2017 brought a surge of RPA deployments across industries, and in 2018 that trend has accelerated as more and more firms begin exploring the many benefits of a digital workforce. But even as some firms are just getting their RPA projects started, others are beginning to explore the next phase: cognitive automation. And a common challenge for firms is the desire to begin planning for [...]

  Over the last several years, the public IaaS market has grown rapidly, with major public IaaS providers growing at 45% or more annually, as estimated by NelsonHall. However, large enterprises are only moving a small portion of their application landscapes to public cloud, maintaining larger application footprints in private cloud or on-premise environments. This hybrid approach re[...]

NelsonHall recently attended the Atos global analyst event in Boston, where we were keen to get an update on topics including: Atos’ strategy for growth in North America, which has new leadership following a rather disappointing 2017 Recent developments and short-term priorities for offerings in the Digital Transformation Factory. It appears to us that, nearly three years af[...]

  I have touched several times on how AI is being used in the context of software testing for reducing the number of test cases, optimizing coverage, and estimating the number of defects in an upcoming release of an application. And, as AI technology is becoming pervasive, we are expecting more use cases to emerge for software testing soon. We recently had a discussion with Santa Cl[...]

  Shared Services Centers (SSCs) have made progress in the initial application of RPA, gained some experience in its application, and are typically now looking to scale their use of RPA widely across their operations. However, although organizations have often undertaken some level of standardization and simplification of their processes to facilitate RPA adoption, one stumbling block [...]

  Loan originations are a key part of the digital revolution taking place in the banking industry, and banks have two key goals when they replace their legacy loan origination systems (LOS): Enabling omnichannel delivery of LOS services Reducing time to fulfillment (turnaround time). Long-established banks are adopting digital solutions to achieve these goals with the expe[...]

  Kryon has today launched a new brand presence, along with a new strategic perspective on RPA focused on delivering business benefits. The former Kryon Systems (now simply Kryon) will now be organized around a three-pronged approach the company refers to as ‘Discover, Automate, Optimize’. As part of this brand migration, several aspects of Kryon’s go-to-market app[...]

  Over the last year, Zalaris has markedly stepped up its geographic and service expansion journey –  first fuelled by the acquisition of Germany-based Sumarum AG and then with the acquisition of U.K.-based ROC Global Solution Consulting. It’s important to note that Zalaris’ success in the wider Nordic market was also a result of two acquisitions soon after it[...]

  We recently spoke with QA specialist SQS about how its acquisition of Moorhouse Consulting and its own acquisition by Assystem Technologies (AT) are each supporting its management consulting (MC) services ambitions. SQS continues to deploy its MC units across geographies Firstly, Moorhouse Consulting. This U.K.-based company brings in ~140 consultants and £22m in annual r[...]

  There is an abundance of IoT platforms on the market. Many technology firms (e.g. IBM Software, AWS, PTC/Thingworx, Microsoft), major manufacturing firms (GE, Siemens, ABB, Bosch, Schneider Electric) and some large IT services vendors (e.g. Accenture, TCS, and Atos via Worldline) have invested in their own IoT platform products. History is repeating itself, as the build or buy que[...]

  One of the things that was very clear from my visit to the UNLEASH HR industry event in London last week was that virtual reality and other interactive tech has arrived in the talent acquisition space in a big way. Here I look specifically at examples of how VR and gamification are having an impact on the candidate assessment process. Candidate assessment is one of the hot talent [...]

  At ADP’s annual Meeting of the Minds client event this past week, what caught my attention most were the initiatives geared towards improving employee engagement/satisfaction and retention. Clearly, ADP has identified these areas as key, with its own research institute finding that ~2/3 of all turnover is voluntary – i.e. employees are leaving because they have not been g[...]

  Today, Redwood announced a new pricing model for its RPA software in which users pay only for units of work completed, and on a cost basis equivalent to efficient human work on the same task. As a result, if a Redwood robot sends an email, or retrieves specific data, or performs reconciliation work, the organization is charged on completion for specific amounts relevant to the parall[...]

  Last week Aegis Global and StarTek announced the creation of a combined company. The merger will see Aegis majority owner PE Capital Square Partners swap shares with the NYSE listed StarTek, to reach a ~55% stake in the merged company. The deal is expected to close by Q3 2018. Here I look at the implications of the merger. Return to the U.S. for Aegis For Aegis, the merger fol[...]

  We were recently briefed by Accenture on the creation of Industry X.0 within its Accenture Digital organization. The discussion far exceeded the scope we were expecting of Industrial IoT, and it signaled Accenture’s expansion in Engineering and R&D discussions (ER&D), with bold ambitions not just from a product design perspective, but also from a manufacturing and produ[...]

NelsonHall recently published its Next Generation RPO market analysis and NEAT vendor assessment, as part of which we interviewed the clients of 20 RPO vendors across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific to ascertain their expectations and satisfaction levels across a range of >40 recruitment service criteria. Here I look at how working with candidates has emerged as the top area for impr[...]

  NelsonHall recently visited WNS’ Analytics CoE in Bangalore. Research & analytics (R&A) services are key activities for WNS, as a first point of entry into new clients, and also as a higher margin activity in existing accounts. Readers of NelsonHall’s Quarterly Updates on WNS will be aware that WNS is looking to increase the level of annuity revenues from analytic[...]

  I am currently working on a global market assessment of digital banking services, and my interviews with banks and service providers alike are showing that technology implementation is less of a concern than how digital services will change the way customers and banks interact. As customer/bank interactions change, the industry’s competitive forces will change, and this will ev[...]

  NelsonHall’s most recent Next Generation Payroll Services market analysis reveals that payroll service buyers are focused on access to transformation-enabling technology. The use of automation has become commonplace, with payroll vendors leveraging RPA, AI, and machine learning capabilities to eliminate manual effort in the payroll process. And payroll service providers are inv[...]

  This morning, UiPath announced that the company will be receiving $153m in Series B funding from a consortium including the company’s existing investors, with two new names involved – Kleiner Perkins and Capital G, the late-stage growth venture capital fund financed by Alphabet Inc. The latter is of note as this arm of Google focuses on profit-centric investment rather[...]