Industry news

Cognizant has announced the official launch of its Synapse training initiative which aims to equip more than one million individuals with digital technology skills by 2026. Working in collaboration with governments, academic institutions, businesses, and other strategic partners, Cognizant will leverage AI technology and its tech services capabilities to help prepare individuals for the future workforce. Cognizant also intends to build a consortium of partners for training and jobs which then will employ individuals who are upskilled through the Synapse program.

Read more on TechMarketView here.

Recently Frost & Sullivan analysed the customer experience outsourcing services industry, and based on its findings, recognizes Webhelp with the 2023 Americas Nearshore Company of the Year Award. The company designs, delivers, and optimizes game-changing customer journeys to enhance experiences in a business-to-consumer and business-to-business environment.

Webhelp adopts the right mix of people, processes, and technology to bring reliable and agile transformation capabilities to its clients, and partners with companies to speed up their time to market and provide continuous process enhancement rooted in ongoing innovation initiatives

As part of efforts to empower girl child, a non-governmental organisation, Women Connect, organized a digital training in Lagos for young girls between the ages of 7-16, in commemoration of this year’s International Day of The Girl Child.

The Founder, Women Connect, Oyinlola Sale, stated that the platform was established to inspire, empower and inform women. “Like the saying goes, you train a girl child and you train a nation. Girls are the future of the world and we need to train them to be independent leaders that will make the world a better place. That is what inspired us to create the Girl Child Empowerment Programme in partnership with Devnaija Academy Ltd.

Read the full article on Vanguard here.

NMSDC finds that companies with diverse supplier bases show 133% greater return on procurement investments.

Investing in supplier diversity programs can also impact a company’s talent recruitment and retention. In a survey conducted by Hootology on behalf of UPS, 52% of respondents said they consider a company’s supplier diversity and inclusion programs when seeking employment.

Corporate leaders with diverse supplier bases, like Microsoft, Target, and UPS, have more efficient procurement processes and higher supplier retention rates.

Read the full article on Supply Chain Management Review here.

It’s the ninth year that Teleperformance has led the CXM PEAK Matrix by Everest Group, an independent research firm focused on strategic IT, engineering services, business services and sourcing.

In positioning Teleperformance a global leader in CXM services, Everest Group cited the Company’s strengths including its global size and scale which allow it to serve most major industries in more than 300 languages and dialects; its variety of as-a-service models to support clients with hiring and onboarding, operational efficiency and productivity improvement; and Teleperformance’s proprietary generative AI platform.

Read the full article on Director's Club here.

KPMG UK has announced it will combine its Consulting and Deal Advisory arms to create a new practice called Advisory.

The combined business simplifies the firm’s organisational structure and better meets KPMG UK’s client needs with an ‘end-to-end’ service under one roof.

The combination is already working successfully in other KPMG member firms and aligns to KPMG’s multi-disciplinary model, enabling its people to access greater professional development and broader experience. The new Advisory business will be led by Lisa Fernihough and will start serving existing and new clients from 1 January 2024.

The arrival of user-friendly large language models has shoved the possibilities of generative AI firmly into the public consciousness.

These capabilities have led some analysts to predict an annual 27% growth rate for AI over the next ten years.

But even their biggest fans would have to admit that these applications are not perfect.

"Computers can do many things way faster than humans, but in this case the state of the art is slow," says Jonathan Ellis, CTO and cofounder of DataStax.

Read the full article on Computing here.

Sopra Steria is set to fully acquire SSCL, making it a wholly owned subsidiary of the Group. The purchase price is £82.3m in cash (not far off half of the £200m extra investment that the Government, a few weeks ago, committed to the NHS this winter). So, on top of the savings already realised by UK Government due to back-office improvements (in excess of £750m), there will now be an extra boost to the public purse. For Sopra Steria, SSCL will be “accretive to (the company’s) net result and EPS from Day 1”.

Over the last ten years, SSCL has grown substantially both in terms of customers served and the services on offer. The JV’s foundation customers were DWP, Defra, Cabinet Office, and the Environment Agency

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

There are several key trends in customer care BPO technology. One is the move towards more integrated and automated systems. This means that companies are using more software to automate tasks and to manage customer interactions. This can help to improve efficiency and to reduce costs.

The Customer Care BPO Market report includes players such as Alorica Inc, Foundever Operating Corp, Simply Contact International, Webhelp Inc, Telus International Cda Inc, Arvato, Sykes Enterprises, West Corporation, Infosys BPM, and Concentrix Corp.

Read the full article on Digital Journal here.

More than nine in ten respondents say that ESG subjects are on their organization’s agenda. While environmental topics are recently the ones making headlines, just one-third of respondents rank environmental issues as their organization’s greatest ESG priority.

Survey respondents report that their organizations are not just paying lip service to ESG: many say their organizations are making meaningful ESG changes that have demonstrable benefits. More than two-thirds of respondents say their organizations have achieved broad impact from their ESG efforts in the past three years.

Read the full article on McKinsey & Company here.