Last week’s HRTechWorld in Amsterdam, or UNLEASH as it now known, did not disappoint, my only regret being that two days wasn’t enough time to see everything and meet everyone I wanted to. As well as the established vendors being present, sharing their new product updates, there were plenty of start-ups showing how they are changing the face of HR/payroll. Analytics, auto[...]

  Post-sales support functions are typically cost centers: large, labor-intensive operations with significant overheads and no financially attributable benefit to the bottom line. This environment is changing, with  organizations gradually understanding the revenue generation opportunities in support services such as technical support and afterlife maintenance. I recently had a co[...]

  Over the last few years, developments around the participant experience for benefits administration services have been focused on helping employees become more effective consumers as they make their benefit selections (the “consumerization” era). In 2016, the next stage of evolution of the participant experience emerged as suppliers shifted their focus to utilization (the[...]

In this blog, I look at Capgemini’s Blockchain initiatives and what segments they are focusing on for further development with their financial services clients. Initially, Blockchain engagements were focused on:  Using POCs to develop an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of distributed ledger technology (DLT) Developing business use cases, trying POCs to d[...]

    For many organizations today, technology, and more specifically the internet, has changed the way business is conducted, and having the agility to pivot with the change is critical to remaining competitive and surviving. While the introduction of next generation technology has created a critical inflection point for many businesses, it is also providing HR leaders with n[...]

  Nvidia faces stiff new competition for the leadership position in the AI processing chip market. But the firm has a significant competitive advantage: a culture of innovation and production efficiency that was developed to address the demanding needs of a wholly different market. Intel and Google have been making waves in the AI processing chip market, the former with the acquisit[...]

  NelsonHall recently attended the SE2 Partnership Forum, entitled ‘Future-proof: From Here to Digital’, in Washington D.C., where the main focal point of discussion was the challenge of digital transformation in the life insurance and annuity sector. Here I look at a number of developments in SE2’s offerings that are helping clients to address the challenge of dig[...]

  As part of NelsonHall’s series of reports focusing on the business priorities and digital initiatives of IT services buyers, we found that buyers in the transportation industry have a significant focus on improving the customer experience. Eighty-five percent of transportation companies are pursuing an operational objective of increasing average revenue per customer to a high e[...]

The traditional (and now universally accepted as outdated) model for multi-channel support looked something like this, with differences primarily between the types or number of channels: However, as customers became digital and mobile, the model has shifted to something like this: This model originated with marketers and retailers, where omnichannel means the ability to purchase in t[...]

  DXC Technology recently held an analyst day in the U.K., its first since being ‘born’ on April 1. It is still early days for this young organization and the integration continues (though there was little mention of this at the event). In its recent investor calls, DXC Technology has emphasized actions to strip out costs, apply financial discipline, and invest in next[...]

HCL has undertaken ~200 use cases spanning finance & accounting, contact, product support and cross-industry customer onboarding, and claims processing, using products including Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, UiPath, WorkFusion, and HCL’s proprietary AI tool Exacto. This blog summarizes NelsonHall’s analysis of HCL's approach to Business Process Automation coveri[...]

In this, the first of two articles on GDPR, I look at how the regulation is set to impact companies, and at the benefits of compliance beyond simply avoiding penalties.     The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was adopted in April 2016 and will be put into force on 25 May 2018. The unified and enforceable laws contained in the regulation replace the o[...]

I have just looked back at a blog I wrote last May when the news broke of the DXC/HP ES tie-up. Here is an extract: “There is the question of the U.S. federal business that HPE ES will bring in, a market that CSC has only just exited. Will it play a part in the newco? Overall, U.S. public sector would account for around 11% of the newco, way below CSC’s non-compete threshold.[...]

Last week, Ceridian held its annual customer forum, Ceridian INSIGHTS, in Las Vegas, where it showed its support for the victims of the recent shooting, and demonstrated its commitment to people as the mainstay of its philosophy. Ceridian established a website at the conference where attendees were able to make donations to a victim support fund, with Ceridian making the first contribution,[...]

  In a surprise transaction, Office Depot announced the acquisition of U.S.-based CompuCom, an end-user computer specialist. The price is significant: ~$1bn, including $750m in cash and 45m shares of Office Depot, with the seller, PE Thomas H. Lee Partners, owning 8% of the share of Office Depot. Despite revenues of $10.6bn, Office Depot has a market cap of just ~$2bn. With the acqu[...]

  Fast Data is the emerging hot topic of discussion for business leaders seeking to get ahead of the next wave of data utilization. But Fast Data isn't just an evolution of Big Data; it's a market force unto itself that's asking more of traditional and start-up vendors in both traditional DBMS and AI. I spent a (surprisingly snowy) morning this week talking with AI and B[...]

    I recently talked with Wipro about its crowdtesting capabilities. Here, Wipro has a different positioning and service portfolio from crowdtesting pure-plays, with a stronger focus on automation frameworks (with its mobile website and app testing framework), and access to mobile device labs. QaaS: an aggregation of testing offerings at scale QaaS is an aggregation of s[...]

  NelsonHall recently attended Capgemini’s financial services analyst conference in Boston, where the company discussed its activities and roadmap for the industry, which is focused on digital services. Here I look at how digital services are now driving Capgemini’s financial services business, with client examples. Capgemini’s shift to digital financial services [...]

  I was privileged to be invited recently to a customer and analyst event in Budapest, Hungary hosted by Cielo. Great, I thought – I’ve never been there, maybe I’ll see the Danube and a few historic buildings. And from that perspective, Budapest did not disappoint; it was understandable why there were so many tourists visiting, enjoying the hot September weather. But [...]

The gig economy has been a recent trending topic. While the concept of gig workers is nothing new, the attention being paid to it is, especially since this is an area whose growth has been facilitated by the digital marketplace. Here, I take a quick look at the challenges gig workers present for HR. Gig workers present a challenge on several fronts, especially when it comes to managing[...]