While the typical benchmarking clause in an outsourcing agreement provides the opportunity to benchmark the services, many clients find third-party benchmarks to be expensive, disruptive and time-consuming. In addition, the outcome can be unpredictable, as results may just as likely confirm that a vendor’s price is market competitive, and no savings are to be had. Further, third-party benchmarks by their nature pit client against vendor – making them all but impossible to complete – and risk damaging what otherwise might be a good working relationship.
There is a better way. Clients looking to confirm market competitiveness are increasingly relying on… Read the rest
Predictive analytics have been used in actuarial services in the insurance industry for many years now. However, given the nature of the insurance business and the market, it is now used in various other functions in the insurance industry – to enhance customer experience and satisfaction, for sales and marketing, to improve operational efficiencies and to reduce costs. In business, predictive models exploit patterns found in historical and transactional data to identify risks and opportunities.
Insurers gather and store a tremendous amount of data. Information from a variety of sources, including applications for policies, premiums and claims contain vital intelligence… Read the rest
The function of the CFO organization is evolving from being a support organization to driving the strategic decision making in the organization. The financial planning and analysis (FP&A) function plays a key role in this evolution, helping the business navigate the turbulent macro-economic environment as well as the demand shift with its competitive pressures. FP&A is not about stating the obvious; it’s about finding the reality, analyzing it and then telling the organization what to do; these are critical tasks organizations need to drive organizational growth. In other words, a robust FP&A function is critical because it not only analyzes… Read the rest
The heavily regulated and IP-driven life sciences industry operates in a state of continual flux. This dynamic nature of the industry throws a diverse mix of powerful challenges and equally promising opportunities at the pharmaceutical executive all the time.
Some of the key challenges facing pharmaceutical companies at the moment are:
- A patent cliff
- Dwindling pipelines and late-stage attritions
- Rising cost of commercialization
- A host of healthcare cost containment measures adopted by regulators and payers across key markets
To offset the revenue loss triggered by major patent expirations, companies have moved towards innovative therapies—often biologics—for niche indications with… Read the rest
Analytics beyond patterns
All successful Financial Service providers are exploring analytics to manage business. An important aspect of analytics is to use historic patterns to determine future trends. Thus the knowledge of fraud patterns can be used to strengthen fraud management.
Regulations changing risk analytics needs
Maintaining an organization or individual risk score card was once confined to larger organizations. Bureaus filled the gap by offering a unified approach to scoring based on behavioral attributes, which appealed to smaller firms. The evolution of business intelligence and analytical tools has helped smaller organizations adopt analytical insights and risk-grid-based pricing to… Read the rest
It is a Formula One Grand Prix. Crew members are crunching data from the sensors attached to the car. In a single season, a team will burn 200,000 liters of fuel in testing to identify 50 slightly different blends of fuel additives. Subject to predictive and simulated models, the crew should be able to give the right blend of power boosting additives to touch the finish line!
Similarly, your banker, insurer, telecom provider or retail store could be tracking your buying behavior to offer you an optimal product/service mix. With Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs and other social media being tracked,… Read the rest
Beans, blueberries, broccoli, green tea and Omega 3-rich fish are all hailed as health super foods. In my book, the competitive commercial sector’s super food is knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). And I’m not talking research here – although research certainly has its value – but analytics, predictive analytics. An increasing number of companies are using it to identify risks and opportunities, determine appropriate price points and ultimately gain a leg up against their competitors.
One highly-publicized predictive analytics initiative was Overstock.com’s May 2011 launch of a competition wherein the team that can improve its recommendation engine by 10 percent or… Read the rest
Do you remember back when sushi was a new concept in eating in the West? “Raw fish? Why would anyone want to eat raw fish?” But then we sampled it and before long it became so mainstream that you can find a sushi bar almost anywhere. While no where near as ubiquitous as sushi, Infrastructure and Software as a Service (IaaS and Saas) followed a similar path, with initial reluctance lending way to taste tests within a growing number of organizations.
But Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) is a very different type of meal. The light eaters – small… Read the rest
Manish Dugar is the new head of Wipro BPO. Dugar takes over at a watershed moment. “The near future features a volatile and dynamic economy. Thanks to technology and scientific advances, geography is history. Now, what happens in one part of the world impacts the whole world,” he observes.
The senior vice president has had a front seat for the growth of offshoring. He was there when it was all about labor arbitrage. His goal: to lead Wipro BPO through the next phase: producing business-based outcomes. Wipro calls this Business Function Outsourcing (BFO). “We are no longer a commodity player,”… Read the rest
Wave 5 of the technology revolution is upon us. (Preceded, of course, by mainframes, client/server, desktops and then the Internet.) Cloud computing is a key component of this new wave.
Contracts, of course, form the bedrock of beautiful outsourcing relationships. How do you contract for cloud services? Are cloud contracts different from contracting any IT service?
In his book “Cloud Sourcing the Corporation,” Ben Trowbridge outlines a list of concerns. He points out that many of the current cloud providers have business-to-consumer roots. “Their current contracting practices place much emphasis on the provider and not enough on the corporate customer,”… Read the rest
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