Equiteq, the knowledge economy M&A specialist, is pleased to announce that it has advised c3/consulting, Nashville’s leading management consulting firm, on its sale to Ankura, a Washington, DC-based business advisory and expert services firm. The transaction is anticipated to close by the end of the month.

Chatbots continue to be a hot topic among media, end users and vendor communities. This is no surprise as chatbots — which use artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic human conversations — are expected to become widespread within the next two to three years..

The GREAT campaign is an initiative run by Britain’s Department for International Trade to help overseas companies locate and grow in the UK. As part of PwC’s continued partnership for GREAT, the firm has supported a GREAT festival promoting UK businesses to investors based in the Asia Pacific region, hosted in Hong-Kong in the final week of March..

The likelihood of delivering change successfully is recognised as low, with many different sources citing statistics which show a high failure rate for organisational change programmes..

The world of work is in flux. Across the globe, debate rages on the future of work and whether there will be enough jobs to gainfully employ everyone who seeks one..

We spoke with Thomson Reuters on all things supply chain at their Global Base Metals Forum..

Up to 80 per cent of non-executive IT jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence systems. That’s the assertion of Vinod Khosla, the billionaire founder of Sun Microsystems and venture firm Khosla Ventures..

Optimism across financial services has fallen since the last survey, a trend that has seen sentiment deteriorate in eight of the last nine quarters. Taking an industry perspective, optimism appears split, with insurers more upbeat than their banking and investment management colleagues, the latter of whom have reported a decline for the first time in over a year..

Blockchain’s potential to transform business is already manifesting itself in industries such as insurance. But what could the technology do for HR?.

Capgemini today announced that it has signed a new strategic framework agreement with Statoil[1], an international energy company with operations in over 30 countries worldwide. Under the agreement, Capgemini will support Statoil and its Digital Center of Excellence (CoE) with services to further develop and deliver Statoil’s digital roadmap. The contract will run for the next three years.

The terabytes and petabytes are mounting up but how successful have Big Data initiatives in the UK been so far?...

Wipro Limited announced an expanded global relationship with Adobe to create, build and run digital marketing solutions and campaigns for their clients, across the globe. As a part of this alliance, Wipro will embed Adobe’s design and prototyping software, Adobe XD CC, the all-in-one UX/UI solution for designing and prototyping mobile apps and websites, into its Digital Experience Platform..

The consulting arms of UK accounting firms—including the Big Four—account for nearly 40 per cent of all revenues earned in the UK consulting market in 2017 and make up the fastest growing firm segment… The consulting arms of accounting firms—a group dominated by the Big Four—continue to dominate the UK consulting market, growing by 7.3 per cent[1] to £3bn in 2017, compared to the wider consulting market growth of 6.1 per cent to £7.8bn[2] during the same period. A combination of organic and inorganic growth helped to make this the fastest growing firm type in the market in 2017. These figures are published today (26th March 2018) in a new report from Source Global Research, the leading research and strategy firm for the global management consulting industry. The report says that the consulting arms of accounting firms continue to dominate the UK market, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of all revenues earned and winning the majority of work in the enormous financial services market, thanks in large part to their reputation for risk & regulation services. The report also says that these firms are eager to build up their digital arsenals as the value of digitisation[3] work performed in the UK consulting market jumped from £1.7billion in 2016 to almost £3billion in 2017. With this rapid rate of growth in mind, accounting firms are working hard to become the go-to firms for big, digital transformation projects. Digital work now represents a huge 37 per cent of the total UK consulting market. Fiona Czerniawska, Director of Source Global Research said:
The Big Four have once again outperformed the competition in the UK consulting market. Their size allows them to offer a great breadth and depth of both sector and service line knowledge, which may make them a natural fit for the rapidly growing digital transformation market. However, it’s not at all certain that they will ultimately be successful in staking out this territory all for themselves, as many clients still see them offering less technology expertise than traditional technology firms and less strategy expertise than strategy houses.” The Source report also says that digitisation is colonising all projects and all traditional consulting services, absorbing parts of strategy, operational improvement, risk, regulatory, and HR & change management work. For instance, over half of all strategy work in the UK is now digital-related, an even bigger share than in the technology service line, where over 40 per cent of all work is driven by digital. Fiona Czerniawska, Director of Source Global Research added:
“From being largely concentrated in the technology and strategy service lines, digital is now starting to make up a part of all consulting services. In fact, its speed of colonisation is such that within the next 18 months, we believe it will no longer be necessary to label anything as digital in the UK consulting market – as everything will be digital in one way or another.” The Source report also points out that, despite UK consulting revenues continuing to climb, the market is going through a turbulent period, owing to both global economic instability and the domestic juggernaut of Brexit. The degree to which Brexit is affecting consulting demand is questionable, with most consultants interviewed for this year’s Source report saying that, thus far, “it has been a bit of a non-event”. Zoë Stumpf, Head Analyst at Source Global Research concluded:
“Brexit is the biggest question mark hanging over the sector. It still has potential to be a huge driver of demand, if no reciprocal arrangements with the EU are made, or something of a red herring, if deals are struck and business carries on more or less as usual. Only time will tell.” Despite this domestic and global economic uncertainty, Source expects the UK consulting market to maintain its current rate of growth, expanding another 6 per cent this year. For more information on Source reports contact ella-sian.jolley@sourceglobalresearch.com or telephone +44 (0)20 3478 1204 or visit www.sourceglobalresearch.com.

