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Category: Business Data Services
From People to Tech arbitrage: Can we really survive this Great Services Transition?
We are in the S-Curve evolution from People to Technology Arbitrage, that the Generative Enterprise demands. This is truly the Great Services Transition, where the entire financial construct of services relationships is being reinvented to capitalize on the complex new ecosystem of AI platform players, hyperscalers, data integration products, automation tools, LLM builders, and so on. Enterprises must address their debts in these four areas which have likely collected over the last 30+ years: People debt, Process debt, Data debt and Technical debt.Read More
India’s bloated IT services firms must learn from their startups to avoid GenAI meltdown
Having just spent a lovely week in India leading an HFS special event in Mumbai, followed by speaking at the Nasscom Technology Leadership Forum, I was overwhelmed with concern that so many leaders in India's services industry really have no concept of what is going to hit them. Indian support services could lose a million positions over the next couple of years as LLMs rapidly change how routine IT testing and coding work are delivered.Read More
HFS is intrepid… apparently
Leading marketing strategy firm Antics has positioned HFS Research as "Intrepid" in a recent analysis of the leading tech analyst firms. Read More
Accenture, Capgemini, Genpact, IBM, Infosys, TCS—the F&A entourage leading the way to Horizon 3 outcomes
HFS conducted an exhaustive research exercise into 15 of the key service providers in the latest Horizons report on F&A Service Providers, 2023, by diving deep into the capabilities of each and how they have contributed to the changing F&A landscape over the last year. Read More
Disrupt or be disrupted: The soaring pace of innovation in payments
HFS launches its first-ever cards and payments Horizons report. Payments demonstrate the fastest innovation cycles in BFS and are in a constant state of disruption as digital models decimate the cost and data intelligence capabilities of legacy systems. Payments-industry shifts are forcing incumbents to work harder to capture growth, pick up the pace of digitization, gain economies of scale, and manage risk—all while contributing to innovation. These demands can be overwhelming, but the potential for growth and innovation in the payments space is real. Therefore, attracting new players in great numbers, crowding the market, and raising the competitive stakes.Read More
The hegemony-obsessed platform economy is scouting for credible provider partners
The last decade-plus has seen the ascendancy of platform businesses like Uber, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Spotify and today, six of the top 10 global businesses by market capitalization are platform businesses. The Services for the Platform Economy, 2023 Horizons report covers seven notable providers helping their platform clients efficiently run operations, expand business, and realize value.Read More
IBM’s acquisition of Apptio can shine if IBM Software and IBM Consulting work together to deliver cost-managed innovation at speed
HFS believes this is a good deal for both IBM and Apptio. IBM didn’t have much spend data; therefore, there is little overlap in terms of products. The ambition is bold. But the Holy Grail of operations is having an operational single pane of glass that includes automation and AI. If IBM can integrate all those acquisitions and get all that telemetry data out of its often highly specific domains, it can achieve strong differentiation in the market. Conversely, Apptio had hit a sales plateau as it struggled to scale its sales reach. Getting $4.6bn for hitting a plateau is too good an opportunity to turn down.Read More
IBM Watson missed the AI revolution, but Watsonx could become the heartbeat of the Generative Enterprise
IBM unveiled its multi-model and multi-cloud Watsonx to drive AI-first enterprises - what we are calling "The Generative Enterprise" at HFS. IBM is describing the platform as a "full technology stack" for training, tuning, and deploying AI models, including foundation and large language models while ensuring tight data governance controls. In our view, Watsonx is the first enterprise-grade offering to address the Generative Enterprise holistically. Here’s our interpretation of WatsonxRead More
Who’s leading the pack for strategic finance services?
The HFS Strategic Finance Horizons report analyzes services provider capabilities shaping the financial planning and analysis industry and their proven capabilities to help their enterprise customers access critical financial data at speed. HFS assessed 13 major service providers' prowess in the strategic areas of FP&A. Read More
2023 is the year of ‘The Autonomous Enterprise’ as economics trigger change
Inflation-driven pressures will likely culminate in a huge wave of job reductions, sparking the demand for autonomous technologies to fill the voidRead More
