T-Systems recently held an analyst event which specifically covered the IoT capabilities of parent company Deutsche Telekom AG Group (DTAG) and its own Digital Division. Here are the key takeaways. IoT Connectivity Services IoT is clearly important for DTAG and for T-Systems for connectivity reasons: NelsonHall estimates that most of its IoT revenues come from traditional SIM c[...]

  Open banking is the concept that banks will open their platforms to third-parties for them to transact business with the banks’ customers and suppliers, and is required by regulations which are coming into force. Many advocates believe that this will spur innovation in financial services and create new business models. Here I look at the open banking landscape and at initial ef[...]

  The RPO market has traditionally been dominated by vendors who were established in the U.S., the U.K., or Australia, the first countries to embrace the concept of RPO. The majority of their clients were large organizations headquartered in those regions, who typically had high-volume permanent hiring requirements, and as those organizations expanded internationally, the RPO vend[...]

  We recently met with the senior management of Appirio, acquired by Wipro in November 2016, for an update on developments in 2017 and priorities for 2018. As part of Wipro, Appirio has been able to accelerate the development of its digital consulting units and its investment in IP and accelerators, working alongside Wipro’s industry units, and also to expand into other geographi[...]

  John Laherty, Senior Analyst with NelsonHall’s IT Services practice, talks about his recently completed global research project on ‘Next Generation End-User Computing Services’, which covers latest developments in build and run workplace services. Here he touches on EUCS market size and growth, key drivers, and major trends – including the shift towards person[...]

  With digital transformation continuing to disrupt and force change across industries, cloud technology is at the heart of that disruption and is providing business leaders with the vehicle to transform operations. And this trend has trickled down to HR, where leaders are challenged with more change and disruption than most can accommodate, given their current legacy HR infrastructure[...]

  The RPA sector is defined as one of rapid technological evolution, and every year it seems like what we thought to be bleeding-edge capability in January turns out to be proven and deployed technology long before year’s end. With this rapid pace of growth and maturation in mind, where might the RPA sector be by the end of 2018? Here are seven predictions. The first wave[...]

  To date, many digital transformation initiatives have been primarily focused on customer-facing technologies. Changing customer preferences and the rise of new digitally native competitors have driven incumbent firms to see customer experience as a source of competitive advantage or as table stakes to maintain relevance. In NelsonHall’s recent survey of IT service buyers across[...]

  In my predictions for the customer experience services industry a year ago, I noted that political risks will replace security concerns as the biggest external threat to the industry. Looking ahead to 2018, regulatory changes and government policies will have a lasting impact on the selection of delivery locations, country investment plans, and market presence. Here I take a closer l[...]

  As 2018 begins, the RPA sector is starting to produce more segment specialists from within its vendor base. Whereas just two years ago the sector was still finding its footing in addressing common back- and front-office application automation, enterprise customers today have the luxury of building best-of-breed solutions that often incorporate two or more vendors working in concert t[...]

  Here I look back at how M&A activity has impacted the IT services industry over the past year and make a few broad predictions for the type of activity to be expected in the next twelve months. 2016 had been marked by some large M&A announcements, with: Hardware companies moving out of services:  HPE announcing the sale of Enterprise Services to CSC (completed i[...]

  2017 has seen HR service providers rethinking their approach to tech development based on latest developments in the wider market. Firstly, developments in platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions have been core to driving what appears to be a seamless integration of talent technology/tools stacks. Secondly, software developers have changed their approach, focusing on user experience a[...]

  A key finding from NelsonHall’s recently published Next Generation Payroll Services market analysis is that buyers are now much more focused on automation and other forms of transformative technology that will drive digitalization of their HR operating models. In payroll, as elsewhere in HR, this increasingly takes the form of automating manual transactional tasks and[...]

  Recent NelsonHall interviews with the clients of the top ~20 global RPO vendors revealed that candidate communication was rated the most important vendor characteristic, with an importance score of 96%. However, the satisfaction score for candidate communication across all vendor clients was 82%, falling some way short of client expectations. Recognizing the importance of can[...]

  In something of a surprise move, Assystem Technologies (AT) recently announced its intention to acquire Germany-headquartered but LSE-listed SQS. AT is offering 825 pence per share, valuing SQS at £281m, and has secured (on an irrevocable basis) 31.4% of the shares of SQS from founders, executive management, and board members. This is a generous offer - 56% over SQS’ shar[...]

  David McIntire, IT Services Research Director, talks about NelsonHall's recently completed project looking at the attitudes and intentions of IT services buyers. Based on interviews with ~1,000 buyers across 17 industry sectors, the project analyses buyers' key business and IT priorities, digital initiatives, IT spending projections, and the characteristics they look for in&n[...]

  At the Intelligent Automation (IA) event in New Orleans, December 6-8, snow in the Big Easy air was not the only surprise. As expected, there was plenty of technological innovation on show in the exhibition hall, but the event also played host to some energized discussions on human-centric gains to be realized from RPA implementation – suggesting that we are indeed moving into [...]

  It has been 10 months since the announcement that Aon was divesting the businesses within its Outsourcing segment to private equity firm Blackstone, and 6 months since Alight was formally launched as a new company, which makes it an ideal time to review its progress and where it is headed in 2018. By all accounts, it was a smooth transition, with client retention remaining high.&n[...]

Atos has made an unsolicited offer for security, SIM cards, and payment cards technology vendor Gemalto. The offer is sizeable at €4.3bn (plus Gemalto’s net debt of €938m at end of H1 2017) financed in cash. It runs until December 15. Gemalto is another major acquisition for Atos: in its fiscal year ended June 30, 2017, Gemalto generated revenues of ~€3bn, with an EBITD[...]

  I recently attended HGS’ forum on the trends and challenges in CX for the European Consumer Packaged Goods (FMCG) market. In the company’s West London center, clients and prospects including Colgate, Danone, L’Oréal, Nespresso, Nomad Foods, and Mars discussed the ways customer service can drive ecommerce and augment sales. Digital as a force for disruption[...]