Research & Insight

Author archives

Study Shows Outsourcing Best Practices are Changing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

In outsourcing, “best practices” are a method, procedure, activity, technique, or process known to produce desired outcomes. Who deems them to be the “best?” Often, it’s an industry or association regulation or recommendation. Sometimes, it’s an expert opinion such as those from an analyst or consulting firm; at other times, it’s a service provider or …

How Outsourcing Buyers Benefit from Benchmarking

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Cost and price. It’s crucial that buyers understand both when it comes to outsourcing. What is the cost of providing business services internally? What elements comprise that cost? What is the price for comparable services from an outsourcing service provider? What cost elements affect the provider’s price? For the service levels it commits to perform, …

When an Outsourcing Service Provider’s Lack of Domain Knowledge is a Good Thing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

How important to the value proposition for an outsourcing initiative is the service provider’s domain knowledge specific to the buyer’s industry? Many buyers report that the provider’s expertise in a particular business process ranks higher in importance than industry expertise when selecting a service provider. But there are situations where industry knowledge is crucial, especially …

New Contact Center Management Solution Enables Social CRM, Streamlines Processes, and Ensures Cost-Effective Flexibility

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Today’s contact centers drive revenue and build customer relationships. Management of processes in those centers (whether outsourced, hybrid, or internal centers) is now easier and less costly using VContactCenter. This new CRM solution also facilitates capturing and managing data from social media such as Twitter, makes it easy to segment data, and provides multi-language yet standard capabilities for globalization.

Application Management Outsourcing Services Provide Bigger Bang for the Buck

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Increased business agility is a big driver of the increase in application management outsourcing (AMO), notes Marc Schwarz, Senior Vice President and leader of the Oracle On Demand business. Businesses want to focus more of their resources on developing new innovations that increase revenue and profits. But he states that reducing business risk is the …

How Verticalization and Business Process Utilities Will Impact Outsourced Services

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Transparent pricing, highly standardized processes, vertical solutions. Companies will select service providers that deliver the best quality and value-add, not just the best price. “Increased adoption of standardized solutions in outcomes-based models will drive outsourcing to become more utility based,” says Don Schulman, General Manager, Finance and Administration at IBM. “And that becomes where the …

What Companies Need to Understand about Outcome-Based Approaches in Outsourcing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Among the various changes that will impact outsourcing over the next five years, Don Schulman, General Manager of Finance and Administration at IBM, says the first will be a focus on outcomes-based pricing models. “Focusing on clients’ end-to-end processes, the discussion moves to outcomes pretty fast when considering the advantage of an outsourcer doing a …

Upcoming Challenges and Opportunities in Healthcare Outsourcing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) (the economic stimulus package for the U.S. economy), healthcare reform, and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), the next five years will see a dramatic increase in outsourcing in the healthcare industry. But there are significant challenges for decision makers beyond …

Managing Outsourced Data Securely

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Outsourced data security is revolutionizing businesses. “We will see a dramatic change in security becoming a prevalent component of outsourcing contracts over the next five years,” says Jim Motes, Chief Information Security Officer for Dell Perot Systems. As virtualized services in cloud and utility computing technologies become more ubiquitous, they will drive an even deeper …

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