’s market performance in F&A, reaching double-digit growth in 2016. Clients in our Blueprint research ultimately point to Genpact’s “feel good” culture, where through extensive interactions with practice leaders, SMEs, and delivery teams, the service provider drives cultural alignment with its clients. HfS believes that Genpact is a good fit for enterprises that are considering operational redesign in their finance and accounting function, particularly in CPG, pharma, and manufacturing.

Genpact was rated highly in the Blueprint for the following criteria:

• Collaborative Engagement
• Incorporating Feedback
• Delivering Industry-Specific Solutions
• Investing in Future Talent & Technology
• Use of Technology to Support Business Processes

Posted in : Digital Transformation, Finance and Accounting

“Denial is not an option.” Contrary to the typical (and here, oversimplified) pre-certification, “approve” or “deny” approach to utilization of services in health care, HealthHelp launched a new model of utilization review based on the premise of non-denial procedures, and that utilization management is about collaboration and education. HealthHelp taps into its evidence-based database and network of physicians and academics to review and approve or to recommend alternatives to procedure requests. In tandem, HealthHelp drives studies and education opportunities to lead to better medical and financial outcomes when providing or using health care services. In short, the company that WNS just acquired is building out a patient- and healthcare provider-centric approach to utilization management designed to match procedure and treatment to the patient’s needs and network.

HealthHelp took roots in the founder’s own pain 

The HealthHelp approach is tied to the experience of its founder, Cherrill Farnsworth, who found the number of denials and appeals she managed for radiology procedures discouraging and painful. Thinking about “how to do this differently… why do we have to deny”? Cherrill tapped into her network of people at medical centers and universities, creating a collaborative model on the premise of using data, insights, and education. Instead of a review, approve/deny, the approach is review, approve and/or educate and/or recommend. The approach uses an increasingly sophisticated system of data, digital technology, and relationships. HealthHelp is taking product development further into the realm of machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well.

What gives HealthHelp the “right” to make recommendations to healthcare providers and patients?

An approach like this one—essentially, a break from the norm—depends on the credibility of the data, technology, and people involved. HealthHelp faced the challenge in the early days of people not being sure that a “non-denial” approach would be effective for containing costs. With 15 years of data, though, the company has been able to ingrain a lot of experience and knowledge into the approach and platform, to the extent that now 75% of prior authorization requests get approved for providers or are responded to with recommended changes that are approved by providers, without any human intervention. In about 25% of the cases, it goes to nurses for review; 6-7% of which are forwarded to doctors, and after that, the provider has the option to and can still disagree and go with treatment, which happens in under 0.5% of cases.

Results to date show improvement in the quality of care, which impacts Star and HEDIS ratings and reduces the cost of care by making sure the right kind of care is provided versus the lowest transaction cost at a point in time.  Also, in a fee-for-service model, a healthcare provider gets paid for the procedure regardless of the result. As the industry shifts to value based care with payments tied to outcomes, approval based on evidence or alternatives becomes more strategic to positively impacting outcomes (and payments). This approach, therefore, seems to have further credibility in the value-based care model and can help healthcare providers move into the new world of healthcare.  HealthHelp worked with CMS to get approval to qualify this program under provider education/quality improvement initiative and thus be included in the 85% Medical Loss Ratio for health plans.

The acquisition by WNS brings a complement of resources to both organizations and its client base

The healthcare industry is so ingrained in a yes/no approach that it took a few years before the model got adoption, primarily with mid-tier healthcare organizations. Joining with WNS gives HealthHelp the opportunity to scale and support a broader range of payers and providers. WNS also has a wealth of analytics capability, talent development and industrialization expertise that is complementary to HealthHelp, with resources that can help expand and develop the services and technology platforms to impact healthcare outcomes more broadly.

The acquisition of HealthHelp is part of the WNS strategy to shift attention from the cost of transactions to the cost of quality care and support—towards patient centricity. To date, WNS’ work in healthcare has been mostly analytical and transactional services: billing, collections, provider network services, and claims processing. HealthHelp brings in clinical and operational expertise to impact medical, as well as administrative outcomes, thus closing the loop. It also brings a human-centered (aka design thinking) approach to solving problems and developing a new business capability that the healthcare industry needs.

Posted in : Healthcare

Dear Friends,

Our day of judgment is upon us! Can we really “unlearn” the last two decades and change how we buy, sell, behave and operate? Do we really have what it takes – deep down inside – to get ahead of this maelstrom of change and come out the other side with wealth, happiness and another two decades of double-digit growth?

Of course we can! But only if you book your last-minute spot to the services event of the year, in Midtown Manhattan next week… Join me, my colleagues and the industry’s finest as we engage in the richest dialog yet on how to tackle the most crucial transition our industry has ever faced, and how to come out the other side re-energized and happy to go to work again.

Service Buyers get complimentary access – only a few seats left, so apply now!

To name a few companies which will be represented…

And a few of the power brokers debating the big outsourcing reset in New York…

Find the full line-up here. See you in New York this Thursday, I hope!

Cheers,

Posted in : OneOffice, Outsourcing Events