Category: In The News

Indian Travellers are Chasing Cheap Chills this Winter | In the News

This winter holiday, more and more Indian travellers seem to be chasing cheap chills.

Hotel chain and room aggregator OYO has seen a 104% rise from the last season in bookings for hotels in cold destinations, like hill stations Mussoorie and Shimla. Reservations in warm destinations—Goa, Puducherry—are up 66%, according to data provided by OYO.

OYO’s data on travel patterns “broadly represents the Indian market in general,” Yugal Joshi, vice-president of Texas-based consulting and research firm Everest Group, told Quartz. “People are travelling more, they’re spending more on travel, which is a reflection of our growing economy in general.”

Read more in Quartz India

5 IT Job Trends to Watch in 2019 | In the News

One of the most important – and unfortunately enduring – IT job market trends for CIOs to monitor is the continued chasm between technology talent demand and supply. Computer-related jobs are expected to grow at the faster-than-average rate of 12 percent through 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In just two years, BLS predicted, there will be 1.4 million open technology jobs but only 400,000 new computer science graduates nationwide. That’s causing many IT leaders to get more involved in STEM issues to address this long-term problem.

Next-gen skills hiring needs to pick up

Enterprise IT leaders say they want to leverage their own internal talent to develop competitive differentiators, says Yugal Joshi, vice president of Information Technology Services for Everest Group. However, despite these aspirations of enterprises, their hiring hasn’t kept pace, he says.

Read more in The Enterprisers Project

2018 was the Year India’s Startups Decided to go Global | In the News

Having thrived at home for nearly a decade, India’s startup scene went global in 2018.

Ola, the country’s largest homegrown ride-hailing firm, set the ball rolling in January when it drove into Perth, Australia. Soon, hotels chain OYO followed in a big way. The country’s newest unicorn, Byju’s, has also announced its international plans for early 2019.

Needless to say, there are serious risks to such global expansion dream.

“Internet is the foundation of their business, but they are as offline as any other business. Some have to form alliances with drivers, some with local sellers, some with educational institutes, restaurants, etc,” said Yugal Joshi, vice-president at Texas-based consulting firm Everest Group. “Though they can port their technology platform to these markets, they cannot create these alliances overnight. They aren’t Netflix which just has to stream existing content and can do easily in newer markets. These firms need a robust offline operating model to work.”

Read more in Quartz India

Digital Transformation Reality Check: 10 Trends | In the News

Looking back at the last decade of digital transformation – the use of technology to radically improve performance or change the enterprise – the one constant has been an ongoing shift in focus and priorities. Looking forward to 2019, a number of trends are emerging that IT leaders will want to consider as they make their plans for the new year.

Jimit Arora and Cecilia Edwards share their thoughts on trends in 2019.

Google Wants to Help India’s Newsrooms Get Video Right | In the News

At least 10 Indian news firms have made the cut to receive funding from YouTube.

In June, the video-streaming major had committed $25 million in innovation funding as part of its Google News Initiative (GNI) to support video journalism across the world. It sought to help newsrooms strengthen their online video capabilities and experiment with new formats for video journalism.

“For Google (YouTube’s parent company), it’s all about keeping on mining whatever data assets are out there in the digital economy. They started doing it with flights, and they’ve recently launched shopping,” said Yugal Joshi, vice-president at Texas-based Everest Group.

Read more in Quartz India

How to Get More Innovation from Your IT Outsourcer | In the News

While cost containment and performance improvements have long been primary drivers for IT services decisions, the desire for disruptive solutions is eclipsing those traditional rationales. IT leaders are seeking innovation — not only internally but from outsourcing partners — as they look to help the business become more agile and adaptive, create new products and services, and enter new markets.

 

7 Hot IT Outsourcing Trends — and 7 Going Cold | In the News

As IT organizations become more strategic, so too do their partnerships with IT outsourcing providers. Digital transformation, automation, cognitive capabilities, and the data revolution are not just shaking up how IT operates, they are greatly impacting the kind — and quality — of services under contract with IT outsourcing firms.

Here is a look at the technologies, strategies and shifting customer demands shaking up IT outsourcing right now and the once-hot developments that are beginning to cool. If you’re looking to leverage an IT outsourcing partnership, or want to make good on the market for IT outsourcing as a provider yourself, the following heat index of IT outsourcing trends should be your guide.

 

5 Types of Outsourcing Providers — and How to Get the Most from Them | In the News

As corporate technology leaders pursue their digital transformation strategies, many are looking to IT service providers as potential partners in those change efforts. However, a one-size-fits-all approach to outsourcing providers is not likely to serve CIOs well in meeting innovation goals. In fact, bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better in the digital change era.

“Traditionally, size was a good proxy for capability, especially when technology was viewed fundamentally as an enabler of efficiency,” says Jimit Arora, partner in Everest Group’s IT Services practice.

 

APIs a Key Component of Insurance Digital Transformation | In the News

Fun fact: Many long-established insurance companies still rely on legacy mainframes computers running applications in an outdated programming language from the 1960s. That’s not ideal, because today’s tech-savvy, smartphone-using customers are more mobile and expect real-time information whenever and wherever they are, without the assistance of an agent or a call center representative. Not good, because the modern agent requires new tools and applications to maintain productivity in a mobile environment, including instant policy quotes. And especially not good, because the “insurtechs” – new, innovative, and rapidly growing companies with social savvy marketing and modern technologies – are just waiting in the wings, ready to grab your market share.

You have to adapt and evolve in record time to create a seamless customer experience while improving employee productivity to remain competitive and increase customer retention. By implementing APIs and microservices, you can extend those insurance backend systems to mobile, web, and cloud rapidly, and cost-efficiently, all with low risk. By using the “art” of the API, you succeed where past transformation options failed.
According to an article in Forbes by Peter Bendor-Samuel, “The record of studies on digital transformation indicate a high failure rate, with a notable 2013 McKinsey study finding that 70% fail. That is a lot of wasted time, money and unmet expectations.”

Read more in Digital Insurance

Wipro has to Think beyond Enrolment to Keep HPS Healthy, Feel Analysts | In the News

Indian IT services major Wipro may have to look at building solutions beyond healthcare enrolment-based services for its Health Plan Services unit to remain competitive amid legislative changes in the US, say analysts.

The Donald Trump-led US administration has pushed consistently to repeal Obamacare, which extended health insurance benefits to a large chunk of low-income people in the US.

At this juncture, Wipro should look “to double down quickly (to) address the re-pivot issues,” Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive of global IT advisory firm Everest Group, told ET.

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