IBM announced today a new portfolio of cloud-based offerings called IBM Cloud Business Solutions. Now the last three words don’t in themselves give away too much as to exactly what is on offer - but IBM is taking assets from across IBM Group, including consulting services from GBS, pre-built assets from IBM Research, IBM software, advanced analytics, and cloud infrastructure delivered v[...]

Tech Mahindra Testing Services (TMTS) recently provided insights on the work it is doing to expand automation outside of test execution to newer areas. Part of the company’s rationale in increasing the level of automation is based on statistics showing testing teams suffer testing cycle delays regularly, representing 31% to 69% of their testing time. Testing delay result from a variety of[...]

Atos is to acquire France-headquartered technology vendor Bull for €620m in an all cash transaction. Atos offers €4.9 per Bull share, a premium of 22% over May 23’s closure price of €4.01. The offer is conditional on Atos receiving 50% and 1 shares. The largest shareholders of Bull, Crescendo Industries and Pothar Investments, which own a 24.2% stake in Bull, ha[...]

IGATE held its analyst conference in NYC.  The key message was the company is making initial steps down a new path, one that is directionally the same as before, but with a stronger focus on fewer initiatives. IGATE is increasing its investments in developing IP to support its positioning of offering integrated IT/Operations (ITOPs) services within outsourcing engagements to deliver[...]

NelsonHall recently attended a Genpact analyst forum in Boston, where we were keen to learn more about the changes in its strategy that Genpact announced in February to effect a major transformation of its business (see our blog “Genpact: Slow Progress on Transformation Strategy in 2013 - Unveils Next Phase of Plan: http://research.nelson-hall.com/blog/?avpage-views=blog&type=post&po[...]

Teleperformance has had an impressive quarter that might have resulted in 9.1% growth if it wasn't for the extremely unfavorable exchange rate fluctuations which resulted in an overall negative impact of €32.7m ($44.2m). Despite this Teleperformance achieved 3% y/y revenue growth in the quarter to €610m. Growth in the English-speaking market & Asia-Pacific SBU w[...]

Capgemini held its 2014 investor and analyst day this week. For the first time since the beginning of the 2008-2013 crisis, the company has talked about organic growth, a significant development on its focus in recent years on margin improvement. Capgemini’s guidance for 2014 is organic revenue growth of 2% to 4%. The company has now shared a mid-term target of 5% to 7% organic growth. This [...]

NelsonHall recently attended a NIIT analyst and advisor event in London. If we compare NIIT’s recent topline performance with some other IT services providers who report in Rupees, its revenue growth in FY 2014 of 14%  (to Rs. 23,050m, or just below $400m)  is on a par with Wipro (16%) and Hexaware (17%: of a similar size to NIIT, with Rs. 22,853m revenue in CY 2013), and far ou[...]

Convergys closed the acquisition of Stream on March 3, 2014. Its Q1 2014 reported results include contributions from Stream for the month of March. Revenue wsas $606m, up 23% y/y. Excluding the four week contribution of ~$86m from Stream, revenue was u- 5% y/y EBIT was $22m, an EBIT margin of 3.6%, down 376 bps y/y End of Q1 2014, combined footprint of contact cent[...]

Cielo is Pinstripe & Ochre House's new brand, launched last week at its Talent Rising client forum and analyst day. The rebrand has been expected since the merger six months ago of Pinstripe and Ochre House. From its key offerings of RPO, search and talent consulting services, the event focused on how to engage the wider business in the talent discussion as well as how servi[...]

Last week, U.K. law firm Optima Legal and its subsidiary Cost Advocates were granted an Alternative Business Structure (‘ABS’) license by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (‘SRA’), marking the entrance of BPO services provider Capita into the legal market. The acquisition of Optima by Capita is imminent. It will bring in new capabilities in reserved activities (propert[...]

Blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin – we know about our physical make up... what about our digital make up? What does our Code Halo say about us? And more importantly – who does it say it to? How is this “changing the rules”? Yesterday, Cognizant launched its book: Code Halos, which looks at the way in which our digital composition is changing the way industries operate. T[...]

Genpact’s acquisition of Pharmalink expands its capability to offer an increasingly important range of life sciences regulatory services, especially for the pharmaceutical majors. Pharmalink, a small but global player in this niche space, has established important relationships with several of the largest pharmaceutical companies since its inception around 15 years ago.&n[...]

NTT DATA Moves Away from Holding Company Approach to Be More Region-Centric as it Pursues International Growth NTT DATA Inc. recently held its first ever analyst day in Boston. For those readers who may not be fully up to date of where NTT DATA Inc. fits into the NTT DATA organization: NTT DATA Inc. is the North American subsidiary of Japanese-headquartered NTT DATA, the largest IT services [...]

GP Strategies is focused on global expansion. Its non-U.S. business accounted for 22% of global revenues in Q1 2014. Continued global deployment at its soon-to-be largest client HSBC will add to international growth this year. In Q1 2014 deployment of services to HSBC commenced in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Hong Kong. Additional geographies to be deployed in 2014[...]

Following a flurry of benefits administration activity in H2 2013 that focused on contract awards for corporate health exchanges for active employees, the first quarter of the year seemed to be just as busy for providers in both the U.S. and U.K. This is a strong stark contrast to H2 2013, when much of the activity in Q1 was focused on DC administration. Private sector activity outpaced pu[...]

Last week, MphasiS announced the launch of its next generation Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRS) service, in partnership with legal process outsourcing (LPO) provider Mindcrest, to its North American BFSI client base. Services within the scope of the offering include: Contract remediation Document review Consent order fulfillment Corporate compliance research. MphasiS will [...]

Last week, MphasiS announced the launch of its next generation Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRS) service, in partnership with legal process outsourcing (LPO) provider Mindcrest, to its North American BFSI client base. Services within the scope of the offering include: Contract remediation Document review Consent order fulfillment Corporate compliance research. MphasiS will [...]

Let's start with some positive takeaways about the performance of Xerox Services in Q1: The commercial healthcare BPO business experienced “strong” revenue growth and margin improvement ITO revenue was up 4.4% y/y and also saw margin improvement Document outsourcing was up 0.8%. Overall BPO revenue declined 1.9%, impacted by the runoff of the student loan contra[...]

TCS has announced that it has signed an agreement with Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) to merge TCS Japan, IT Frontier Corporation (ITF), MC’s 100% owned IT subsidiary, and Nippon TCS Solution Center (NTSC) as a single new entity in which TCS will have a majority 51% stake and MC 49%. The transaction is expected to close by end June 2014. The new entity will have over local 2,400 employe[...]