featured posts:

• Establishing Digital Banks Requires Commitment and a Clear Roadmap

  Feb 03, 2020, by Andy Efstathiou

    Banks have been aggressively transforming their operations to a digital delivery model. It is well known that a key driver, across all industries, is the need to attract new, primarily young, customers who prefer omnichannel interaction with vendors and demand high-quality CX in their business interactions. Less well known are two key drivers that make speedy transformation imperativ[...]

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• NIIT Technologies Delivers Digital Transformation with Capacity & Capability at Speed and Scale

  Oct 10, 2019, by Andy Efstathiou

    At its 2019 Engage Client Forum last week, NIIT Technologies explained how it is adapting to a continuously changing business and technology environment to deliver digital transformation for its clients. At its 2019 Engage Client Forum, NIIT Technologies explained how it is adapting to a continuously changing business and technology environment to deliver digital transformation fo[...]

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• Infosys Accelerates BFS Growth in NA with Platform-Based Digital Services Sales

  Sep 17, 2019, by Andy Efstathiou

    At the 2019 Infosys Confluence North American event last week, we spoke with execs about how Infosys has been driving accelerated growth in the BFSI sector in North America. Most of Infosys’ revenues in BFSI are in Banking and Financial (BFS) services, where the recent growth been based on the following major activities: Installations of Finacle: in the past two years, Fi[...]

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• HCL’s EXACTO Intelligent Automation Streamlines Bank Trade Processing

  Jul 16, 2019, by Andy Efstathiou

    The BFSI industries are increasingly looking to intelligent automation (IA) to address key challenges in their business. A recent NelsonHall survey of 50 BFSI executives found that they perceive that IA is able to replace manual processing and human decision-making, allowing the bank’s operations to decouple processing volumes from headcount. Key benefits respondents expect to [...]

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• The Characteristics of Successful Blockchain Deployments in Banking

  Jul 01, 2019, by Andy Efstathiou

    Blockchain has been a focus of technologists, VCs, and media pundits for several years now. However, to date, operational deployment remains minimal. Of all enterprises already working with blockchain, only a few percent have a scale operational deployment. Blockchain has seen three stages in its short history: Lab testing of the technology: 2014 to 2016. Key events include the[...]

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• TCS Focuses on Human Challenge to Drive Enterprise Digital Transformation

  May 16, 2019, by Andy Efstathiou

  NelsonHall recently attended the TCS Innovation Forum 2019 in New York. The forum demonstrated clear progress in TCS’ thinking and approach to Business 4.0 since last year’s conference – TCS has identified human engagement and buy-in with the principles of Business 4.0 as critical to successful implementation and value realization in business transformation. And human buy-in [...]

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• EY Becomes a Services Delivery Orchestrator with wavespace

  May 08, 2019, by Andy Efstathiou

    NelsonHall recently attended the EY Global Analyst Summit in Boston. EY has grown its revenues at 8.5% CAAGR over the past five years, while investing heavily in technology and adapting its business model to become an IP-based services vendor rather than a provider of pure labor-based services.  Here I take a quick look at EY’s wavespace offering and how it is being use[...]

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• WNS Targets Mid-Tier Enterprises to Co-Create Digital Transformation

  Apr 29, 2019, by Andy Efstathiou

    I recently attended the WNS influencer conference in New Orleans, the theme of which was 'Co-create to Outperform’. WNS believes that the marketplace understands what transformation means for their businesses, but the challenge is how to achieve this vision. WNS’ view is that, for transformation to be effective, it needs to be customized for the client with their full[...]

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• Infosys’ Model for Delivering Differentiated Digital Skills

  Feb 19, 2019, by Andy Efstathiou

    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[...]

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• 5 Key Growth Segments for Banking ITS & BPS in 2019

  Jan 31, 2019, by Andy Efstathiou

    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[...]

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• Wipro Drives Digital & Automation Growth with 4 Big Bets

  Dec 06, 2018, by Andy Efstathiou

  The primary purpose of Wipro'ss Digital & Big Bets Analyst Relations day in Boston at the end of November was to outline its digital and automation strategy, including presenting some startup partners Wipro is working with (and has invested in through Wipro Ventures) to help drive forward this strategy. Wipro believes its key technology bets will enable it to help clients reinvent thei[...]

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• Infosys’ Digital Services Strategy for Banking & Financial Services

  Oct 11, 2018, by Andy Efstathiou

  I recently attended the Infosys Confluence event in California to look at the vendor’s activities in banking & financial services (BFS). Here are the key takeaways. Under its current CEO, Infosys has taken a new software-agnostic approach to digital business, which is yielding results. Infosys has proprietary platforms, including Finacle, for core banking and NIA for AI. However, [...]

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• Virtusa’s Open Innovation Platform: Enabling Curated Access to FinTech Vendors

  Sep 19, 2018, by Andy Efstathiou

  This is the latest in a recent series of blogs on open banking, which is likely to become the biggest driver of change in the banking industry since double-entry bookkeeping swept the industry in Genoa during the 1300s. I recently talked with Virtusa’s xLabs, a digital innovation hub within Virtusa, about their approach to open banking and what their roadmap is for the future. Open In[...]

