Month: June 2016

Rebalancing the Sourcing Model Mix | Virtual Roundtable

Wednesday,  27 July 2016 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EST

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Enterprises are looking for opportunities to optimize their global services delivery to reduce costs and enhance capabilities. Rebalancing sourcing models – Global In-house Centers (GICs) and third-party service providers – is one way to optimize service delivery. Many organizations are moving work in house in a bid to rebalance their sourcing model mix.

This session will provide an overview of market trends, followed by a group discussion around how enterprises are balancing outsourced and in-house service delivery to their best advantage.

Who Should Attend
Global services and enterprise outsourcing executives and GIC leaders wishing to learn more about the latest sourcing model trends and the evolving role of in-house models

What You Will Learn
This session will help participants calibrate their thinking on both outsourcing and in-house models and their roles going forward in a balanced sourcing portfolio.

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Brownfield Opportunities in Demand Profile for Application Services | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

In my previous blog post, I discussed greenfield opportunities, an exciting area of demand for application services. Among the three factors in the demand profile for app services today, another factor is the desire to change the way services are delivered. For these “brownfield” opportunities, the approach to app demands is very different from the greenfield opportunities.

Services are already being delivered in the brownfield opportunities, but new technologies or approaches allow reshaping the way they’re delivered. Technologies and approaches in this space include agile, DevOps, automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) or cognitive computing. They allow organizations to reconceive the existing way they do business and do it differently and better.

There are very significant app demand opportunities in the brownfield space, and the outcomes are potentially very significant. JP Morgan, for example, achieved a 700 percent improvement in software developer productivity, a 59-day reduction in time to market, and 45 percent savings in infrastructure cost.

However, unlike the greenfield demand, brownfield opportunities face an existing ecosystem and existing way of doing business. Changing the way a company does business is very difficult. There is a lot of entrenched behavior in organizations, plus incumbent vendors have to be dislodged. So the brownfield space includes moving people’s cheese and reallocating resources, which can be quite painful to do.

In my next post, I’ll discuss the third factor driving demand for application services today and how all three factors are changing organizations and app services in fundamental ways.

Patient Engagement: Strategies for Improving Outcomes and Experience While Lowering Costs | Webinar

Tuesday, July 26, 2016 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PT, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET

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Abhishek Singh, Practice Director, Research, Everest Group will be a guest speaker during this Healthcare IT News-hosted webinar.

This one-hour webcast will explore the key success factors and challenges of enabling patient engagement in the digital age. Join Abhishek Singh of Everest Group, Stephanie Bartels, patient engagement solutions leader for Dell Services, and John DuBois, managing director of customer engagement for Dell Services for this insightful discussion.

Everest Group will share a key findings from a recent study on the current state of patient engagement maturity among providers. Dell Services will discuss how mobile, social, and customer relationship management tools can improve patient outcomes and where to look for ROI in strategic plans.

Speakers:

Abhishek Singh
Practice Director, Research
Everest Group

Stephanie Bartels
Patient Engagement Solutions Leader
Dell Services

John DuBois
Managing Director of Customer Engagement
Dell Services

Enterprise Mobility: Downloads, Usage, and ROI | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

As part of Everest Group’s digital services research, we discuss digital transformation initiatives with multiple enterprises. Of course, mobility is one of the cornerstones of such conversations. In a recent discussion with a retail company, I was told how they transformed their store operations by providing mobile-driven BI solutions to their managers.

Although the business case was strong and the results were highly evident, when pushed for the measurement of success, I received an intriguing reply that was in line with data captured in our earlier published research on moving beyond feel good ROI (Return on Investment). The enterprise said that more than 80% of its store managers and employees had downloaded and accessed the mobile app and that this was a great success.

Such discussions are not uncommon. Enterprise shops running mobile initiatives are typically benchmarking their success based on how many users install the app or how many actually use it rather than the business impact. Let’s be clear on three things:

  • App downloads do not mean app usage: This is something that should not even be discussed. But still, app downloads have become a metric for the IT teams developing mobility solutions. This implies that they are either fooling themselves or the business users about mobility. Anyone can download an app, but it does not imply usage. However, from a project team’s perspective, this metric is easy to capture and used to impress other stakeholders.
  • App usage does not mean ROI: Moreover, even if the app is being used, does that mean it has achieved its objective? How is the ROI defined? A lot of enterprises define ROI based on the usage metrics, and a “good” number is considered to be the final objective in itself. It’s like running a 100 meter sprint with a KPI that 15 seconds is great, without realizing others might be finishing in under 10 seconds. Again, this is an easy metric that can be shown to the business and make them believe that mobile initiatives are gaining traction.
  • ROI does not mean business impact: An ROI calculated on usage metrics, though meaningful, still does not track the business impact. What is the eventual business impact of the app? How are you going to track that? Metrics like these are what enterprises should be concerned about.

Why do enterprises choose to do this?
The simple reason for tracking ROI based on usage or downloads and not business impact is that the latter is extremely difficult to measure and correlate. The fundamental attribution of business success to an app is difficult and, therefore, enterprises take the easy way out of collecting download and usage metrics. Business outcomes depend on a number of moving parts. An app can bring a horse to the pond but can’t make it drink water.

Is this scary?
Some would argue that if business impact is hard to measure, then enterprises should not use it to define ROI of digital initiatives such as, enterprise mobility. But isn’t it scary that enterprises are making such investments simply because of access to a cool new channel through which they can share information with their external or internal customers? Is the “hope” that enterprise mobility will eventually have a business impact a good enough reason to invest? This nicely ties to our earlier published research on digital investments.

