Monthly Archive:: December 2014

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave When First We Practice to Deceive

As I recently looked at service providers’ PowerPoint decks pitching their as-a-service offering, the well-known tangled-web-we-weave quote from Sir Walter Scott’s 1808 poem “Marmion” came to mind. It’s very clear that the industry is interested in moving to platform services. And it’s a fabulous idea — great content reduced cost, agility and focus on

The Reason for Joy This Season

I’ve observed an unusual acceleration of new activity here at the end of the year — a season when global services initiatives activity traditionally tapers off dramatically. It looks like this year the industry is getting a big Christmas / New Year’s present of accelerating sales. What’s the reason for this strong uptick in

The Illusion of Services Growth in the Midmarket

As the services industry struggles more and more with growth, providers naturally think: “We’ve saturated the large clients, so let’s go to the midmarket clients. After all, there are so many more midmarket companies than large ones. So if we can sell to midmarket companies, happy days are here again. We can reignite our

Infosys is Different

What a difference a few months with a new CEO makes. Things are different at Infosys today. When we talk with them, it’s clear that it’s a different organization than it was a few months ago because of Vishal Sikka, the new CEO. On one level, very little has changed; but on another level,

The Golden Rule in the Services World

One of life’s realities is that he who has the gold makes the rules. I mention this because it’s now affecting the global services world and providers need to be aware of how the rule impacts their business. Over the last three years we’ve seen companies task their CIOs and shared services organizations with

Consequences of Pressuring Service Providers to Reduce Price

As we work with service providers across the industry, a theme we hear increasingly is the buyers’ unrelenting pressure on providers to reduce price. The pressure is exacerbated by the growth slowdown in the industry. I believe this pricing pressure will soon show up in providers’ financial performance with decreased earnings per share. The

Three Possible Directions for Contact Center Outsourcing

The contact center outsourcing (CCO) marketplace is mature. It’s a large market, and companies across a wide number of industries and geographies use the services. The market is now $70-75 billion, which is approximately 20 percent penetrated by third-parties vendors and 80 percent by in-house captives. Now that this space is mature, what will

Trends Reshaping the BPO Marketplace

The BPO segment of the services marketplace has been undergoing significant change in its growth trends. As we lean into 2015, here’s a look at how and where BPO is experiencing the biggest growth. Industry-specific offerings lead growth, and horizontal BPO growth comes from newer segments.  Industry-specific segments The industry-specific segments are growing significantly