Last week we looked at Infosys' quarterly results. It has been another busy week of quarterly reports from some of the Indian oriented service providers. How did five of them do? Syntel (Q3 CY14): Softness in Healthcare Greater than Expected Revenue was $228.3m, up 8.8% y/y, but slightly below consensus Operating margin was 29.8%, down 610 bps y/y, with less benefit from rupee depre[...]

Accenture’s recent analyst event in New York was essentially a platform for it to showcase capabilities which it believes are key differentiators, both in terms of its attributes and also highlighting some areas of its portfolio which position it well for current and future profitable growth. The tone throughout was bullish re current and future performance - and recent performance supp[...]

At last week’s 2014 HR Technology conference I met with several of the RPO providers. Discussions included service offerings, latest trends, new business and growth. My meetings confirmed findings reported in NelsonHall’s Q1 2014 RPO market analysis that RPO growth would be mid-teens in 2014. RPO is thriving, with vendors reporting growth ranging from the low teens to 30%. And one[...]

NelsonHall recently attended Accenture’s annual analyst meet in New York City. We had the opportunity to discuss operations (BPO and IT infrastructure management) market initiatives, a major focus area for Accenture, representing $6bn in revenues (~20% of total revenues), with Accenture executives. Accenture and is betting heavily on “Digital” to create the “new Accentur[...]

Infosys reported Q2 FY15 results today and new CEO Vishal Sikka took the occasion to share his strategic vision for the company. Sikka is quite an orator, for example declaring his aspiration for Infosys to once again be a bellwether of the IT services sector, and to achieving above average topline growth and margin. Anyone who was looking to learn something more about Sikka’s l[...]

As part of its Analyst Day, Unisys provided NelsonHall an update on its end-user computing services activities. The company is aiming to enhance its end-user experience, de-emphasizing its traditional service desk approach and aiming to add alternative channels for connecting end-users and support personnel. As part of this initiative, the company is spreading the usage of its Tech Caf&eacut[...]

Concerns have been expressed about the future of the traditional benefits administration market with the advent of private health insurance exchanges: will the market move from a B2B model to a B2C where benefits administration as we know it will disappear?  Rest assured, while the benefits administration market will undergo some transformation, it will not disappear entirely for the follo[...]

NelsonHall recently attended Sitel’s analyst day and client advisory board meeting in Las Vegas, where I had the opportunity to discuss CMS market trends. Click here to view a brief video. Sitel wants to be known for creating great experiences, and its focus now is ‘people first’. It recently hired a new chief HR officer, Elsa Zambrano, who has created a new executiv[...]

Following reports in the WSJ and other media on Sunday, HP confirmed very early this morning that it intends to separate into two public companies: HP Inc: the personal systems and printing businesses; will have Dion Wessler as CEO, Meg Whitman as Chair HP Enterprise: servers, storage, networking, converged systems, services and software businesses, will continue to have Whitman as CEO, wi[...]

Tech Mahindra has launched Virtualized Mainframe Testing (vMT), a new service that offers clients savings on their mainframe application development and testing costs, especially for applications that are on a maintenance and enhancement/release mode. vMT mostly focuses on reducing consumption of MIPS. In the context of mainframes, reducing MIPs usage is a key lever for lowering costs, as IBM m[...]

Tieto is to cut ~900 to ~950 roles. 300 to 350 of the job cuts will be in Finland and the remaining 600 in APAC (China and India) and Eastern Europe (Poland and Czech Republic). The job redundancy program results from the decision by a major client, representing several percentage points of Tieto's revenues, to insource some of its R&D services. The financial impac[...]

This week Wipro held its first analyst day in the U.S. in over 18 months. During this time, Wipro has conducted a strategic review of its approach to the market, and decided to change its method of engaging clients and prospects.    First CEO TK Kurien opened by describing Wipro’s view of the market: Enterprises were created prior to the current digital era. As a[...]

NelsonHall recently attended CSS Corp’s analyst day and OneWorld conference. The overriding theme of the day was a reinforcement of the company’s direction; CEO Tiger Ramesh emphasized his ambition for CSS Corp to become the leading global tech support service provider, as emphasized in the company’s new by-line “Wired to Support”. A new leadership team has been [...]

NIIT is set to launch its latest offering to the insurance market next week, in the form of an upgraded policy and claims administration system which will join its existing set of insurance tools. NIIT has delivered IT services to its Lloyds of London clients for some 20-years, using its insurance specific tools: Subscribe: NIIT’s existing policy administration platform, a multi-cur[...]

NelsonHall recently attended Infosys’ European analyst and adviser summit held in advance of its “Confluence” customer event. Dr. Vishal Sikka has been in place as CEO for less than two months. During this time he has met with several dozen key clients, held senior exec meetings in Stanford University (his alma mater), visited nearshore delivery centers, including a BPO site i[...]

It’s fair to say that in today’s sourcing marketplace there’s a degree of disenchantment, even cynicism, regarding analyst firms and their ability to deliver genuine business value. Look around and you’ll see no shortage of swipes aimed at the hegemony of the big traditional firms, whose grip on the influencer market and their ‘pay to play’ models, have caused m[...]

Last week, ADP hosted its 6th annual analyst day at its new Innovation Lab in NYC.  The space, partly still under construction and featuring a rooftop garden, provides a very collaborative work environment. A current focus at the Lab is creating a new user experience for HR processes. The new user experience for pre-onboarding is live in Vantage HCM, and the benefits en[...]

Promises of rooftop gardens and new user experience from ADP’s trendy NYC warehouse: From a hip warehouse full of juice bars, fun areas to work and original red brick walls, the theme of the 2014 ADP Analyst Event was ADP is “All in on HCM”, reinforcing its commitment to HCM following the Dealer Services spin off.  The event, newly opened Research Lab in Chelsea, NYC[...]

Visa has announced it is assessing whether to sell its investment in mobile payment software developer and transactions processor Monitise. Visa formed an alliance with Monitise in 2009 to provide Visa with mobile platform development services. The agreement runs through 2016. As part of the agreement, Visa made a capital investment in Monitise and received 14.4% of the company's equity. Ov[...]

Hiring the best talent available, and being able to do this in a timely manner when they are needed, is a top priority of the HR function. For large enterprises, the optimal way to do this is to have candidates available in advance of the job requisition who are part of a talent pool that is already engaged and familiar with the hiring organization’s culture and values, and to make it easy t[...]