The road ahead?
Are there other KPIs to measure the effectiveness of enterprise mobility initiatives? If yes, how do they link to the business impact? Enterprises need to think through three fundamental aspects:

  • Define the business impact: Is it improving the top line, enhancing customer experience, addressing customer churn, creating better personalization, targeted messaging, or driving operational efficiency? Enterprises may want to address a lot of the above and more through a single app. However, they need to spell it out in terms of the business impact the app needs to demonstrate.
  • IT-business partnership: The above challenges are not only the making of enterprise IT. In fact, enterprise IT is like the messenger. The bigger problem is from the business side. Line managers who are unable to grasp their business objectives and visualize the impact of enterprise mobility to drive these. For this, enterprise IT needs to partner with business stakeholders in creating a value journey map in terms of the expected ROI from each stage of mobility adoption. The final stage must be a tangible business impact.
  • Define failure: My market interactions suggest that 70-80% of apps do not meet their intended objectives. This could be a fault in objectives or the way they are being measured or in the way they are being worked towards. Therefore, enterprises need to have a better definition of failure before they reduce investments in specific enterprise mobility projects.

While there are only two things of importance in business, revenue and cost, there are multiple levers that drive these fundamental outcomes. Enterprise mobility can impact these levers as long as the right KPIs are defined. Impressive metrics around downloads or usage do not really serve a meaningful purpose. Enterprises are not digital start-ups whose valuation is driven by usage rather than real money. Therefore, if enterprises want to really extract value from their mobility initiatives, they have to develop measurable KPIs linked to business impact instead of easy-to-measure feel good factors.

How are you measuring your enterprise mobility initiatives?

Enterprise Sourcing Executives, Everest Group to Gather July 21 in NYC to Share Insights on Unlocking Outsourcing Value | Press Release

Second event in “On Point | Summit Series 2016” to feature Rod Bourgeois of DeepDive Equity Research; topics will include sourcing models, next-generation IT, and contracting for business outcomes.

The global outsourcing industry has matured into a slower growth pattern, but strategic outsourcing solutions can still add dramatically more and different value to organizations. Discovering the keys to unlocking this outsourcing value will be the focus of the day as enterprise sourcing executives and senior leaders gather in New York City on July 21 at the On Point Summit to network and share insights on optimizing their global sourcing strategies.

The half-day summit—hosted by Everest Group and themed “Succeeding in Outsourcing 4.0: Imperatives for Strategic Sourcing Executives”—is a forum designed for enterprise attendees to learn from each other and featured industry experts and leading practitioners.

Special guest speaker, Rod Bourgeois, head of research and consulting at DeepDive Equity Research, will present, “What are the Winning Models? An Investor’s View.”

“We launched the ‘On Point | Summit Series 2016’ because our clients and others in the industry wanted a safe forum where they could exchange ideas with peers and engage with us in person,” said Eric Simonson, managing partner – research at Everest Group. “Based on feedback from our first event, our format of intimate interaction with peers, an opportunity to hear provocative thought leaders, and a chance to have detailed discussions with us on key issues is exactly what these business leaders are looking for. The takeaways from the event offer an excellent ROI on the time invested.”

The July 21 agenda will feature a panel of leading outsourcing practitioners who will engage participants in a lively discussion about incorporating next-generation capabilities into outsourcing solutions. Other highlights will include “Bring Your Own Topic” (BYOT) roundtable discussions and insights on contracting for business outcomes, offered by Everest Group.

Everest Group hosts for the event include Simonson; Jimit Arora, partner and leader of IT services – research; and Sarthak Brahma, vice president, pricing assurance – research.

This is the second installment of Everest Group’s by-invitation-only “On Point | Summit Series 2016.”  The first event, held in May, focused on emerging technology and talent trends in the banking, financial services and insurance industry. Guests enjoyed active dialogue with peers, insights from Everest Group research analysts, and a presentation by guest speaker, Chitra Dorai, IBM fellow and CTO of cognitive services, who shared her thoughts on “Cognitive Computing for Process Re-imagination in Financial Services.”

The third event in the “On Point | Summit Series 2016” will be held in October. Everest Group recently announced that, due to popular demand, the “On Point | Summit Series” will be extended with a full slate of events in 2017.

***Learn more and request to attend the July 21 event in the “On Point | Summit Series 2016” here. (Enterprise companies only; no service providers.)

Greenfield Opportunities in Demand Profile for Application Services | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

Three factors are reshaping the demand profile for application services, changing the services in fundamental ways. The first factor is best exemplified by digital technologies. Basically these are new technologies that create new business opportunities in enterprises. Inside of this would be cloud, mobility, social, big data and the IoT. They are made possible because of the innovations and disruptive technologies that are coming into the marketplace. There is an important aspect to these opportunities, which significantly impacts the services industry.

We can refer to this first factor of demand for application services as “greenfield” opportunities. In this space, is there is no provider incumbency and there no ecosystem is in place. Because these demand areas (cloud, mobility, big data, social and IoT) are new and never been done before, they are closely linked to a client’s business agenda driving growth. These greenfield app services are often funded and driven by the business and new money, and the sponsors are very senior-level executives within the organization.

Business units are highly involved in these app initiatives because they hold potential for market share gains or competitiveness shifts. And they’re new and exciting. It’s always more fun to work on initiatives for growth, and it’s much easier to spend greenfield money than it is to take money away from the brownfield existing ecosystem.

This source of app demand services is really exciting for CIOs and service providers because it’s using technology for what they want technology to do. In my next blog posts, I’ll discuss the other two factors in the profile demand for application services.

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