NelsonHall has commented several times on how vendors have been introducing AI into their QA/software testing activities; for example, to enhance defect analysis and prediction. We have talked less about the use of RPA because it did not seem to bring much innovation on top of what testing software products already offer. Testing software products have been around for over 20 year[...]

Finance & accounting is at the forefront of the application of RPA, with organizations attracted by its high volumes of transactional activity. Consequently, activities such as the movement and matching of data within purchase-to-pay have been a frequent start-point for organizational automation initiatives. Organizations starting on RPA are initially faced with the challenges of understand[...]

Last week, AntWorks provided analysts with a first preview of its new product ANTstein SQUARE, to be officially launched on May 3. AntWorks’strategy is based on developing full stack intelligent automation, built for modular consumption, and the company’s focus in 2019 is on: BOT productivity, defined as data harvesting plus intelligent RPA Verticalization. In particula[...]

It is a decade since Thierry Breton assumed the mantle of CEO and Chairman at Atos, his arrival marking the end of a troubled period for the company. In that time, the company has improved its profitability (when he arrived, its operating margin was just 4.8% and all service lines were experiencing a deterioration in profitability, so his ambition of a double-digit margin seemed ambitious). Al[...]

NelsonHall recently attended HIMSS19 in Orlando, Florida, the largest healthcare IT conference in the world, with over 45K delegates attending and 1.3K vendors in the exhibition. Here are three highlights from the many conversations we had about the state of the healthcare industry. Obstacles to improving CX The conversation about “consumer experience” in healthcare organizat[...]

  NelsonHall continues to examine the AI activities of major testing service vendors. In the past 18 months, many testing service vendors have expanded their AI capabilities around analytics, making sense of the wealth of data in production logs, defect-related applications, development tools, and in streamed social data. We recently talked with Expleo with regard to its AI-related [...]

The healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) BPS market is becoming technically more advanced as vendors experiment with RPA to drive greater efficiency and productivity, and to improve competitive positioning. Here I look at one such vendor, Access Healthcare, and the lessons they have learned from their own RPA initiatives. Access Healthcare generates ~$145m in revenue delivering RCM BPS[...]

  I recently attended the official opening of Infosys’ design center in Providence, Rhode Island. In 2017, Infosys committed to hire 10k workers in the U.S. by 2022. Part of that commitment is a plan to open six training and delivery centers across the U.S. intended to provide benefits including: Partnering with local colleges who have specific capabilities such as des[...]

  NelsonHall continues to explore how cognitive is reshaping software testing services, and here I look at how Amdocs is automating chatbot testing. The market is shifting from continuous testing to cognitive Over the last year, for many testing services providers, the focus evolved from creating continuous testing platforms (in the context of agile and DevOps adoption), to incor[...]

  This past week I had the opportunity to attend ADP rethink, its global HCM client event in Berlin, where the theme was "Transforming the Way the World Works." With many organizations undergoing massive change and transformation brought on by digitalization, the selection of Berlin as the backdrop seemed fitting given the deep history and massive change the city has experien[...]

  The banking industry cycle has turned towards austerity for 2019 as indicated by recent events, including: Labor cost cutting: State Street announced 1.5k executive layoffs, and Santander will close 20% of its bank branches in the U.K. Both are part of long-term trends incurred by automation and the shift to omni-channel delivery   M&A activity: Cost pressure is driv[...]

  Today’s announcement from Blue Prism covers new product capabilities, new service and design support services, and a new go-to-market framework that underscores the importance of automation as a means to enable legacy organizations to compete with 'born-digital' startups. Blue Prism’s announcement is equal parts perspective, product, and process. Let’s exami[...]

  IBM recently announced the first ‘commercial-ready’ quantum computer, the 20-qubit Q System One. The date is certainly worth recording in the annals of computing history. But, in much the same way that mainframes, micros, and PCs all began with an ‘iron launch’ and then required a long pragmatic use case maturity curve, so too will this initial offering from I[...]

  In a recent meeting with NIIT Technologies, we discussed how its Data & Analytics offering has been adapting, with a focus on developments around big data and AI. Here are the main talking points. Overcoming tool fragmentation One priority has been NIIT Tech’s Xpress Suite, one of Data & Analytics’ most popular offerings, which seeks to overcome the fragment[...]

  Platforms have been increasingly important in B2C digital transformation in recent years and have been used to disintermediate and create a whole raft of well-known consumer business opportunities. B2B platforms have been less evident during this period outside the obvious ecosystems built up in the IT arena by the major cloud and software companies. However, with blockchain now emer[...]

Yesterday morning, DXC announced its intended acquisition of Luxoft in an all cash transaction of $59 per share, around $2bn. This represents a 48% premium over Luxoft’s average closing share price over the previous ninety days (and ~86% premium on Friday’s closing price). The deal is expected to close by end June 2019. In recent years DXC (including as CSC) has made a number of[...]

  In this vlog Ivan Kotzev looks at CSS Corp’s digital experience suite Yodaa and how it unifies the company’s analytics, automation, and multichannel tools and models for digitalizing support.[...]

We recently had a briefing with Topcoder, an entity acquired by Wipro in 2016. Topcoder is known for its crowdsourcing capabilities and its extensive community network and recognized for the wide range of services it offers across several areas of technology services, with a focus on agile development, digital design, and algorithms/analytics. Topcoder’s four main operational principl[...]

  The challenge of rising healthcare costs in the U.S. has been obvious for decades. Or has it? Various interventions have been attempted, but health costs as a percentage of GDP are forecast to continue to climb. National U.S. healthcare expenditure as a percentage of GDP has risen from 17.2% in 2011 to 17.9% in 2017. In February 2018, the U.S. CMS Office of the Actuary estimated t[...]

  NelsonHall recently attended BearingPoint’s analyst event in Lisbon. As it starts its second decade with a new Managing Partner (Kiumars ‘Kiu’ Hamidian, only the second in the company’s history), the strategy that has served BearingPoint well in its first ten years is now evolving in ways that reflect significant developments in the nature of the consulting ma[...]