A number of Latin American information technology and business process service providers have made their mark across their home region and the US. In this report, HfS Research analyzes the Latin American competitive landscape and five service providers who are making waves in the region (Neoris, Ci&T, Hildebrando, Softtek, and Globant).
Research
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See our 2012 research agenda here.
Our Published Research
Our research shows that aggressive global expansion and changing workforce characteristics have elevated the importance of recruiting, talent management, and performance management. Following a human resources transformation, does your human resources team focus more on the business than administration?
From over twenty in-depth briefings with leading services providers such as Appirio and OneSource Virtual, to SaaS providers like Cornerstone OnDemand and Netsuite, this RapidInsight explores the reasons for partnering in the cloud services world, examines the challenges that both buyers and providers face, and outlines for services and SaaS providers on how to build a meaningful partnering strategy.
On 25th April 2012, after a defining two-day working session for power brokers of the outsourcing industry, the leading buyers of both ITO and BPO services will confront today’s critical issues impacting outsourcing, to establish a Blueprint for the sourcing industry that will take us through to 2017.
This RapidInsight reviews the results of the polling results and answers polling questions posed to the panel from our Webinar on March 14, 2012, “The Emergence of the Business Platforms”. For a replay of the event, see: http://www.horsesforsources.com/bizplats-recording_031412.
This RapidInsight looks at why many services companies have not adopted business outcome pricing to date and highlights an example of where business outcomes pricing is working well—WNS’s Verifare, a business platform that recovers airline revenue leakage.
Business platforms are helping insurers drive down costs, consolidate data/better analytics, standardize workflows and improve operations. This RapidInsight explores the major reasons the insurance vertical has adopted business platforms and highlights through analysis of 20 business platforms the leading providers in this vertical.
In this RapidInsight, we have developed two key frameworks that buyers can use as they evaluate opportunities to leverage analytics. The first framework helps buyers understand their respective value chains and potential leaks that may arise. The second framework helps buyers prioritize the leaks or opportunities to assess the potential return on investment (ROI) and likelihood of positive outcome from the use of analytics.
HfS Research views IBM's Security Services group as offering a heft, breadth and depth of capability, reputation, and global footprint that few of its competitors in the professional services and managed security services space can approach. IBM's broad array of professional services include security consulting and design and deployment services, and managed security services in the form of traditional managed-CPE services ,as well as new managed security services using a cloud-based SaaS delivery model. Should IBM be on enterprise buyers' short list of providers of such services?
Analysis of IT investments and trends in EMEA based on a late 2011 survey of 211 IT European IT executives in Germany, UK, France, and Benelux/Nordics. The analysis looks at cloud computing, virtualization, capacity management, performance management, and IT management.
The retail industry has been plagued with many of the challenges the other industries have seen – global economic uncertainty, increasing cost pressures, the need to adapt to changing customer needs, among others. In addition to these, most of the retailers have had to expand to newer markets, leverage emerging opportunities, develop new business models to boost revenues and, at the same time, run cost-effective operations.
The so-called Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend parallels two related, important and mutually reinforcing IT trends: the advent of cloud computing services and the increasing consumerization of IT. CIOs and CSOs must tread carefully, employing a battery of near-term tactics and considering longer-term strategies to balance the business value of supporting BYODs with the increased security threats and business risk that they entail.
HfS Research cajoled three of the sourcing industry’s top lawyers to share their secrets in its March Webinar. The best advice: If you want flexibility in your sourcing contracts, make sure the other side does yoga! In addition, we address 10 key factors to getting your deal done quicker, the best way to hold down transactions costs, why negotiating with more than one service provider is a must, why you need to deep-six term sheets, the best term length for today’s contracts, and how to assure flexibility if the other guys won’t do down dog.
The challenge of effectively managing security breaches involving regulated data is growing in scale and complexity for large enterprises. Keeping a handle on such security incidents – detecting, containing, tracking, and mitigating them is challenging in itself. To stay afloat in this rising tide, enterprises must take a more programmatic approach to managing breaches by planning how they will manage incident response, both internally and in outsourcing scenarios. Co3 Systems is one company with a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering to help buyers and providers tackle this challenge.
