Everest Group named Michel Janssen chief research guru.
Vishal Sikka enters his fourth year as Infosys CEO on Tuesday with his back partly to the wall. Ten of the 16 senior executives he hired from his previous company, SAP, have quit over the past year and a half. Most of them were hired to further his innovation agenda. That agenda now appears to be in crisis.
The $10-billion company’s growth has slowed down sharply after having risen in Sikka’s first two years. Consequently, Infosys’ share price is down steeply from the highs it had touched mid-last year. Sikka has, since the beginning, spoken about a dual strategy — to renew the traditional business with automation, and develop new businesses around the new digital technologies such as cloud, AI/machine learning, analytics, big data, and internet-of-things.
Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO of US-based IT research firm Everest Group, says from an execution point of view, Sikka has not been able to get his company fully behind the changes he is trying to drive. “He has not been able quickly enough to put the challenge from the founders behind him, which has further eroded support for his programmes. He has not yet been able to convince his customer base that Infosys is the digital partner of choice and they continue to see Infosys as a great labour arbitrage company ,” he told TOI.
Blue Prism announced today that Shail Khiyara has joined the company as its first Chief Customer Officer (CCO), helping accelerate customer growth and market momentum for the world’s most successful digital workforce.
The creation of this position is the latest investment Blue Prism is making to support its robust and dynamic partner and customer ecosystem. The role will champion customer-centric initiatives, experience and strategy and be responsible for creating and driving experiences that best deliver value for customers and partners while differentiating Blue Prism’s digital workforce.
“The market demand for Intelligent Automation and RPA solutions continues to soar,” said Sarah Burnett, Vice President at Everest Group, one of the world’s largest and leading global services and RPA analyst firms. “I am excited to see this role at Blue Prism. Shail brings an excellent customer experience mindset to the market. The move shows Blue Prism’s continued focus on customer experience. As a result, we anticipate more product and Technical Alliances Partner (TAP) platform features, including AI, analytics and cloud capabilities, to ease enterprises’ transition to a digital workforce.”
Read more on Financial Times
Cognizant’s share price has been surging in recent months, leading to a widening in the difference between its market capitalization and those of its peers Infosys and Wipro.
The company now has a $6 billion lead over Infosys in market capitalisation. Infosys had caught up with Cognizant and overtaken it in 2016, but it has not lost significant ground. Infosys’ share price has fallen in the past one year.
“My belief is that Cognizant is benefiting from the promise it has made to Elliot Management that it will raise margins and return cash to shareholders. The market may not have fully baked in that to do this Cognizant must reduce its sales expense and that this will slow down its growth,” said Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO of Everest Group.
In another huge setback to Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka’s strategy to strengthen the company’s new digital and innovation capabilities, Yusuf Bashir, MD of the $500-million Infosys Innovation Fund, has resigned.
The MIT-alumnus had worked closely with Sikka at SAP as VP of new products before joining Infosys in March 2015.
As IT organizations become more strategic, so too do their partnerships with IT outsourcing providers. Digital transformation, automation, 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.
In an era that values superior customer and employee experiences, companies are placing more emphasis on the resources and technology employed to operate their internal service desks and customer-facing call centers.
“Call center consolidation and the desire to partner with strategic vendors continues, but call volumes are still high,” says Jimit Arora, a partner at Everest Group. “While virtual agents and chat bots are becoming prevalent, we see companies being reluctant to expose customers to these technologies just yet. They don’t want blow-back akin to interactive voice response system.”
The United States -based information technology firm Accenture Plc has started funding innovative ideas from employees on emerging technologies to drive faster growth in the digital segment. Aggressive innovation moves such as $2,000 for best ideas can outweigh Indian peers in gaining digital revenue.
The IT major has received 13,700 ideas from employees of its Indian technology delivery centres on digital technologies such as design thinking, machine learning (ML) and the best ones are being implemented for its customers across India and global markets. The two key themes for these ideas were disruptive businesses and Digital India.
Accenture has started offering $2,000 for 40-50 shortlisted ideas to turn them into prototypes.
“What sets them (Accenture) apart from their Indian competitors are not the programs, which companies such as Wipro, TCS and Infosys have also adopted and in some instances been even more aggressive, but when the early lead they gained by being the first mover and establishing industry credibility from this early mover role. The second big thing they have done is that they are far more aggressive in buying digital firms, which bring with them the IP and innovations,” said Peter Bendor-Samuel.
In March 2017, telecommunications giant AT&T Inc. agreed to add about 3,000 jobs to its American call center workforce. Rather than continue with its pattern of offshoring those jobs to Mexico and slimming its workforce at home, AT&T is beginning to bring those jobs back.
It isn’t alone. Verizon Communications Inc., an AT&T competitor, recently ended its contract in the Philippines with roughly 1,500 workers, while the company is adding about 1,000 jobs to the U.S. workforce.
Although companies are reducing their offshoring tendencies overseas, they’re continuing to outsource certain jobs domestically.
Some firms, for instance, may exert caution in which jobs they opt to bring back and the pace at which they do so. When reshoring IT jobs, in particular, there might be challenges in filling those roles because skills shortages in the technology sector have companies in a bind.
“There isn’t enough in the U.S. to absorb all of that work coming back straight away,” said Peter Bendor-Samuel, founder and CEO of Everest Group, a boutique research and management consulting company based in Dallas.
If you have visited a U.S.-based Starbucks recently, you may have noticed how the ubiquitous coffee retailer is offering a Mobile Order & Pay program to enable customers to preorder and avoid long queues and wait times.
And if you have an iPhone 6, you may have quickly paid for your daily cup of Joe at Starbucks by using Apple Pay, which allows you to pay for items by holding the iPhone in front of a reader at the checkout desk.
Or, if you live in Seattle, you may have avoided the checkout line altogether by visiting the prototype Amazon Go grocery store, where you can scan your phone on the way in, grab whatever you need and walk out without a checkout line in sight.
These are just a few examples of how payment technologies are changing the way we purchase food. The fact is, payment technologies are disrupting the entire food value chain.
Information technology firms are steadily increasing their volume of delivery centers, as global demand for digital services continues to rise.
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