Our solar analysts put some numbers behind their 2018 predictions.

Moorhouse Consulting has been acquired by Software Quality Systems. Following SQS’ own acquisition by Assystem Technologies, the trio will now combine to form a new entity, offering up a holistic end-to-end transformation package for a world-wide client base..

From the largest and most successful tech corporations to the smallest start-ups just finding their footing, most will agree that increasing diversity is in the best interests of customers, employees, and the general public. However, we in the tech world often fail to recognise the impact of our own biases....

KPMG in Singapore bolstered its digital engagement capacity with a rare acquisition, snapping up a mobile application developer and consultancy.

IBM and Apple’s relationship went to another level when they announced yesterday that they were going to make business apps running on Apple devices more intelligent by combining IBM Watson machine learning with Apple Core ML..

20 March 2018 - Mental health in the workplace is the top priority for almost three in five (60%) CEOs in the UK and the area of employee wellbeing with which their Board is most concerned, according to the 2018 annual report, ‘Employee Wellbeing Research 2018’ from Reward & Employee Benefits Association (REBA) in association with Punter Southall Health & Protection.

The tech industry is desperate for AI talent, with some companies forking over $1 million or more to secure the services of those who can code their way to machine intelligence. The problem, however, is that hardly anyone is qualified to evaluate the relative merits of any particular job candidate..

You can tell we’ve entered a new phase in the consulting industry’s perennial “war for talent” when a new term emerges, writes Fiona Czerniawska of Source Global Research...

The contract renewal highlights Capgemini’s strategic position in the field of Insights & Data to drive innovation across Europe.

Open Banking refers to the "opening-up" of customer account data held by banks and building societies. It allows other regulated financial services providers to access it in the spirit of providing consumers with a more cohesive service and greater choice as to who provides their payment or account services. Essentially, Open Banking will mean that consumers will gain greater control of their data, and who has access to it..

Recent research by PwC has revealed that half of all UK companies have suffered financial losses due to economic crimes or fraud in the last two years, in line with the global average of 49 percent of all firms..

Here`s some crystal ball gazing, courtesy of KPMG`s global fintech team. In its latest Pulse of fintech report, the firm sets out 10 factors it reckons will drive financial technology this year, after $US31 billion of deals were struck in 2017..

If there`s one downside to powerful computers, it`s that they`re too damn big. Luckily, that`s about to change. At least, if IBM has anything to say about it..

• Consulting in Saudi Arabia expected to return to double digit growth in 2018 – the first time for three years
• Governments across the GCC increase spending on consultants to prepare for post-oil era.

The IDC MarketScape highlights that the management and technology consultancy BearingPoint helps clients innovate and delivers well researched and personalized advice.

The current economic landscape represents a constant change. As people live longer, workforce demographics change; throw in technological disrupters such as Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality and this all adds to demand and expectation on the economy. This is now our ‘new normal’.

Supplycompass is delighted to announce it has been selected as one of the top 50 RetailTech solutions at the Millennial 2020 Summit this week.

