Category: SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and BPaaS
What are Business Platforms and why they represent the future of outsourcing
The ability to develop some best-in-class processes as "Business Platforms", whether they focus on horizontal or vertical process clusters, is becoming a real differentiator in the market, as buyers seek more standardized solutions from their outsourcing engagements. The gauntlet being laid out to providers, with these Business Platforms, is their ability to support their clients’ transitions quickly and inexpensively. Simply selling “products” is not the concept of business platforms – it is the provider’s ability to work with their customers to facilitate and support the ultimate business outcomes of managing the processes associated with the Business Platform offering.Read More
Satisfying customers’ needs profitably: can marketing BPO revive marketeers?
CMOs have it tough today, whichever geography or market you look at. They’re stretching dollars for myriad activities in a function that’s undergoing major change. HfS Research's Reetika Joshi discusses her new report "Marketing BPO Services: Solving the CMO’s Dilemma"Read More
A big cat for a big job: meet Tiger (Part III)
The final installment of our recent discussion between HfS CEO Phil Fersht and Genpact's new President and CEO, NV “Tiger” Tyagarajan, which delves into Tiger's vision for the future of technology and BPO. Read More
Double-Dip Dynamics, Part II: The new tenets of outsourcing – process standardization, global flexibility and better technology
What is motivating buyers to outsource in this current climate? While eliminating cost is still is a huge fundamental, buyers are even more focused on achieving greater flexibility to scale their global operations as a prime motivating factor. Clearly, many executives are getting more experienced and skilled at driving an sourcing initiative, and are confident they can use the endeavor as a change agent to promote and implement much-needed change in their businesses.Read More
Want to get smart about sourcing for Cloud?
This report authored by HfS Research and Loeb&Loeb provides both Business-function and IT executives with a detailed assessment of Cloud adoption strategies, an analysis of business benefits, concerns, challenges and contractual issues that need to be addressed and discusses the key service providers provisioning Cloud Computing services in today’s market.Read More
Will a Double-Dip Recession reverse the trend of buyers “delaying outsourcing” during a slump? Here are 10 factors to consider…
Organizations have always been wary of outsourcing during recessions. While today it delivers cost-reduction to clients in spades (proven emphatically during our recent state-of-outsourcing study), many organizations have proven, in the past, to push it down the priority-list of radical cost-reduction measures, when they fear for their very existence. However, with the threat of a "Double-Dip" recession very much a grim reality, HfS believes this cycle is likely to be broken.Read More
Meet The Don of BPO (Part 1)
As IBM's Donniel Schulman's reputation and influence in the BPO industry has grown in recent years, we've finally persuaded the chirpy New Yorker to share some of his story since IBM entered the BPO industry via its 2002 acquisition of PwC ConsultingRead More
The biggest political threat (yet) to the outsourcing industry
The Swiss, in their typically punctilious fashion, now have an "Anti-PowerPoint Party" with the self-stated goal of having the number of boring PowerPoint presentations on the planet to decrease and the average presentation to become more exciting and more interesting.Read More
The undisputed facts about outsourcing, Part 4: Mid-market buyers are enjoying better outsourcing outcomes than enterprises
Outsourcing of IT and business process has always been a game for large enterprises, where well-executed large-scale employee transitions have resulted in profitable endeavors for both providers and buyers. But while the large buyers like saving the money, it’s actually mid-market sector ($1bn-$3bn revenues) which is getting a lot more out of the experienceRead More
The undisputed facts about outsourcing, Part 1: Buyers are saving money, but aren’t seeing a whole lot more
Whatever the motives buyers have when they outsource, the first critical metric they must reach is to save the money they were promised at the onset of the engagement. And we have spectacularly good news for the entire outsourcing industry - the cost savings targets are being met - and being met well, with over 95% of current buyers viewing the engagements as effective for reducing their operating costs. However, that's pretty much where the good news tapers off, as the rest of the results are pretty modestRead More