Peter Bendor-Samuel Archive

I don’t know about your company’s situation; but having looked at literally hundreds of outsourcing contracts, I see that they all have something in common. The original intent was a one-time shift to transform and improve an operational aspect. Unfortunately, IT outsourcing contracts sort of poured concrete around the outsourced processes. Thus, the quest

What if the foundations upon which your company built its business shift suddenly and you’re forced to reevaluate long-established strategies and investments? That’s the situation as the business world embraces digital technologies and digital business models. Accompanying this disruption is the inconvenient truth that most companies fail to overcome the huge challenges and achieve

Businesses are moving into a software-defined world with usage-based service contracts and an “Everything-as-a-Service” ecosystem of providers. But there’s a problem: Contracts have not kept up with the desire to buy things in an as-a-service model in an ecosystem. Thus, the contracts provide no accurate way to account for usage adjustments that need to

Hackathons, or hackfests, are getting a lot of buzz for being a collaborative, crowdsourced way of generating new product or service ideas. Sometimes they’re even touted for ideas that drive change and create a competitive advantage. But if that’s what you have in mind for a hackathon at your company, prepare for a letdown.

Any emerging technology goes through a hype stage. It takes a while to get the kinks out and for pilots and proofs of concepts to prove use cases and shift the curve to broad adoption. The power and disruption of blockchain is evident in the news almost daily, and people are beginning to understand

Every senior executive recognizes that digital disruptions are both a huge potential blessing and an enormous threat. Companies can be Uberized out of existence, as is happening with taxi cabs. Or like Amazon, companies can create whole new offerings and competitive advantage. GE uses the power of the Internet of Things to create a

What makes digital technologies so different and disruptive is their potential to enable very substantial business benefits. “Enable” is the key word. Too often, executives see the power of a technology and reason to themselves, “This technology will create significant benefits, so we need to implement it and learn how to use it to

There is a do-it-yourself (DIY) movement building in the services space. At Everest Group, we continually track the number of Global In-house Center (GIC) startups, and the number is accelerating. Along with new startups, existing GICs (formerly known as “captives,” or enterprise shared-services organizations in low-cost areas) are expanding their scope. In this post,

If you’re a CIO or other executive tasked with leading a digital transformation project, chances are high that you’re left-brained oriented — you’re a logical thinker and are very good at solving problems. But be careful when you develop the approach to the transformation. Inevitably you’ll be asked “What’s the solution?” and “What does

It’s no surprise that companies are diving into digital. When combined with new business models, digital technologies not only result in extreme efficiencies but also set the stage for the ability to change a company’s competitive posture. We’re seeing markets transform as they rotate into digital. Moving into the digital world drives two effects.