To cater to Indian enterprises, IBM had beefed up its security features, which allows mainframe users to encrypt data which is crucial to combat cyber attacks.

With the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect in less than 100 days, chances are you know your business needs to rapidly transform how it manages the personal information and data of EU subjects. What is the best approach to take with such a short deadline for compliance?.

By 2050, the world is likely to have changed drastically from what we know now, and the planet`s economic and financial landscape will be no exception. A report from PwC looks at which economies around the world will be the biggest and most powerful in 33 years time..

Artificial intelligence is often touted as the brain behind Industry 4.0. Even the government is backing this emerging technology with its industrial strategy, which aims to “propel Britain to global leadership of the industries of the future including AI and big data”. Yet research suggests that manufacturers are behind the curve....

Data and analytics hold the key to delivering more effective healthcare services. Our latest report examines..

Didital transformation changes the DNA of an organisation. It breaks down the silos, rinses existing processes, and makes sure the business is leaner, faster, agile, and more responsive than ever before.Too often, business leaders forget that for such a transformation to be successful, it needs to be backed by a corresponding cultural shift..

Elliott Management, the activist hedge fund that changed Cognizant’s business strategy, has taken a tiny stake in WiproBSE 1.95 %, highlighting its interest in Indian IT companies. Of about 40 US-listed stocks that the $34-billion hedge fund owns, two are now from the Indian IT sector..

Today, there are more users in more places accessing more applications in more ways than anyone could have imagined even 10 years ago—and also, unfortunately, more openings for identity thieves.What makes secure access truly secure today? Authentication that works seamlessly – everywhere, all the time..

From Siri to self-driving cars, artificial intelligence is advancing swiftly, moving into different landscapes and industries which has the vision to get things done faster. While science fiction usually depicts AI as robots with human-like qualities, it actually denotes a much bigger idea towards technology than what we can fathom..

Amid concerns about predictive policing, Unisys says its system should expedite screening of cargo and people and reduce unnecessary inspections..

Blockchain is a secure way to exchange goods, services, and information among the participants in a network. Using a tangible example (global coffee trading), we`ll explain the core concepts of blockchain: smart contracts that automatically execute business logic that the participants agree upon, and a shared, distributed ledger that helps guarantee the quality and lineage of goods or services. We`ll also show you how blockchain enables collaboration and encourages new business models to emerge..

Just in case anyone in the world still doubts IBM’s commitment to developing blockchain technologies, IBM sounded their bull horn once again by making some rather bold claims. Last month, we highlighted how bullish IBM was about blockchain technology. This past week, IBM’s Senior Vice President of Global Markets upped the ante by claiming that blockchain will change the world..

With enormous amounts of data being collected, processed, and stored every day, big data has become the need of the hour for businesses across many industries.

On March 06, Infosys, India’s second-largest IT services company, said it has hired over 2,500 US workers in the past year. It also announced the launch of an innovation hub in Indianapolis, where it will train, up-skill, and re-skill employees according to its business requirements. In May 2017, the company had said it would hire 10,000 American techies over two years..

John Madeley has joined PA Consulting Group as a partner in its financial services team in London. John is an insurance specialist and has extensive understanding of the issues and challenges facing the industry. John will spearhead the development of PA`s financial services business across the UK with a particular focus on the future of insurance.

Equiteq, the knowledge economy M&A specialist, is pleased to announce that it has advised 8works Limited (8works), a leading design thinking consultancy, on its sale to Oliver Wyman, a global management consultancy and wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE:MMC). The transaction closed on 1st March 2018.

The race is on to become the dominant digital platform in the agriculture sector, harnessing technologies that boost agricultural productivity through data capture and integration, according to new research from PA Consulting Group.

According to Frost & Sullivan, the smart city market will top over $2.4 trillion in 2025 and create opportunities for solution providers operating in the segment. The firm predicts widespread adoption of smart city solutions in midsize cities unlike in previous years when majority of the projects were in a select group of innovator cities..

A comprehensive report published by professional services firm PwC on Monday also shows that the UK’s progress towards empowering women in the workplace has been much more sluggish than other developed nations..

High-cost technologies that were once only available to larger businesses aare becoming increasingly accessible to mid-sized businesses, and it’s because of cloud..