In January of 2011, iGATE took the sourcing industry by surprise by announcing its intent to take a majority stake in Patni. Industry and financial analysts were up in arms: revenues and key clients were at risk, attrition was a concern, and divergent cultures might not find equal footing. These were just a few of the challenges iGATE Patni management faced in 2011. Now, one year on, the company has survived and continues with momentum into 2012. As important, 2012 will be the year that the organization officially announces that it has crossed the $1B revenue threshold. However, crossing the barrier is no guarantee for an invitation to the big leagues. In fact, it is just the first step, but does iGATE Patni realize it?
Encouraged by regulation and brand consciousness, as well as a troubled corporate conscience, organizations are beginning to speak more publicly about corporate responsibility (CR), the form of self-regulation that companies adopt in order to assume responsibility for their actions and encourage positive effects on the environment and the people they touch. HfS believes that a raft of mundane activities can be outsourced to expert services providers, freeing up time for CR managers to work with stakeholders to pursue more strategic CR/sustainability initiatives. This RapidInsight builds on our Business Platform research, briefings with Capgemini’s BPO team that recently announced a major CR carbon management outsourcing deal with Tesco, and CA Technologies ecoSoftware unit with whom Capgemini is teaming to win in this new market.
Part of the risk assessment behind any decision to migrate to cloud services must effectively weigh how insider threats change when applications migrate from private data centers or shared services infrastructure to private, pubic, or hybrid cloud computing environments. Buyers must investigate any prospective provider’s governance, security policies, and security infrastructure to determine how well it stacks up against their own native insider threat defenses. They must also make a clear-eyed assessment of how any resultant changes in risk posture affect the business case for moving to cloud services.
Understanding trends and shifts in IT markets requires more than anecdotal evidence. Well-designed, focused and executed telephone surveys are a prime vehicle to get an idea about what’s going on in a specific market. The HfS Research Trends Survey concludes that (a) cloud computing has crossed the chasm and is now on top of IT managers’ agendas, (b) private clouds are the number one investment area in 2012 and (c) long-term, buyers are looking for solutions that integrate the private, public and hybrid cloud environments. The underlying reason for these trends is buyers’ strong belief that using cloud computing will dramatically slash IT cost.
Analysis of the procurement outsourcing market in 2011. Includes analysis of marketshare, market trends, buyer process decisions, and potential relationship models.
Services providers have significant credentials in implementing, integrating and configuring the major SaaS applications (e.g., Salesforce.com, Netsuite, Workday) for enterprise-wide deployments. SaaS providers, as a result, look like solid partners to enable the fabric or automate processes within Business Platforms. However, our research indicates that legacy software providers are retaining their stickiness with traditional services providers both in terms of enabling mature Business Platforms and new offerings that are rapidly coming to market. We provide insight from over twenty briefings with providers on why this is the case and highlight some of the significant Business Platform developments and enhancements that are inching the market forward.
CSOs are increasingly turning to IT services and consulting firms for help with a variety of challenges, from managing their day-to-day security operations, to wringing cost out of and articulating the value of their function, to identifying ways in which security can help drive business innovation. Wipro Limited was one such firm that recently briefed HfS Research on its enterprise IT security consulting services and managed security services. HfS came away impressed with Wipro’s overall story in these two areas: at the moment, it appears to be the most formidable offshore IT services player in security. Rare among its competitors in that it has a standalone security practice, Wipro has considerable breadth of offerings, a wide-ranging global geographic footprint, thousands of staff members, and hundreds of clients.
More than 280 hard core procurement professionals attended ProcureCon Indirect East held in Atlanta, Georgia. Over 200 of were customers or buyers giving this event a pleasant “here are the sales people?” feel. The event spanned roughly two and half days with such a positive feel that at the end of the event, Carina Kuhl, the event’s director had to kick out all the jabbering procurement geeks because they were simply having too much fun networking amongst themselves. Based on discussions with attendees and event leadership, this event was a success.
HfS believes that the legal process or legal services outsourcing (LPO) market is set to grow exponentially. With recent challenging local and global economic situations, corporations have been forced to look at cost optimization. Moreover, law firms are also facing budget constraints and have looked at alternative business models to grow. LPO started out as a cost arbitrage and has matured beyond that to offer strategic benefits to both buyers and service providers of LPO.
Analysis of domestic BPO opportunities for the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan. Includes market overview and heat map.
