The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is an enhanced primary-care model that provides comprehensive and timely care with appropriate reimbursement, emphasizing the central role of teamwork and engagement by those receiving care. The PCMH model can be implemented immediately. (IBM Institute for Business Value study)

Whether firms have a strong online insurance presence or are looking to maximize planned investment in an online channel, there is much they can learn. The online imperative will change business models in the insurance agency model and consumer base. (Consultant point of view)

While many competitors will be focused solely on improving cash positions or drastically cutting expenses, solid retail industry performers can approach this new economic environment as an opportunity to grab market share, increase customer loyalty and distance themselves from the competition. (IBM Institute for Business Value study)

In a recent demand-side study involving more than 400 U.S. respondents, IDC asked these end users (both buyers and nonbuyers) of their perceptions of business processing outsourcing (BPO) providers across four value categories and eight market segments. … IBM clearly dominates all four value categories of transformation, integration, innovation, and cost optimization across all eight market segments ranked. (From the IDC Opinion section of the report)

Smart insurance business leaders will proactively take advantage of the current circumstances of uncertainty to drive a case for change throughout the organization, to improve effectiveness and drive efficiencies in operations and IT. (White paper)

Internet-enabled communication models are gaining audience, attention and market share at the expense of traditional telecommunication providers (Telcos). Can Telcos fight back and find new growth opportunities? The challenge is not just in understanding the technology, but also the unfolding fundamental shifts in human communication behavior. (IBM Institute for Business Value study)

New services businesses can deliver solid economic value. To capture this value, managers must look at services as a fundamentally different business model than their existing product business. Managing the entire Services Value Chain can realize the full benefits of an independent services revenue stream, increased product pull-through, and deeper customer relationships. (White paper)

Current economic realities are driving organizations to reprioritize their IT programs and projects to survive and thrive in the new economy — and to leverage service management best practices. (Executive brief)

For automotive companies, emerging as healthy, vibrant businesses depends on how their supply chains adapt. Automotive supply chains need fact-based intelligence to predict which future scenarios are most likely to occur — and the flexibility to get repositioned before they do. Now more than ever, smart wins. (IBM Institute for Business Value study)

In today's economic environment, workforce analytics play an increasingly important role in addressing strategic human capital challenges. Workforce analytics are a key capability for HR organizations seeking a more proactive role in driving business strategy. (White paper)

This year has not been good for any of the Industry, except I guess for Medical Industry in India (Thanks to Swine Flu, recession related diseases :)).

The tourism in India has seen a steep decline over last 12 months and the effects of that have seen Hospitality Industry in India cut to half.

ASSOCHAM recently released the report on the performance of Hospitality Industry. Mumbai terrorist attack combined with the global slowdown, have severely impacted the bottom line to the extent of 64 per cent of the Indian hospitality sector, as per the analysis carried out by the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

Here are some of the key findings of the report:

• The average net profit of 10 hotels has declined by 65 per cent in Q4 FY ’09 as compared to the Q3 FY ’09.
• Out of these 10 hotels, in Q4 FY ’09, 8 hotels have registered decline in net profit on sequential basis.
• The interest cost of 10 hotels went up by 51.65 per cent in the fourth quarter of FY ’09.
• The fall in total income was about 4.47 per cent as compared to the third quarter of FY ’09.
• The total expenditure in fourth quarter of FY ’09 rose by 7.47 as compared to the third quarter of FY ’09.

I think that we now have seen the worst (atleast I hope so), and the coming quarters will see a turnaround. Hoping for a much better 2010

Here is the complete report by ASSOCHAM:

Infosys will manage and operate a large portion of business systems for BP, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, under the terms of a five-year applications outsourcing and support agreement.

CSC announced today that the General Services Administration's Federal Systems Integration and Management Center (FEDSIM), in support of the Army National Guard, awarded the company a single-award blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to continue designing and developing training courseware.

The mobile Landscape is changing. Although a lot of innovation is happening at the top-end Smartphones, nothing much seems to be going on for high volume low-end feature phones.

Microsoft seems to have targeted this high volume huge potential market with its launch of Microsoft OneApp.

Microsoft OneApp allows low-end “feature phones” to run popular mobile phone applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger and Mobile Wallet.

This is very interesting and probably the need of the hour for market like India where more than 400 million people are using low-end feature phones.

With OneApp, these users will be able to do things they couldn’t do before with their feature phones — anything from paying their bills to helping diagnose their health issues or just staying connected with friends and family.

Here is one of the Microsoft guys talking more about OneApp and showing a simple demo of how OneApp works:

Here are some of the features of OneApp:

• The OneApp lightweight on-phone footprint of just 150 KB makes the initial installation easy and fast.
• OneApp dynamically launches just the parts of a mobile app that a person wants to use, eliminating additional installation time and the need for a person to store all of the mobile apps on the phone.
• OneApp includes cloud services that help offload processing and storage from the phone to the Internet, improving overall performance.
• OneApp uses data networks efficiently to reduce data access charges, saving money for the customer.

