M&A activity in IT services is set to take a new direction in 2017. Here, I reflect on M&A activity by the largest IT services vendors in 2016, with its emphasis on mega deals, and look ahead to 2017, which is set to be the year of digital & security tuck-in acquisitions. Large M&As in 2016: IT Conglomerates and Defense Firms Divest IT Services Arms Large-scale M&am[...]

  Here I take a quick look at IT services markets in 2017 against the backdrop of widespread political uncertainty, with predictions for how IT services spending will be impacted. Political Uncertainties in U.S., U.K., Germany, France 2017 is starting out as a year of political uncertainty, with lack of visibility in the U.S. on the Trump administration’s plans, in the U.K.[...]

by Vicki Jenkins & Ivan Kotzev NelsonHall’s principal Customer Management Services analysts take a look at how the CMS market will shape up in 2017, with predictions for CMS delivery & transformation from Ivan Kotzev, and industry-specific predictions from Vicki Jenkins.   1. CMS Delivery & Transformation Predictions For CMS, 2016 marked a substantial shift i[...]

  Based on NelsonHall research conducted during late 2016, I have identified three key predictions for business process services (BPS) and IT services (ITS) in the Banking sector in 2017.   1. Compliance initiatives move from industry headwind to tailwind The first prediction is that compliance operations change initiatives will decline, and the resources released from th[...]

  “We connect the physical and the digital worlds” This current slogan for the Swiss Post Group is very relevant for its Swiss Post Solutions (SPS) subsidiary as it looks to fundamentally change the nature of its business from paper-based document management to digital workflow management. SPS is one of the larger companies globally offering both inbound document mana[...]

Following several years of growth, the HR outsourcing market continues to ride the crest of the wave, and is gearing up for a prosperous 2017 following investments across all service lines. We will shortly be publishing an in-depth blog on HRO predictions for 2017, but first I take a quick look at what happened in 2016 to lay the foundations for things to come, specifically in payroll services[...]

  I recently talked with T-Systems about its digital strategy, and here I take a look at the organization’s Digital Division, and specifically at its Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives. Digital transformation is a strategic offering for T-Systems’ parent Deutsche Telekom group (DTAG). The company set up its Digital Division in 2015 with the intention of aggregating exp[...]

  Most FinTech engagements to date, with the exception of Blockchain, have been focused on consumer banking, a business characterized by high volume, high standardization, and low value transactions. By contrast, commercial banking is characterized by low volume, high customization, and high value transactions. And from an operational perspective, commercial banking uses higher value e[...]

  Three watershed moments in online sales and support happened in November and went somewhat under the radar. At the beginning of the month, StatCounter reported that mobile surpassed desktop browsing for the first time at a global level. Then for the Singles Day in China, e-commerce retailers JD and Alibaba not only announced record sales, but the latter opened up the event internatio[...]

  While significant effort and investment are being spent on designing digital solutions that meet customer needs, one area that has not received the same level of focus is internal systems and internal IT. For example, while airlines are leveraging new age digital technologies to improve the passenger experience, less attention is being paid to the experiences of employees when they r[...]

  NelsonHall recently attended a session in London with HPE Enterprise Services (HPE ES) and Microsoft for an update on their Cloud Productivity & Mobility (CPM) partnership based on Windows 10. HPE ES shared its vision of the end-to-end ‘Modern Enterprise’, using Windows 10 to enable it to manage and offer a consistent user experience across the entire organization.[...]

  At HCL’s recent adviser and analyst event, #HCLBigLeap, I spoke with their banking industry executives about HCL’s strategy and activities designed to drive application maintenance and modernization services, and specifically about the key ISV partnerships that are enabling this. Background HCL was founded in 1976, and had a strong focus on manufacturing during its [...]

  NelsonHall recently attended Alorica’s analyst day in Guatemala City for an update on strategic developments. Here I take a look at how Alorica’s EGS integration is progressing, at the company’s U.S. nearshore strategy from LATAM, and at plans to drive CX transformation through consulting and analytics. EGS acquisition: a path to the global CMS top 3 As we covered[...]

  At a recent analyst and advisor event held by Luxoft at its Kiev, Ukraine delivery center, the agenda went beyond the standard set of executive briefings and client case studies. It also included meetings with Ukrainian economic development organizations and a Member of Parliament. From these interactions, it was clear that Ukraine sees IT delivery as a key opportunity for growth, an[...]

  Unisys recently held an analyst and advisor day in New York, entitled UnisysNOW. However, with a relatively new leadership team in place and a broad corporate transformation underway, the focus of the event was not so much on the current shape of Unisys’ business but on the company’s aspirations and plans for achieving them, encapsulated in a new tagline: Securing Your To[...]

NelsonHall recently published its 2016 Targeting Payroll Services market analysis and NEAT vendor assessment, as part of which we interviewed the clients of 16 payroll vendors across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific to ascertain their expectations and satisfaction levels across a range of payroll service criteria. Below is a small selection of the results comparing current client satisfa[...]

As well as conducting extensive research into RPA and AI, NelsonHall is also chairing international conferences on the subject. In July, we chaired SSON’s second RPA in Shared Services Summit in Chicago, and we will also be chairing SSON’s third RPA in Shared Services Summit in Braselton, Georgia on 1st to 2nd December. In the build-up to the December event we thought we would shar[...]

This is the third in a series of blogs looking at how business process outsourcing vendors are applying RPA in the insurance sector. HCL provides closed book life insurance outsourcing services, and is currently engaged in RPA initiatives with three insurance clients. In order to capture customer data in a smarter, more concise way, HCL is using ‘enhancers’ at the front end, prov[...]

This is the fourth in a series of blogs on vendors’ RPA initiatives in the insurance sector. We now turn our attention to Dell Services, which has adopted an automation focus across its life and healthcare insurance BPS processes. Focusing on healthcare payer & provider and life insurance process automation In 2016, life insurance accounts for around 30% of Dell Services’[...]

Dell Services is a strategic acquisition, though an expensive one Yesterday, NTT DATA Inc. closed its acquisition of Dell Services, seven months after its initial announcement. The acquired entity, now called NTT DATA Services on an interim basis, has some obvious benefits. For example, it: More than doubles NTT DATA Inc.’s revenues from $1.7bn to over $4bn Significantly s[...]