Today, a significant portion of buyers, mature and not so mature, seeks to optimize the results delivered through their outsourcing relationships. The renewals, renegotiations, and new deals that HfS sees from the most experienced buyers include some or all of the following characteristics, each of which is discussed in this RapidInsight™: outcome-based pricing, data privacy protection, continuous improvement and best practice implementation, improved termination rights and reduced switching costs, and alternative delivery locations.
NASSCOM announced hyperspecialization as the core theme for the annual India Leadership Forum 2012 (NILF). Now in its 20th year, NILF was hosted over three days in Mumbai’s unusually pleasant weather, welcoming more than 1,500 delegates and more than 120 speakers. HFS Research summarizes the discussions.
You’d think that down-to-earth procurement guys (and gals) would avoid the expense of renaming a firm, but within the span of less than five days two procurement outsourcing service providers did exactly that. Buying Team became Proxima and ICG Commerce became Procurian. The rationales behind their name changes are quite different, but both changes are a response to buyers' needs in the procurement outsourcing market.
The value proposition of data isn’t in the gathering of it, but in the actual analyzing of patterns and taking action. Buried within mega data warehouses is the information that executives can use to unlock opportunities to grow revenue, make strategic decisions, build better customer relationships, and eliminate costs. For most business owners, obtaining this information is not a question of applications and hardware, which they may have in abundance. Rather, it’s the skillset of business owners to explore and analyze complex data to solve business problems.
Service providers have coined terms like “knowledge process outsourcing” for a wide range of services, from technical data warehouse implementations to Indian statisticians priced by the hour. Frankly, the mix of services confuses buyers. In this document, we will define analytics outsourcing and categorize the services buyers need.
This report portays service provider profiles for HfS Research's Business Platform Map for 2012. Through the Business Platform Map™ buyers, vendors and investors will be able to track, measure and assess the changing services business models and evaluate the progress of new offerings in the market. This document reviews the Business Platform Map survey results for 2012.
According to our data collected in 2011, one after another -- in fact, over 400 CPOs -- have made the decision to leverage procurement BPO to improve their scope, savings, and ROI, and they are finding incredible success. HfS Research collected detailed data points on more than 430 procurement outsourcing engagements, indicating that procurement outsourcing is a viable option for companies of all sizes. In each of the past three years, 60 new companies have leveraged procurement outsourcing services. This RapidInsight™ describes the scope of services CPOs are purchasing and the results they are achieving, while explaining why procurement outsourcing doesn’t have many of the issues faced by other BPO services.
In this report, we look at a few pressing legal and contractual risks that cloud services can introduce, some with roots in the IT infrastructure underlying cloud services, others based on the ways in which providers build, sell and support these services.
Buyers need to understand that running business applications on cloud services -- which for the purposes of this report refers only to SaaS, not Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud offerings -- entails new IT security and business risks, notably around data privacy, compliance and reliability. Some of these differences arise from cloud provider business models and how those drive the structure of contracts and service-level agreements (SLAs). Others are inherent in the technology underlying these services. HfS Research examines several critical issues that buyers should keep top-of-mind as they plan any transition from in-house services or traditional IT outsourcing to cloud services.
Business Platforms are changing the traditional services business model by enabling customers to leverage business services through business outcome pay-as-you-go methods via the integration of Cloud Computing technology, SaaS and business process outsourcing. Business Platforms are providing customers with compelling technology enabled business process services that drive innovation, agility and reduce cost.
Through
the Business Platform Map™ buyers,
vendors and investors will be able to track, measure and assess the changing
services business models and evaluate the progress of new offerings in the
market. This
document reviews the Business Platform Map survey results for 2012.
This Rapid Insight outlines the nuts and bolts of business platforms, essentially the delivery and technology models that underpin the business platforms we reviewed as part of HfS’s Business Platform Map™ market survey. Buyers need to understand how services providers are building their business platforms. Too little client traction may indicate that the business platforms are not much more than a bespoke service that risks limited future funding.
In October 2011 IBM formed its new IBM Security Systems division. This organization change coincided with IBM’s acquisition of Q1 Labs, a maker of security information and event management (SIEM) and log management products, two of the hottest products on the IT security shopping lists of large enterprises. The consolidation gathers IBM’s increasingly impressive security assets into a more cohesive whole.
To achieve substantially better results, the sourcing focus has shifted to areas where outsourcers can manage more complex processes, adopt technology changes, and provide domain experts to radically alter the business process outsourcing (BPO) value proposition. Leading sales operations professionals are looking to new Business Platform offerings from highly competent BPO services providers that bundle best-inclass technologies, people, and processes to improve business outcomes. One such set of outsourced services, Sales Performance Management (SPM), not only reduces operating costs but can positively impact revenues and streamline sales operations.