The other good feature about OneApp is that it is open for software developers, who can write new apps for OneApp using industry standards such as JavaScript and XML. The OneApp software developer kit is expected to be available for developers by the end of 2009.

Microsoft is launching OneApp application on test basis in South Africa in partnership with Blue Label Telecoms. It will probably test waters there before moving to voluminous markets of India & China.

Interesting times ahead !

Unisys is one of six contractors that have been named to a new Agriculture Department information technology contract vehicle that has a ceiling value of $25 million over five years.

Commodity price volatility and the liquidity and credit crises have thrown the world into economic turmoil. In the current climate, having the right operating model can make the difference between just surviving and outperforming your competitors. According to High Performance Business research from Accenture, companies can take one of three approaches to achieve operational excellence.

What do you think of the above snapshot?

A new search engine?

Nah..you got it wrong. This is the internet home of one of the biggest Venture Capitalist firms Sequoia capital who have funded the likes of tutorvista, cotton county retail along with the real biggies like Apple, Google et all.

Surprised, well you should be. Even I was shocked the first time I saw the revamped homepage of Sequoia. Now, had I not known what Sequoia capital before, I would have branded it as a wannabe search engine.

Well, how on earth could a website rewrite the limits of minimalistic Web UI with just providing a search box as their landing page. But then, Sequoia did it and it is for all of us to see.

All said and done, how was it accepted by the folks in the Internet space? I can’t vouch for a huge dataset but a search on twitter suggests that Sequoia has managed to raise as many eyebrows as praises for this crazy move they pulled off. Surprisingly, this time around it is not unjustified criticism that is doing the rounds.

The critics have been spot on with their concerns and allegations.Here are some of the finer points that I could pull up. They have all been sourced from twitter search and would have loved to credit all of them individually lest for causing redundancy and link overload

Critics:

• Poor usability
• Caters to only a matured and well targeted user base, thereby making itself hidden from the normal crowd
• An ego boost-"Everyone knows us"
• Making relevant information difficult to access
• Calling it stupid – period
• A publicity/marketing stunt gone too far

There were more and probably will continue to crop up as more and more people come across it.

Given the fact, that I am no where close to call myself a VC literate, I frankly did find the search results not to my liking. But, then did I actually know what I wanted to search for? may be not… but for something that I did know what a VC site is to be used for , I did type the following in the Search box.

"How do I get funding"

 

And boy-o-boy, it did the job for me. Bulls eye it was. I was straight on their ‘Submit a business plan’ page with their contact details right there.

So, from all that I gather the move is a bold and refreshing change from the usual change we have gotten accustomed to. Now, that’s why I call challenging the Web 2.0 limits.

More than generating truck loads of BUZZ , positive or negative, it is something that is shouting out what they actually are-Venture Capitalist. Here is why I think so.

I may not have read too much literature on the VC dynamics , but whatever I gathered from my scant readings, here are some terms that epitomize VC’s

• Bold and Crazy – Yes, you have to be crazy enough to invest millions of dollars into a company that may not even have a ongoing revenue model. A Venture Capitalist firm and its team have to be crazy to back ideas that may sound crazy at first
• Risk Takers- Imagine investing a dime into a so called product idea that has never been tried before. It is impossible, but it is just another day at work for a VC firm.
• Believers in Change- Entrepreneurship is on most counts bringing about change, moving away from the usual. A VC firm has to be a believer in change too. What better way to go ahead and be a part of the change.
• Stretching Boundaries- VC firms help worthy ventures break the growth barriers. How about pulling one off by stretching the limits themselves.
• Focus on The Target Audience- With a well identified target audience comes better analytics and better insights, that’s what VC’s help the backed up ventures to achieve. So, why not do it for themselves.

With the website usability getting shrunken to a more educated and a matured user base, they have the right audience searching for right information

This is my hypothesis and the extrapolations may not be right. But, I heartily admired the Paradigm Shift that Sequoia capital might have initiated with their website re-design. In fact, with ‘Targeted Search’ being touted as the next paradigm of the Internet, Sequoia Capital have arrived at the scene quite early. And don’t we know, VC’s have the knack of foreseeing future before the rest of world does.

However, I am not completely biased in my opinion. I did try some relevant searches like "Clients","portfolios" etc, which surprisingly uses Google Custom Search Results for their content. The results were basically their Press Releases of investments etc. Not much to my liking !

With that I bring to rest my case. They have taken a bold step and I applaud them for that – Whether it works for them, time will tell.

Goes without saying that i would appreciate your thoughts on the website re-design in question. Would you approve of it??

PS:: With Channel V doing a not so great ‘I saw The Change’ campaign on Twitter, I wonder if I can pull their slogan and say – I saw the change at Sequoia !

[This post is written by Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

Infosys is the Gold Sponsor of the Consumer Goods Growth & Innovation Forum 2009.

Infosys BPO Ltd., the business process outsourcing subsidiary of Infosys Technologies, announced its alliance with MortgageFlex Systems, Inc.

The alliance focuses on the support of U.S. loan servicing loan modification initiatives as defined under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) or alternative loan modification programs.

CSC announced today that it has signed an agreement with DuPont, a science-based products and services company, to support the company's Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) compliance program.