ACADEMIC THOUGHT SPOT - A Wipro Initiative How Wipro Translated Toyota's Lean Principles to IT Outsourcing: Lean principles, exemplified by the Toyota Production System (TPS), have become a much-copied methodology in the operations community. But can you translate TPS principles geared to the shop floor to IT outsourcing? Wipro and an academic team headed by Bradley Staats at the University of North Carolina decided to find out. Here’s what they did.
FOCUS ON: Latin America, Application Development, Manufacturing Application Development Outsourcing Provides Transformation for Motorcycle Assembler in Latin America: Auteco Kawaski, a larger motorcycle assembler in Latin American, was unable to track the service and warranty records on individual bikes by either its 300 dealers or 350 service shops. A Colombian supplier, PSL, created the application to do just that.
FOCUS ON: Travel, Call Centers Take 2: Online Hotel Retailer Increases Success Formula by Offering More Personal Service: David Litman, the founder of hotels.com, was itching to get back in the game after selling his company. He changed the business model the second time around, relying on people as well as the Web to book travel deals. Outsourcing to Working Solutions made it possible - and successful.
FOCUS ON: Airlines, Call Center Outsourcing Helps Southwest Airlines Make Passenger Journeys Easier: Sound familiar: You arrive at the airport and find your flight's been cancelled. Now what? If you fly Southwest, there's less hassle thanks to outsourcing. A proactive customer service communications program presents customers with a range of solutions before they even know there is an issue.
FOCUS ON: Mexico Shelter Provider Delivers Same Value to U.S. Service Sector as it Does for Manufacturers: ProDivNet wanted to set up shop in Mexico but quickly discovered it didn't have the management infrastructure to set up Mexican operations. The small business outsourced the project to a shelter provider that knew how to establish a presence, manage staff, and maintain a service-based operation south of the border.
FOCUS ON: Logistics Outsourcing Alleviates Logistical Growing: Success threatened Wellington Technologies. The HP maintenance provider signed a big contract, but the scope of the win was beyond the capabilities of its existing parts delivery system. And the fact that its parts delivery agreement had penalties didn't help. After paying those penalties, the company outsourced to meet its delivery challenges and enhance its capabilities.
Outsourcing Buzz Blog (www.outsourcing-buzz-blog.com) is hosted by Outsourcing Center and intends to provide unique value through a comprehensive, interactive view of outsourcing and commentary from a wide variety of people and companies in the outsourcing sphere worldwide. Check it out, subscribe for e-mail delivery each week, and participate by adding your comments or questions and answers to the blogs.
Outsourcing Center's annual Outsourcing Excellence Awards program studies hundreds of the world's must successful outsourcing relationships. The papers in the Best Practices series present insightful information revealed in the annual study about challenges that outsourcing relationships encounter, along with trends and proven best practices for mitigating such challenges.
Subscribe to future podcasts in iTunes by clicking here.
Listen to Beth Ellyn Rosenthal of Outsourcing Center explain about the 2010 Outsourcing Excellence Awards and why you want to be a part of it. (March 2009) Download MP3
Listen to Beth Ellyn Rosenthal of Outsourcing Center explain about the 2010 Outsourcing Excellence Awards and why you want to be a part of it. (March 2009) 