Almost every buying organization has a standard procurement process designed to purchase everything from office supplies to software and janitorial services to management consulting. Organizations then tweak this methodology to purchase more complex services, like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or outsourcing.
Where is BPO going? We now know, thanks to our Live & Unfiltered Part II discussion on November 22. Like a typical extended family at Thanksgiving, the buy family and the sell families cussed and discussed about the trends and challenges buffeting BPO. They passed the peas and offered unbridled opinion and insight.
For our Price Indicator clients, HfS has published the Q4 edition of the BPO Quarterly Price Bulletin. The bulletin includes several pages of key BPO pricing commentary gathered from our market research and our network.
For our Price Indicator clients, HfS has published the Q4 edition of the ADM Quarterly Price Bulletin. The bulletin includes several pages of key BPO pricing commentary gathered from our market research and our network.
We present our predictions for 2012.
Slides from HfS Research and Wells Fargo Securities joint industry webcast, presented by Phil Fersht, Ed Caso and Esteban Herrera, reviewing the key outsourcing dynamics of 2011 and made some predictions for 2012. The webcast recording can be accessed by ciicking here.
This year’s State of the Outsourcing Industry in 2011 report delves into how mind-shifts towards outsourcing are changing across industries, company sizes, geographies and business functions during a time where we have recovered from one Recession, only to be confronted with the prospect of another
Capgemini has significantly bolstered its capabilities in the competitive Finance and Accounting Business Process Outsourcing (F&A BPO) market with its recent acquisition of order-to-cash (OTC) services provider Vengroff Williams and Associates (VWA). Our only surprise at HfS is that is took so long for one of the top tier BPO providers to acquire the 45-year old heritage accounts receivables and OTC specialist.
This report examines how businesses view the changing world of work based on the results of an HfS Research survey, conducted in cooperation with HR Executive Magazine, of more than 400 HR and business leaders. We also researched information from a number of other data sources covering this hot topic.
This HfS RAPIDInsight offers buyers and providers of outsourcing services tips and successful techniques learned by practitioners (buyers, providers and intermediaries) over thousands of site visits to dozens of providers in more than 15 countries.
The current Euro debt crisis is further fuelling focus on outsourcing, with organizations across the region today viewing outsourcing as a proven vehicle for cutting costs and improving global flexibility.
A service provider’s account manager may be the most important position on the account team. HfS Research conducted a series of interviews with a variety of buyers and service providers to analyze what works well and what does not.
Turning processes on their heads to align them with corporate strategy is a challenge for the best of business leaders – especially when many are non-standard, fragmented, or even siloed.
HfS Research recently attended an analyst event hosted by Kenexa, a leading provider of recruiting and talent management solutions. Founded in 1987, Kenexa (originally named TalentPoint, Inc.) has grown rapidly through acquisitions (e.g., BrassRing, Salary.com, and Gantz Wiley Research) and organic growth over the past eight years.
Through experience, HfS understands that price benchmarks provide a host of benefits to both buyers and providers. From greater cost and price transparency to the strengthening of relations, the list of improvements is substantial. We are also aware that they can quickly undermine months and sometimes years of hard-fought trust between parties. With so much at stake, why do so few buyers and providers invest the time and energy to learn about price benchmarks and, more importantly, how to use them?
Business Platforms are the future of business process outsourcing and represent the true fusion of the benefits provided by standardized business processes, cloud computing, and SaaS in a singular managed service delivery model.
Marketing as an outsourced service – the very thought would have seemed impossible a few years ago. With the rise of customer empowerment and the increasing relevance of online, social channels, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are seriously considering outsourcing aspects of their marketing departments to specialists in this field.
The retail industry has been experiencing many fundamental changes over the last three decades, for example mass globalization of markets and volatile changes to consumer spending behaviors. However, the very essence of this industry is still the same – organizations focused on inventory management and supply chain optimization, maintaining operating margins and accurately predicting demand. To them, outsourcing has always been an option, and has been readily explored over the years to find more pennies to save.
Well, now you’ve done it. Instead of fixing things first, you outsourced your processes almost completely intact. The result? Your junky processes are now in the (hopefully) capable hands of your lower cost service provider and, not surprisingly, the outcomes are the same.
