Monthly Archive:: February 2014

What If CSC and HCL Get Brave?

CSC and HCL announced an alliance a few weeks ago, which is more of a go-to-market than structural change. But what if the twosome were to agree to a follow-on alliance to do something really big — something with huge industry and market consequences? It would be extremely brave and very risky. But it

The Ethical Dilemma of Service Provider Innovation

I must confess I look askance at how some services customers think. They want to keep their cake and eat it too. But it’s batty and preposterous to think you can have something both ways if the two ways conflict. We’re seeing schizophrenia in the marketplace. Customers look to the provider community for insight

The ABCs of WNS

The jury’s in — the back-to-basics strategy is working at WNS. The results of this strategy pop out in its FQ3-14 earnings report. Net revenue increased 5 percent to $120 million. Gross profit increased 16 percent year over year to $45 million. SG&A expense went down four percent. Adjusted earnings per share rose to

Notable Numbers: Payment Companies Outperform in BPO

If you owned stock in major BPO companies in 2013, you’re happy, as most of them outperformed the S&P stock market. But you’re a really happy stockholder if you invested in payment transaction companies — those returns are almost twice as sweet as most of the other BPO stocks! As a group, payment transaction

CSC’s Path: One to Watch

Under new CEO Mike Lawrie, CSC’s well-publicized turnaround is showing increased momentum. He put CSC on a new path, and that strategic shift shows modest improvement in margins. But they still have a big wrinkle to iron out — despite increased profits, CSC’s revenue has been flat to down. The question is: Will the

Infosys Makes a Turnaround, but Has Miles to Go Before It Sleeps

INFY’s December 2013 quarterly report demonstrates that Murthy’s back-to-basics strategy is starting to show fruit with Infosys upping its guidance for both revenue and earnings. Its year-over-year revenue growth of 9.8 percent is encouraging; however, when we compare it to the performance of industry leaders TCS and Cognizant, it is clear that there is

We Don’t Get Innovation

The lack of innovation from service providers is a constant and mournful refrain echoing around the industry. This plaintive and mournful dirge reminds me of Sisyphus, who was cursed to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it tumble back down, never achieving satisfaction. Likewise, the unending efforts of service providers

Rethinking Outsourced Application Development and Testing

The cloud revolution is breaking down walls surrounding existing outsourcing arrangements. In fact, the business case for some outsourced workloads crumbles in light of opportunities in the cloud. In a traditional data center or IT outsourced infrastructure model, you pay for the capacity 24/7; but in a cloud environment, you pay only for what

HP’s Most Difficult Challenge Has Yet to Hit

To date the cloud has not been a major disruption in the traditional outsourcing market. Rather, cloud has attacked the rogue IT or departmental processing market. But we believe that this tide will now turn inward onto the enterprise space, where HP and other infrastructure players live. How will HP take on cloud disruption?