OREANDA-NEWS. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, announced today its 'leader' ranking in NelsonHall's December 2013 NEAT vendor evaluation for Life, Annuities and Pensions BPO (Overall market segment). NelsonHall's vendor evaluation and assessment tool (NEAT), part of its Speed-to-Source initiative, is a method by which sourcing managers can strategically evaluate vendors at the onset of the screening process.

Using a two-axis model, vendors are assessed against their ability to 'deliver immediate benefit' to buy-side organizations and 'meet client future requirements'. The latter axis is a pragmatic assessment of the vendor's ability to take clients through an innovation journey over the lifetime of their next contract. Service providers are divided into four categories: leaders, high achievers, innovators, and major players. TCS' positioning as a 'leader' is based on a combination of analyst assessment, principally around measurements of its ability to deliver immediate benefit; and feedback from interviewing of vendor clients, primarily through measurements of levels of partnership and ability to meet future customer requirements.

“A core requirement within the LA&P BPO market is the ability to bring down the cost of legacy policy handling through platform consolidation and strong policy administration capabilities. TCS was early in developing platform-based offerings and has been successful in transferring policies to its TCS BaNCS platform. TCS will continue to be a major player in the UK closed- and open-block life BPO market and is well positioned to succeed in continental Europe,” said Fiona Cox, research analyst, NelsonHall.

“TCS with its strong service delivery record and innovative leverage of technology through its BaNCS platform has gained a significant mindshare with insurance providers seeking efficient and effective operations. It indeed thrills us to have NelsonHall recognize this by positioning us as a leader in their Life, Annuities and Pensions NEAT evaluation,” said Abid Ali Neemuchwala, global head, business process services at TCS.

Insurers today are looking to address challenges, including everchanging consumer demands, poor investment returns (low equity yields) and changes to regulation (solvency II and RDR). They are increasingly turning to partners such as TCS to help them stay competitive in the market place. With TCS' BaNCS platform, customers can achieve best-in-class processes executed on best-of-breed technology, helping them to have better compliance and controls, a roadmap to business excellence and predictability in business results.