HRO has been one of the most active markets for acquisitions in recent years and 2015 was no exception, with ~30 acquisitions across all HRO service lines (up from 25 in 2014). M&A activity in benefits administration has remained high, while RPO acquisitions have become increasingly aggressive year-on-year. However, payroll M&As have also been ticking along nicely. One notable event was Ev[...]

There has been a recent spate of acquisitions and partnerships among Financial Services BPS vendors which reveals interesting trends. These include the following deals from 2015: HCL and CSC: Two JVs were formed, whereby HCL will operate and expand the existing Core Banking business of CSC. The first JV will focus on account management and delivery governance while the second [...]

NelsonHall’s latest Customer Management Services market analysis report, ‘Targeting CMS in High Tech’, identifies the need for increased customer service quality as the number one market driver. This is followed closely by cost reduction in second place, with increased revenue generation (through subscription sales, renewals, and paid-for technical support) third. The report a[...]

The biggest advantage of automation in CMS has been the ability to simplify, optimize and remove redundant workflow steps in the contact centers’ internal processes with the goal of improving the customer experience, and an end-game for vendors of increasing the number of value-add projects with their clients. Wipro’s Marvel CX is aiming to do exactly that. Marvel CX’s compone[...]

The U.S. healthcare payer BPS market is relatively mature, but is also shifting towards changes driven primarily by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the growing Medicaid and Medicare population, and advancements in technology offerings. Activity is primarily driven by the need for claims administration support with the use of automation services, member engagement services, and improved clinical ana[...]

CISQ and Structural Quality The Consortium for IT Software Quality (CISQ) recently made an announcement related to software quality. CISQ is a relatively young organization, founded in 2009 by Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute (the organization that initiated the CMM process standards) and a slightly lesser-known organization, Object Management Group (OMG), an IT standard t[...]

Candidate and employee engagement is often referred to as a key priority for HR leaders, and while there’s a lot of activity going on to address this, the indications are that more needs to be done. In its latest white paper, Workforce Horizons, Capita reflects on the issues and challenges HR and resourcing leaders must overcome as they attempt to impact the bottom line, and high on the l[...]

The first working day in 2016 started with the announcement of the appointment of Abid Neemuchwala as CEO of Wipro, with TK Kurien’s elevation to Executive Vice Chairman, still reporting directly to Azim Premji. Today’s announcement was not a huge surprise; Neemuchwala’s arrival from TCS in March 2015 as COO was perhaps more unexpected in that he was an external appointment, a[...]

It is three years since Tech Mahindra finalized its merger with Satyam, a challenging journey of 18 months, to diversify its client base from BT (29% of revenues in Q3 FY 2013), the telecom services overall and from Europe (its then largest vertical by far, representing 46% of revenues). At the Tech Mahindra indicated several ambitious targets for CY 2015: Reaching $5bn in annual revenues by[...]

Reflecting slightly improved macro-economic conditions, 2015 was an active year for M&A activity in the IT services industry. The largest acquisition - for some years - was that of IGATE by Capgemini. And there was a large number of small to mid-sized transactions. When analyzing this active M&A activity, several findings are striking: In spite of all the intensive discu[...]

This is the second of three articles examining M&A activity in IT services during 2015. Last time we looked at how M&A activity was being driven by $10bn to $15bn vendors. This time we take a look at M&A around newer service offerings and digital transformation. The firms that are acquiring capabilities in digital services are vendors in good financial health that have mostly alre[...]

I recently presented at the CCA’s annual Convention in Glasgow, Scotland. One of the key themes was ‘The Digital Game’, with sessions examining how organizations are responding to demand for digital customer services as part of the ongoing transition from call to contact centers. The future of customer engagement was illustrated using examples of newer channel usage, including vi[...]

In NelsonHall’s 2015 RPO Market Analysis report, innovation was identified as a key vendor selection criterion. RPO clients are increasingly seeking vendors who will continually introduce new ideas and recommend new services, with continuous process improvement. However, in our parallel RPO NEAT vendor evaluation study, when we interviewed clients of 15 leading RPO vendors, ‘innovat[...]

Since the first customer and marketing databases in the 80s, to the fully-fledged CRM platforms of the 90s, to the cloud-based CRMs of the 00s and the Social CRM of the 2010s, CRM platforms have had the same goal and challenge – to successfully match customers with companies. With the proliferation of more channels, and changing customer expectations for effortless and real-time interaction,[...]

Over the last few years, social media has gradually achieved a small, but highly significant place within customer care and sales channels. CMS providers jumped to provide solutions as early as 2010-2011, but not until recently have these solutions reached a maturity level that has enabled them to go beyond simple monitoring of comments, posts and tweets. Aegis developed its proprietary social [...]

Workday’s latest announcement of its expanded partnership with ADP focuses on a combination of technology and service; MNCs on Workday can now include ADP’s global payroll offering within one user experience. Through the partnership: MNCs can use ADP’s global payroll functionality from within Workday's user interface in one process for managing their glob[...]

In this, the third and final blog in this series on BPO automation, I take a look at where the BPO market currently stands and where it’s going next. Well, the use of workflow and platforms to surround and supplement the client’s core systems has been well-established for a period of years. BPO has worked relatively well in these environments. The vendors largely have process models[...]

There is currently a huge amount of hype around use of automation in BPO, and many commentators seem to forget that the early BPO contracts were often driven by organizations with inadequate/creaking legacy IT systems using BPO as an enabler to combine replacement of legacy systems with an operations and process improvement layer. These early transformations were also frequently seen by both cl[...]

In my previous blog on automation in BPO, I argued that, despite all the hype, the current implementation of robotics process automation (RPA) is little more than a labor arbitrage play, enabling the business to run with increased efficiency using existing technology and offshoring frameworks. So where does automation in BPO go from here? RPA is essentially execution of repeatable, rule-based t[...]

In Q2 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, changing the definition of who can be considered a fiduciary to a retirement account or plan. The rule, which is currently in a comment period and should be implemented by Q2 2016, extends fiduciary responsibility to advisors, many of whom are currently under a less strict suitability standard of care. The U.S. govern[...]