HfS Research Hosted its first “Live and Unfiltered Outsourcing Debate between Buyers and Providers” on August 4, 2011. Over 700 people worldwide listened as three buyers of outsourcing services and three service providers shared their distinct world views and wisdom, moderated by HfS Founder Phil Fersht.
The responses of 1538 Buyers, Providers and Advisors of Outsourcing Services were received over the months of July and August 2011 in the largest ever industry study that looked at both IT and Business Process Outsourcing. The results have proven that the initial goal of outsourcing – to drive out cost – has succeeded with flying colors. However, the findings also point out that the sequential business needs that need to be addressed are falling short.
This report provides both IT and Business 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 services providers in the market.
For our Price Indicator clients, HfS has published its inaugural edition of the BPO Quarterly Price Bulletin. The bulletin includes several pages of key BPO pricing commentary gathered from our market research and our network.
In a period of uncertain business cycles influenced by a potential double-dip global recession, corporate priorities have rapidly changed just within the past few months as they explore smarter ways of working, new growth opportunities in new markets, and better ways to manage sprawling, capital-intensive heterogeneous infrastructures.
Genpact has been working with Nissan for more than six years, providing finance and accounting, procurement, customer service, supply chain and analytics services; therefore, adding HR services seems like a natural extension of these services – even though Genpact has limited client experience of multi-process HRO.
What, exactly, is innovation? It is clear to HfS that buyers seek innovation, but are emphatically frustrated by their providers’ inability to deliver it. However, we maintain that this is a communication issue more than it is an execution issue.
In today’s business environment, nine out of every ten enterprises have shared services and 97% manage outsourcing engagements, however, the majority of them have yet to gain from combining shared services and outsourcing into one integrated Global Business Services model.
Hear from HfS' Phil Fersht and Tony Filippone, and PwC's Charlie Aird and Nick Atkin as they outline the fundamentals of Global Business Services. You can listen the the playback of the recording by clicking here, in addition to downloading the slides.
Peter Drucker once wrote, “What’s measured improves.” And, just as fast food became a US diet staple because of its simple, inexpensive solution to hunger—and consumers having insufficient time to shop and cook healthy food—metrics became the common tool used by millions of global business leaders to quickly solve problems.
As a vintner corks the bottle, he hopes for a huge success. After all, he has years of experimentation with the vineyards’ care, an uncanny ability to blend different grape juices, and a well-established marketing and distribution network. Once corked, only time and good treatment can lead to success. But the forces of nature can conspire against him.
HfS Research analysts attended Infosys Connect 2011 to receive an update on how Infosys is delivering value to their clients. Over 1000 attendees (clients, partners, analysts and Infosys employees) came together to share perspectives, learn from customers and understand Infosys’s capabilities and new investments.
The conservative healthcare industry faces the strong headwinds of regulatory change, dramatic changes to its mix of commercial and consumer businesses, and a legacy of outdated technology. While HIPAA and ICD-10 changes have absorbed most of the immediate attention, open enrollment for the year 2014 and medical loss ratio mandates will present unforeseeable challenges to the industry.
The offshore challengers are a unique group of service providers that continue to build their reputations as go-to companies for buyers that want to improve asset and process efficiency while reducing total cost of ownership. Moreover, they are not usual suspects - Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, and HCL. The challengers are smaller in a number of ways including revenues, scale, and service offerings. But they did not grow to be multi-million dollar companies by happenstance.
"It's time for next practices, not best practices. How can we truly get outsourcing beyond a cost-savings vehicle?"
4 providers and 4 buyers lock heads and debate the burning issues impacting today's outsourcing business:
Chief procurement officers (CPOs) may have the toughest corporate job in the world. Their internal stakeholders are a raucous group who require everything from enterprise-class software to staplers and McKinsey consultants to TV advertising now!
When the outsourcing industry pundits blithely tosses out the term “innovation,” we tend to think they are delusional. Since everyone agrees that outsourcing is geared to deliver positive changes in efficiency, productivity, cost and quality, what is “innovative” about outsourcing? Are we using a puffed-up word to pretend we’re getting or delivering more value?
State of Outsourcing 2011: Key Trends and Dynamics
Key Regional Trends
Re-thinking Pricing Dynamics in today’s Outsourcing Environment
From Tools to Real Outcomes: Demystifying the Value of Analytics
If a CEO’s pronouncements were all the evidence we needed that a business was doing something important, then sustainability would be top of the strategy charts.
