Technology

Pokemon Go means business: why B2B needs to get its game face on

Posted: 07/19/2016 - 21:00
Author: Al Tepper

Pokemon Go signals the mainstream arrival of augmented reality (AR). From here on in, virtual reality (VR) will always be the poorer cousin – or bridesmaid if you will, and never the bride – in the fight for digital’s push out through the screen into reality.

This new (albeit long-pending) medium of AR will have a huge impact on local and B2C advertising. In fact you might argue it already has, adding billions to the valuation of Nintendo after just a week since Pokemon Go launched – a truly remarkable week.

Live Wires #7: Giant shoulders

Posted: 07/15/2016 - 19:53
Author: Paul Morrison

A lot of the talk of RPA today is about bright new names challenging the established order: plucky newcomers forcing their way past the giants of outsourcing and technology. But what do the giants themselves have to say about this? Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is one such business, and it turns out they are not sitting around waiting for their business models to be hollowed out. Live Wires met Vijay Damle, VP and Head of Business Process Services, to get the TCS perspective.

It isn't a technology play

Posted: 07/11/2016 - 20:01
Author: Bobby Varanasi

Business services are usually at the core of organisational endeavours, structured to build and manage a variety of workflows and dependencies in a concerted manner. The end goal for all such services is the smooth functioning of an organisation, built around some strategic goals usually manifested in revenues, growth, competitiveness and shareholder value. Over the course of more than two centuries, industrial advancements – enabled through scientific and technological innovations – have assisted with building and sustaining complex workflows, products and services.

TBM: from measurement to a core business function

Posted: 07/09/2016 - 09:53
Author: Nigel Hughes

IT reaches far and wide within organisations, particularly in the case of large enterprises, but it can be difficult to understand exactly what it does and how it is having an impact, especially when it comes to measuring return on investment. Enter Technology Business Management (TBM).

Simply, TBM provides an end-to-end view of the delivery of IT, capturing how both resource and cost are being consumed by the business. This facilitates more informed conversations around IT spend and helps demonstrate IT’s strategic value to the rest of the business.

A tale of two outsources: good versus bad

Posted: 07/07/2016 - 03:02
Author: Nancy Van Elsacker

More and more facilities and IT organisations are outsourcing their services. They may have a lot to gain; for example, outsourcing these services can lead to leaner organisations less bogged down by technical pursuits. Unfortunately, outsourcing does not always improve efficiency, and when done badly can have a negative effect on services. The following are two examples that help explain how IT and facilities organisations handle outsourcing, and what this can mean…

Outsourcing services gone wrong

OPINION: Look away, look away, look away, Euroland!

Posted: 07/01/2016 - 19:57
Author: Simon Boardman

Maybe Daniel Decatur Emmett will forgive me for “borrowing” some lyrics from his iconic 1850s American folk song, ‘Dixie’. I do this to encourage British business to look further afield for IT outsourcing services, as encouraged by Brexit. The USA and its domestic or onshoring companies represent a great but seldom considered alternative.

Q&A: Joe Musacchio, PeopleTicker

Posted: 07/01/2016 - 19:52
Author: Joe Musacchio

Outsource: Joe, thank you very much for joining Outsource today. We always begin interviews by asking for a little bit of an introduction to yourself and your organisation for our readers – so, over to you…

Joe Musacchio: I am the CEO of PeopleTicker. PeopleTicker is a rate and benchmarking tool, we cover salary and contingent labour benchmarking. We basically help companies that want to know how much somebody costs, for projects, individuals, recruitment, sourcing, and procurement.

Q&A: Haitao Qi, Devott

Posted: 06/15/2016 - 04:55
Author: Haitao Qi

Haitao Qi is the CEO and founder of Devott, the leading Chinese research and advisory firm focussed on the country’s technology markets and business services, whose annual Devott Global IT & Sourcing Summit (DGITS) is now the largest of its kind in China.

Hybrid management for hybrid clouds

Posted: 06/15/2016 - 01:56
Author: David Grimes

The hybrid cloud model is here to stay for the foreseeable future. While a full public cloud infrastructure has worked well for some pure-play digital companies such as Netflix, most enterprises are finding that in spite of the benefit, not all workloads should move to the cloud. In fact, not all workloads can.

Robots: a possible solution to the UK's National Living Wage dilemma?

Posted: 05/07/2016 - 05:18
Author: James Hall

2016 has presented the British labour market with some of the most worrying forecasts and challenging new laws the country has seen in a long time.

Halfway through March, George Osborne announced the Office for Budget Responsibility’s GDP growth forecast, which highlighted that the UK economy will grow more slowly in the next five years than previously expected. The reason? The OBR forecasts a rather worrying reduction in productivity.

Live Wires #4: Meet the RPA family

Posted: 05/06/2016 - 19:50
Author: Paul Morrison

Robotic process automation (RPA) is a new type of software that acts as a virtual workforce. It is the hottest ticket in the already hype-fuelled world of automation, and some would say that in the next two to three years it is going to become an integral part of your operations – whether in-house, shared services or outsourced. But who is driving RPA? And if the future is RPA, who is going to make it happen so quickly?

Design thinking: a way forward for the outsourcing and offshoring industry

Posted: 04/22/2016 - 20:30
Author: Ravichandran Venkataraman

A look at the picture below shows that design thinking is all about starting with the customer and ending with the customer. This really sounds like very old wine in a new bottle. But, please do remember: a lot of very old wine actually tastes really good.   The offshoring/outsourcing industry has grown significantly. However, the industry still struggles to show the value-add - and more so prove that it is adding value to its customers.

Battle lines in the sourcing world

Posted: 04/13/2016 - 20:14
Author: Bobby Varanasi

The sourcing industry can be thought of as a harbinger for new ideas, technologies and solutions that much of the developing world wasn’t privy to toward the end of the millennium. Of course, the type of explosive growth this industry has created is old news. The good side of this story was in its ability to create millions of jobs for young people in many of the developing nations struggling with economic growth in the face of older industries and lack of sustainability.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Technology