Monthly Archive:: September 2015

Automation Introduces New Business Risks

Automation has the essentials for introducing different kinds of business risks and risk at a different order of magnitude. The new risks manifest differently and have greater consequences than in a normal business process. The issue is the difference between type 1 and type 2 errors. Type 1 error. This is a normal error

A Light Bulb Has to Want to Change

There’s an old joke that asks how many psychologists it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is it doesn’t matter; the light bulb has to want to change. I think this has a deep truth when applied to the services market. Almost every service provider looking for growth sees that capturing a

Demand Management Is Made Possible through as-a-Service Model

Demand management has been the unicorn of enterprise IT – something frequently talked about but rarely seen and never captured. Every centralized IT organization would love the ability to accurately manage user demand. It would provide tremendous return if it were possible; but to date it has been largely or completely thwarted in large

Automation Bias

We’re at an inflection point in the ITO and BPO services world where we’re about to see a new level of technology: automation. On the whole, automation is a good thing. But there are some significant aspects we should be aware of. One is automation bias. And it’s dangerous. When we move to automation,

How Are Automation Services like Christmas?

The industry is abuzz with enthusiastic discussions around the potential for robotics, cognitive computing, and robotic process automation (RPA). You can’t go to a conference – whether it’s IT, BPO, or shared services – without hearing a vigorous and spirited discussion around service delivery automation (SDA). Given the promise of SDA for people replacement,

Why Is HP Breaking Up?

I’ve been blogging about why certain companies such as Accenture, ADP, and TCS are such successful service providers. In contrast, let’s look at HP and examine why it’s breaking up. I’ve explained in prior blogs that the most successful companies have six operational elements aligned, as shown in the Everest Group assessment framework below.