The Evolution of Global Business Services: Enhancing the Benefits of Shared Services and Outsourcing
July 2011
In today’s business environment, nine out of every ten enterprises have shared services and 97 percent manage outsourcing relationships. However, the majority have yet to benefit from combining shared services and outsourcing into one integrated global business services framework. This report, co-authored with PwC, presents a new approach to managing global sourcing: Global Business Services.
After years of implementation, the fact that outsourcing triggers a myriad of changes—organization, process, workflow, technology, service levels among others—is still sidestepped by the industry. While most players give lip service to the need for change management when sourcing, there’s still a lack of understanding of the skills and capabilities that make change management strategically important to an outsourcing deal.
South Africa needs to demonstrate why buyers should veer away from the lower-cost established offshore locations and use its stable local providers. This RAPIDInsight explores the country’s challenges and opportunities as it seeks to establish itself as sourcing destination of choice for the top-tier service providers and international corporations.
A particularly vexing challenge facing chief procurement officers (CPOs) is their teams' use of technology. Procurement teams have a number of dissimilar processes that must be tied together to prevent manual hand-offs and subsequent breakdowns or savings leakage (which sounds almost as bad as it is).
The pharmaceutical industry provides essential support to the healthcare system by innovating, manufacturing, marketing and supplying drugs. Over the last few years, the most prolific change in the industry has been the expansion of focus, from primarily research and development to include, among others, sales and marketing and process re-engineering.
Ultimate State of Outsourcing webinar series
The State of Outsourcing in 2011: Key trends and dynamics
“Next” Outsourcing Practices
Demystifying the Value of Analytics
Governance meetings and gainsharing metrics are rarely enough to keep your outsourcing contract on track with the pace of change in your organization. Faced with the unrelenting, tidal waves of change, your governance actions can drive collaborative change, simply fizzle-out, or even harm your relationship.
Service integrators are third-party providers—usually the larger IT services firms—that marshal and manage a network of IT providers on your behalf. Service integrators share governance with their clients, set and run the mechanisms and interfaces between providers and guarantee end-to-end service delivery to make multisourcing work.
HfS attended ManpowerGroup’s debut industry analyst and influencer day on June 9, 2011 at its headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This RAPIDInsight provides a summary of the day and our point of view.
We’ve been holding our collective breaths since about 2005, waiting for a barrage of giant Procurement BPO deals to clutter the analysts’ quarterly listings. Yet when it comes to larger BPO outfits in particular, big engagements are still few and far between, with only a few definitive new contracts announced each year, most often focused on direct spend or sometimes pseudo-Procurement engagements pretending that accounts payable can be spun as a “Procurement outsourcing” gig.
Finally, the switch to digital is forcing marketing into running itself like a proper business process. As CMOs change channels, they’re seeing an imperative emerge that necessitates monitoring and tuning marketing operations to operate like real business processes.
The banking industry has gone through some very rough years, starting back as early as 2007, and it will continue to encounter considerable uphill battles over the unforeseeable future. Many of its challenges resulted from banks’ own actions, regulatory gaps and market pressures, and they were then perpetuated by other world events. Regardless of the drivers, banking will never be what it once was – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The bottom line is that the banking industry will evolve in a dramatically different manner.
Sourcing Interests Group (SIG) held its inaugural meeting in London with a one day event focused on the issues relevant to sourcing and procurement professionals in the UK and Europe. Although the meeting was an intimate affair the conversations were insightful as attendees debated the changing role of sourcing and discussed key topics of interest. These were governance and risk, benchmarking and surprisingly, sustainability. This HfS RAPIDInsight is for those who couldn’t attend.
The oil and gas industry is, arguably, the most economically important sector in the world as it meets more than two-thirds of the global energy demand. This industry has been facing challenges such as declining production, rising consumption, and low reserves.
ADP held its annual analyst day May 4, 2011 in New York. Two days earlier, the company had reported a solid fiscal third quarter 2011 earnings report and raised its earnings guidance for the third time this year.
This report synthesizes the topics that our clients and readers have deemed strategic for the next 12-36 months, with practical, candid advice for both buyers and providers.
Acrede is built around a new technology platform designed to change the way companies consume international payroll and HR services.
