best practices Archive

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

In the services world, how can we create business value from the Internet of Things?  As I’ve blogged before, the IoT is replete with opportunities to apply the data flow among IoT devices to business processes and transform the world. Therefore, it should open an unending series of opportunities for service providers to create

Timing can be crucial. I recently blogged about trends that are powerful enough to drive substantial changes in the services industry, even to the point of restructuring the hierarchy of the industry. We at Everest Group believe these are very important trends and service providers must develop their strategies for reacting. Here is our

The cloud experiment is over and the debate in enterprises about its benefits and risks is settled. We know it works, it’s more flexible and cheaper, and it makes it easier for IT to align with business needs. So should buyers put their applications into a cloud environment? My advice: Don’t rearchitect your legacy

In a recent blog I noted that there is a new wave of shared services activity. But don’t dismiss that news with an assumption that new starts in shared services just means taking a slice of business away from third-party service providers. Here are my tips for shifting this potential business loss to a

The service provider community is very fond of clever terms, and SMAC — standing for Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud — is a good example of that. However, if you’re a service provider looking to sell to new or existing clients, talking about SMAC may not be the most productive way to hold the conversation.

Service providers often ask Everest Group for advice on how to grow their business faster. We usually find that their starting-point perspective has a pitfall. They fall for the seduction of new logos. The problem with this growth strategy is that it’s very difficult to win a brand new customer without “privilege.”  Privilege is

I talked recently with one of the biggest losers among service providers. They had just been through a competitive RFP process as the incumbent provider. They worked tirelessly to martial the firm’s resources to get both the external and internal sale and get executives lined up. Their sales team was engaged. There were a

Over the last five years the story of growth in the global services industry has been one of the rich getting richer. In fact, the larger tier-one firms, especially Cognizant and TCS, are growing faster than the marketplace. But I think it’s more notable, at this time when markets are maturing and growth is

One of my favorite quotes of American humorist Mark Twain is: “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” He knew the secret of creating effective content: less is more. This is absolutely the case when creating content for marketing your service offerings and capabilities.