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• TCS Takes Agile Value Stream Approach to Bank Enterprise Transformation

  Sep 18, 2018, by Andy Efstathiou

    I recently attended the TCS Business 4.0 conference in Boston to understand TCS’ latest developments in the BFSI sector. Here are the key takeaways. BFSI represented 32.5% of TCS’ Q2 2018 revenues and generated $7.7bn in revenue over the latest twelve months. TCS reports 20% of BFSI revenues are derived from its digital offerings, with BFSI clients adopting digital tec[...]

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• TCS: Advances in KYC Processing Require a Comprehensive Approach to Data Management

  Aug 23, 2018, by Andy Efstathiou

    Since the financial crisis, regulators have been tightening the KYC processes banks are required to undertake. Enhanced KYC requirements have been applied across many regulations, including MiFID, PSD2, and ultimate beneficial ownership requirements (U.S. CDD Rule). And, as compliance requirements have increased, banks have spent increasing amounts of time and resources on addressing[...]

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• Capgemini’s Digital Banking Strategy Focused on Tier One Legacy Transformation

  Jun 01, 2018, by Andy Efstathiou

    I recently attended the Capgemini Financial Services Industry Conference in London, also meeting up with several banks to learn more about where they are spending their digital services money, what they are looking for from digital projects, and where the market is headed. Bank demand for digital services has grown and matured over the past few years. In 2015 and 2016, IT services[...]

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• Atos Makes €4.3bn Unsolicited Offer for Gemalto; Another Bold but Challenging Move

  Dec 13, 2017, by Dominique Raviart

  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[...]

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• Adventures in Blockchain: Mphasis Focuses on Client Revenue Growth, Supporting Compelling Use Cases

  Dec 12, 2017, by Andy Efstathiou

    In this article, I look at Mphasis’ Blockchain initiatives and at the segments they are focusing on for further development with their financial services clients. Mphasis began its Blockchain initiatives in 2016, initiating internal experiments and POCs to understand the technology and how it can be applied to business challenges. Mphasis is working with a global financial s[...]

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• Adventures in Blockchain: Capgemini Focuses on Helping Clients Develop Their Roadmap

  Oct 25, 2017, by Andy Efstathiou

  In this blog, I look at Capgemini’s Blockchain initiatives and what segments they are focusing on for further development with their financial services clients. Initially, Blockchain engagements were focused on:  Using POCs to develop an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of distributed ledger technology (DLT) Developing business use cases, trying POCs to d[...]

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• Digital Services Drive Capgemini’s Financial Services Industry Engagements

  Sep 28, 2017, by Andy Efstathiou

    NelsonHall recently attended Capgemini’s financial services analyst conference in Boston, where the company discussed its activities and roadmap for the industry, which is focused on digital services. Here I look at how digital services are now driving Capgemini’s financial services business, with client examples. Capgemini’s shift to digital financial services [...]

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• Adventures in Blockchain: Virtusa Focuses on Security & Privacy Issues in Permission-Based Environments

  Aug 31, 2017, by Andy Efstathiou

  Most Blockchain use cases have focused on reducing the need for (and cost of) infrastructure. And in Virtusa’s case, the vendor has focused on engagements where it can combine Blockchain technology with other emerging technologies such as QR codes, IoT, and encryption algorithms to deliver enhanced security and cost savings for environments lacking adequate supporting infrastructure. Her[...]

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• Adventures in Blockchain: TCS Focuses on the Building Blocks of a Successful Blockchain Ecosystem

  Jul 11, 2017, by Andy Efstathiou

  Many Blockchain services vendors have observed that up to 75% of proofs of concept for Blockchain fail to meet their goals. Analysis of drivers for such widespread failure indicates that the initial use case was flawed because it was constructed to justify experimentation rather than solve business challenges. However, TCS has focused its Blockchain efforts on developing uses cases that can dr[...]

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• Amelia Enhances its Emotional, Contextual, and Process Intelligence to Outwit Chatbots

  Jul 05, 2017, by John Willmott

  IPSoft's Amelia   NelsonHall recently attended the IPSoft analyst event in New York, with a view to understanding the extent to which the company’s shift into customer service has succeeded. It immediately became clear that the company is accelerating its major shift in focus of recent years from autonomics to cognitive agents. While IPSoft began in autonomics in support o[...]

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• Avaloq Combines Tech & Ops Delivery to Help Wealth Managers Slip the Surly Bonds of Legacy Environments

  Jun 27, 2017, by Andy Efstathiou

    I recently attended the Avaloq client conference in Zurich. The conference was well attended, with ~400 attendees. Avaloq is on a roll, adding clients across offerings and markets for the past several years. Here I outline how they are doing it and what their next steps are. Background Avaloq is a privately held vendor of technology-based solutions and services to the financial[...]

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• Adventures in Blockchain: Wipro Focuses on Rapid Innovation with Ethereum & Hyperledger

  May 12, 2017, by Andy Efstathiou

  This is the second in a series of blogs on current activities, use cases, POCs, and pilots with Blockchain in the financial services industry. In this one, I look at some of what Wipro is doing to support banks and financial services companies in deploying Blockchain solutions. Blockchain technology & services Wipro has been active for the past three years in offering Blockchain cons[...]

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