IBM’s new BPO offerings are set to capitalize on a US $14bn investment in analytics. Like other IT-led investments, analytics are no guarantee for improved business performance. This document includes valuable information for buyers as they evaluate their existing or future forays into analytics.
Service providers have begun to recognize the importance and the growing unmet requirements from this multi-billion dollar industry and have started to offer industry specific customized solutions that range from traditional BPO processes, IT support and maintenance to high value consulting and advisory services.
In this RAPIDInsight, we explore the way ad agencies and third-party digital media buyers can work together to create a better solution for their clients. It is just one example of a larger trend, but one that supports all the good things we remember about outsourcing: cost savings, effectiveness, and efficiency.
This databook highlights results from the HfS/Sourcing Change study on the implication of change mangement for sourcing success.
NorthgateArinso’s HR and payroll outsourcing roots stem back to its days as a payroll service provider in the United Kingdom called Peterborough Software, later called Rebus Human Resources Services. Northgate Information Solutions acquired Rebus in 2004.
Service providers are ramping up their expertise and knowledge in utilities. They are looking to build on their existing partnership deals with utilities companies to offer smart grid related offerings, as part of an end to end comprehensive industry solution.
This report delivers an unprecedented view of the F&A BPO industry, based on 788 live engagements, where organizations have outsourced two or more core F&A processes to a service provider.
How to approach, develop and benchmark your BPO pricing strategy for Finance and Accounting, Procurement and Human Resources functions.
This study qualifies the service, quality and scale of the Latin American market. The study is principally for buyers and industry stakeholders who want to understand what Latin America can offer as a destination for IT and business service delivery.
Payroll is the lifeblood of HR technology and outsourcing.
Overview of service provider footprint and potential in the analytics BPO market.
HfS Research, in partnership with the Outsourcing Unit of the London School of Economics, hosted a special webinar, sponsored by Accenture, on the groundbreaking study of Cloud Business Services that HfS and LSE recently released.
This report lays out the current usage and need for offshore analytics services by core industries, the opportunities and challenges, and the service provider expertise available to provide these services.
Jason Busch and Phil Fersht apply lessons from dating and marriage to procurement BPO.
As firms increase their sourcing, they need to stop and rethink the model. Adding more IT and business service providers into the mix without reference to a common framework creates problems of provider misalignment and gaps in the service delivery processes. Stakeholders miss out on game changing innovation while service delivery suffers.
HfS Research has shaped a prolific research agenda in 2011 that focuses on five themes: industry-specific sourcing strategies; horizontal business process and IT outsourcing strategies; sourcing change and change management; cloud business services; and outsourcing market forecasting analytics and price benchmarking.
Buyers: How well do you think your governance interfaces and mechanisms could handle a move to the Cloud?
Connecting sourcing outcomes to stakeholder demand at a cost that delivers the right quality is the hallmark of a great sourcing strategy.
This HfS Market Landscape evaluates the growing global LPO market - the core trends and dynamics, and examines the services provider landscape.
Nearly
every provider of IT and Business Process services has wrestled with a Latin
American Strategy. On one hand, it is a large, relatively prosperous market
with a wealth of well-educated professionals. On the other, it is highly
fragmented and diversely regulated; as a result, it has been difficult to
scale.
Think of selling shared services as getting friends to eat sushi. While the ingredients, save a few, are familiar to the Western palate, it’s the combination and the presentation that can be a bit scary to a meat and potatoes man. But there are methods to overcome resistance that are easily applied to shared services expansion.
HfS Report: Designing an Optimal Procurement BPO Program: Process Expertise and Realized Improvement
January 2011
When Spend Matters and HfS Research decided to jointly cover the procurement BPO market in this research series, the first thought through our collective minds was simple: what’s gone wrong in a market that should have grown much faster than it has in the past five years?
A joint research study of over 1050 global enterprises, conducted by HfS Research in conjunction with the Outsourcing Unit at the London School of Economics.
The HfS Research 2011 Outsourcing Predictions
HfS Research, working in collaboration with the Outsourcing Unit at the London School of Economics, fielded a survey to over 1,050 global respondents at the end of 2010 to quantify the impact of IT service delivery set around third-party Cloud Business Services. Business wants the power of Cloud Business Services while IT fears its risks and knows what must improve to make the vision a reality.
