Phil Fersht is widely recognized as the world's leading industry analyst focused on the transformation of business operations and technology spanning over two decades.  He has a global reputation for calling out the big trends, being unafraid to share his honest views, driving a narrative on the technology and business services industries that shape many leadership decisions.  His reputation drove him to establish HFS Research in 2010, which has today grown into one of the leading industry analyst firms and the undisputed leader in IT business services and process technologies research.

In 2012, he authored the first analyst report on Robotic Process Automation (RPA), introducing this topic to the industry and is widely recognized as the pioneering analyst voice that created and inspired today's automation, analytics, and AI industry.

Fersht coined the term "OneOffice" in 2016 which describes HFS Research's vision for future business operations amidst the impact of cloud, automation, AI, and disruptive digital business models.  OneOffice is the foundation of the virtual workforce, where automation tools augment the employee's digital capabilities and the workplace becomes a plug-and-play, work-from-anywhere scenario. Silos between front, middle, and back-office are collapsed into one single office, where all employees are empowered and motivated by common outcomes and common values.  In 2022 he coined the term "OneEcosystem" which extends the principles of OneOffice beyond the walls of the enterprise, where innovation is driven by the collaboration and connectedness of organizations across the customer life cycle.

Prior to founding HFS in 2010, Phil has held various analyst roles for Gartner (AMR) and IDC and was BPO Marketplace leader for Deloitte Consulting across the United States. Over the past 20 years, Fersht has lived and worked in Europe, North-America, and Asia, where he has advised on hundreds of operations strategy, outsourcing, and global business services engagements.

He is also the author and creator of the most widely-read and acclaimed blog in the global services industry, entitled "Horses for Sources" now entering its fourteenth year.  He regularly contributes to key media publications and is a regular keynote speaker at major industry events, such as NASSCOM, ANDI, ABSL, Sourcing Interests Group and HFS Research "FORA" Summits. He has been named Analyst of the Year on three separate occasions by the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations, which voted on 170 other leading IT industry analysts.

He received a Bachelor of Science, with Honors, in European Business and Technology from Coventry University, UK, and a Diplôme Universitaire de Technologie in Business and Technology from the University of Grenoble, France. He also has a diploma from the Market Research Society in the UK and is an expert in both quantitative and qualitative research techniques.  He also trains analysts on how to write in a succinct, high-impact style, applying his "Seven Rules of Writing" which differentiates the HFS analyst voice.