NelsonHall recently published its 2017 Managed Services Programs (MSP) market analysis and NEAT vendor assessment, as part of which we interviewed the clients of leading MSP vendors to ascertain satisfaction levels across a range of MSP service criteria. And while we found that MSP is largely meeting or exceeding client expectations, there are a few areas that fall short of expectations and should[...]

  NelsonHall’s recently published (July, 2017) Targeting Cloud-Based HR Services market analysis report estimates the global cloud-based HR services market to be $15.2bn, and this is expected to continue its growth trajectory (~6.3% CAGR) to reach $20.6bn by 2021.  With the largest portion of the market coming from cloud implementations (~44%), it’s interesting to f[...]

  The multi-process HR services market has evolved significantly over the years. The traditional approach, characterized by comprehensive end-to-end HR BPS services over a long term (often 7-10 years) leveraged on-premise solutions that were heavily customized. This gave way to the transitional approach, best characterized by hybrid technology solutions where core HR and payroll is on-[...]

It is very easy to get caught up in the here and now of workplace challenges around talent acquisition (skills shortages, multigenerational workforce, ageing population, socio-economic issues, etc.), and the best way to tackle them in the short-term (this week, this month, this year). But what if a much wider look at the trends affecting talent acquisition were taken into consideration –[...]

  Cognizant recently hosted NelsonHall in its mobile center of expertise in Grenoble, France, to discuss how it is expanding its Quality Engineering & Assurance (QE&A) practice. QE&A is a very significant practice within Cognizant - NelsonHall estimates that it represents over 14% of Cognizant’s global headcount. Unsurprisingly, digital, DevOps, and agile are [...]

Every day the sheer amount and complexity of cybersecurity information that security analysts are required to sift through increases. Analysts arrive at the start of each day, catch-up on recent attacks and research cybersecurity news, and are thrown into analyzing security incidents: going down the rabbit hole of reviewing data flows, finding outliers, investigating IPs, searching through both in[...]

Many Blockchain services vendors have observed that up to 75% of proofs of concept for Blockchain fail to meet their goals. Analysis of drivers for such widespread failure indicates that the initial use case was flawed because it was constructed to justify experimentation rather than solve business challenges. However, TCS has focused its Blockchain efforts on developing uses cases that can dr[...]

  In the last few years Accenture has executed a wholescale reshaping of its portfolio towards what it terms ‘The New’ (digital-, cloud-, security-related services) and has managed to keep ahead of the pack in staying relevant. NelsonHall recently attended an event hosted by Accenture Technology on the theme of innovation-led applications services. Accenture Has Repivote[...]

IPSoft's Amelia   NelsonHall recently attended the IPSoft analyst event in New York, with a view to understanding the extent to which the company’s shift into customer service has succeeded. It immediately became clear that the company is accelerating its major shift in focus of recent years from autonomics to cognitive agents. While IPSoft began in autonomics in support o[...]

On June 8th, Italian BPS provider Comdata announced the acquisition of the French group Izium, which includes the CMS provider B2S, for ~€200m. The acquisition will be the first entry for Comdata in France and will lift the company to a top 5 CMS provider in Europe with estimated proforma revenues of ~€750m for 2017. Entry into a mature and healthy French CX market Under the de[...]

  NelsonHall recently attended WNS analyst/adviser events in New York and the U.K., where the theme was “NEXT”, with the sub-text of assisting organizations in “thriving in a state of constant disruption”. While the trend to digitalization of business processes using technologies such as robotics and cloud, artificial intelligence, and big data is causing con[...]

  As H1 2017 comes to a close, it’s a good time to reflect on recent key activity and where the market is headed for the rest of the year and beyond. Here, I round up what’s trending now in payroll, benefits administration, recruitment, and learning. Payroll The most common theme in the payroll market is global and multi-country activity. NelsonHall estimates tha[...]

  Many of the pureplay BPS vendors have been moving beyond individual, often client-specific implementations of RPA and AI and building new digital process models to present their next generation visions within their areas of domain expertise. So, for example, models of this type are emerging strongly in the BFSI space and in horizontals such as source-to-pay. A key feature of these[...]

  In April 2017, TeleTech acquired healthcare BPS provider Connextions for $80m. The acquisition makes healthcare the second largest vertical for TeleTech, expected to reach ~21% of their annual revenue at ~$300m. I spoke with TeleTech recently to discuss the acquisition and their focus on the healthcare space. TeleTech’s Healthcare Business at a Glance TeleTech’s hea[...]

  I recently attended the Avaloq client conference in Zurich. The conference was well attended, with ~400 attendees. Avaloq is on a roll, adding clients across offerings and markets for the past several years. Here I outline how they are doing it and what their next steps are. Background Avaloq is a privately held vendor of technology-based solutions and services to the financial[...]

  I am excited to be embarking on a new role at NelsonHall, having enjoyed serving as a Customer Management Services industry analyst for almost five years. As the new advisor for NelsonHall’s Buyer Intelligence Group (BIG), I get the opportunity to work more closely with our buy-side clients and broader BIG community, helping them to engage around hot industry topics and to get [...]

  Last week, I attended the HR Tech World conference in San Francisco, where ~ 2,000+ HR practitioners, thought leaders, vendors, analysts, and VC representatives converged on the Fort Mason campus on San Francisco Bay to experience and discuss the latest disruption in the HR technology space.    This was the first year the event was hosted in the U.S., but it felt li[...]

  As discussed in my blog of April 12, 2017, the mortgage processing industry in the U.S. is challenged to remain profitable because, from 2012 to 2016, loans outstanding grew 1.8% per year, while processing costs grew at 7.3% per year. This is leading to industry consolidation and operational restructuring. A recent example of a BPS vendor consolidating in order to drive greater effic[...]

  Initiatives around incorporating intelligent technologies to automate and create efficiencies across different HR processes is a top priority for many vendors. To date, RPA has made the most headway, e.g. in payroll for forms management, in benefits for pension calculations, in recruiting for scheduling a candidate’s interview or resume scanning, and in learning for proces[...]

The idea that the future model of customer experience includes a high level of automation is already widespread. A whole ecosystem of developers and vendors is catering to an emerging mass market of bots and virtual assistants. And users and brands are discovering more applications of automated support over text and voice as bot libraries grow rapidly. While the learning curve for users is [...]