There is often no better platform to base this HR data than at the payroll level, where all the metrics necessary to ensure staff is fully accounted for, paid, and organized are stored effectively. If companies can harness that, they can develop additional human capital-related programs using the data.
Few sourcing organizations train their managers to deal with the fine art of making teams redundant in preparation for a change in business architecture.
While the rest of the outsourcing world has been carrying on through challenging times, the most challenged of its citizens, Mahindra Satyam, has been quietly rebuilding a global business.
Today, another revolution is underway--the rapid generational shift of work that is the byproduct of the globalization of work enabled by technology.
Benchmarking may be the most misused tool in outsourcing. HfS Research has observed hundreds of outsourcing relationships, both Information Technology and BPO, and concluded that enterprises rarely apply benchmarking results successfully.
After years of relative sourcing obscurity, African locales are overcoming some of the past barriers to become worthy of consideration as nearshore destinations for Europe.
CSC has struck out in a new direction sketching out a long-term position as a “service integrator” and laying out a cloud strategy that goes beyond the usual hype.
HfS has spoken to real-life practitioners on both sides of this deal, and learned that while they usually do create value, the process is no less painful than a competitive transaction.
This report dives into the experiences and expectations of a selection of today’s most experienced enterprise Finance and Accounting (F&A) BPO buyers, when it comes to achieving innovation.
HfS Research is often asked to help prepare clients for their negotiations and renegotiations with outsourcing providers. This best practice report focuses on outsourcing-specific negotiation issues that will help clients earn a fair deal.
This report investigates the global insurance BPO market and today's providers capabilities to empower insurers by integrating and transforming processes, tools, technology, as well as risk strategies.
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.
The latest HfS Research study of 238 HR executives (of which 34 percent were senior VPs or VPs of HR), conducted in conjunction with Human Resources Executive Online in May 2010.
HfS Research reveals clients' desire to collaborate with non-competitive firms in other industries is much more powerful; they are reticent to collaborate with firms within their own industry sector.
Capgemini has emphasized its global delivery acumen, by showcasing its expanding European delivery center in Krakow, Poland, to industry analysts and advisors.
Mahindra Satyam recently staged it first conference as a new entity, to announce to the industry that its new structure was complete, and was a serious IT/BPO services competitor.
In its first industry analyst conference, leading business process outsourcing (BPO) provider Genpact emphasized its business, today, is much broader than supporting General Electric’s back office and primarily delivering finance and accounting (F&A) services.
This report highlights the impact of healthcare reform on the Payor sector and its likely impact on driving outsourcing adoption across business and IT processes.
The uptake in outsourcing services has always had an inverse relationship with the state of the global economy, and the recent economic crisis has proven to be no exception. When economies are in advanced periods of recession, most businesses plan for their survival, and act on these plans when they start to see some daylight.
Cloud gives organizations an inexpensive, easy, and quick way of adding new servers and hosting new Web based applications with little upfront investment.
The maturation of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry and the progressing sophistication of the buy-side (end-user organization) community has led to a worrisome issue…buyers are becoming increasingly disappointed that they aren’t receiving “innovation” in their outsourced environments.
Key industry dynamics as the Recession fades.
While some vendors are talking a big game regarding how they intend to broaden their outsourcing services and consulting work with clients, a lot of their current management clearly don't have a lot of confidence to bring on the talent to help them do just that.
Cloud's not simply about outsourcing the heavy-duty computing grunt - it's about the delivery of real business services, enabled by the applications needed to support them, powered by the requisite computing and network infrastructure to host and deliver them.
As we discussed in Part I of this series, many customers, especially in the mid-market ($750m-$3000m revs), now view outsourcing an a change agent to go beyond simply driving out cost.
For once I am stumped for a catchy title, and am opting for some good ol' jargon-laden gruyère to tee-up Part IV in the series discussing our New Normal in Outsourcing Delivery survey. At least I've avoided the 'T' word lately, to grant myself a morsel of poetic license to indulge in a little schmolz...
Most industries are in a state of profound change, where businesses are having to accomplish new levels productivity and sources of revenue simply to survive, let alone grow, in this climate.
While the outsourcing market has rebounded, and it's likely to remain strong for most of 2010, these labor-arbitrage deals are not infinite.
Industry analysts are often accused of hyping the market they cover, creating hockey-stick growth projections to get everyone excited and avoiding ever reporting a worrying decline in growth. I just heard you gasp in shock and horror at this revelation...
