Research & Insight

Research & Insight

Europe

Ireland (With Help From India) Helps Boston Insurance Company Compete

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

This issue our Other Than India series focuses on Northern Ireland. Liberty Mutual created a captive in Belfast for applications development during the dot com boom when programmers were in short supply. Today the insurance company has 160 people there who can easily travel to Boston when necessary.

Berlin-Based Consultants Share Insights on European Outsourcing

Joyce Ahlering

The multinational team quickly reached a consensus that Germany is an exception to the rule in European outsourcing practices. Generally speaking, outsourcing has been accepted in many branches of German business. Postal service and call centers are often outsourced to German providers, whereas IT providers are often American-based. Dallas, Texas based Perot Systems, for example, is an American IT provider with a large presence in Germany.

In the Pink

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

PinkElephant is a Dutch ASP headquartered at Zoetermeer. The ASP is a PinkRoccade nv company, one of the most successful traditional IT outsourcing vendors in Holland. And that’s exactly how the ASP market is developing in Europe. The quick starting, independent American startup is the slow moving elephant in Europe, according to Leon Fock, business unit director. PinkRoccade nv was formed in 1950 as the Mechanical Administration, which was part of the central government of the Netherlands. Every 20 years the IT outsourcing vendor has reinvented itself. In the 1970s the department morphed into the Government Computer Center. In 1990 the department became a public limited liability company as part of a privatization move.

From Hamstrung to Power

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Italy — its name brings to mind the pungent parmesan and garlic odors, magnificent golden treasures in the cathedrals and palaces, crowded canals of Venice and mysteries of Pompeii. The nation holds many charms for tourists. Part of the culture of this historic land is endurance and pride. Those characteristics carry over into the business arena. There are people who created their businesses from nothing, and they have worked all their lives in those businesses. They are not open to change, says Stefano Valentini, an outsourcing consultant in Rome. He explains that Italy has a lot of small (under 50 employees) and medium (under 250) companies and that 80% of production comes from these companies. Although many executives even in the United States are just coming to grips with it, the fact is that a company can’t be good at doing everything. An attitude of mistrust and not wanting to let go of control of business processes only results in being hamstrung — as crippling as cutting the tendons at the ham

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