The Whole Kit and Caboodle – In round figures, the outsourcing contract between the U.S. Treasury and its supplier, Wang Government Services (a Getronics company) will be over $100 million over the life of the ten-year contract. Like the old kit and caboodle American saying, Treasury omitted nothing – it has outsourced the management of its entire infrastructure.
Judicial Middle Ground – A goal to realign resources to be more client-centered led to outsourcing at Justice Canada, the federal Department of Justice that is the attorney general for Canada. Linda Holmes, Director of Informatic Services and Technology Division of the Information Management Branch (IMB) for Justice Canada, says that IMB decided to establish a front office function, where the focus would be on the business of law and how technology can enable the department to do that business better. Budget constraints, however, were no help in establishing this business analyst/architect design function. The solution was to shift employees into this new core area and then outsource the day-to-day operations.
Imagine that you own a retail gas store and the cash register goes down. You can’t sell gas or Twinkies. Now imagine, just for a moment, that you own over 1700 retail gas stores where this could happen. ARCO, a West Coast gasoline refiner and retailer, actually owns that many gas stores and a large convenience store network. Downtime can be disastrous, so ARCO outsourced its point-of-sale terminals to outsourcer, Getronics. When the Getronics help desk receives a call from one of the retail outlets, the staff diagnoses whether the fix will require a technician. If so, they must obtain the needed part from a depot, dispatch a technician to the site to install the part, and have it up and running within four hours from the time the call was placed — no matter how remote the location might be. It’s truly an extraordinary feat in logistics.
Hopefully, the Net will simplify the printing process and make it more accurate. ImageX.com, a Kirkland, Washington company, provides tools and services to help corporations produce or procure printed materials. With its acquisition last year of printbid.com, ImageX.com also became the operator of a business to business exchange connecting buyers with the commercial printing industry…..
The information technology (IT) department at Geon, a compound company, has consolidated many of its help desk functions under the roof of a sole outsourcer – Compaq – over the last three years…
Two years ago, in January, 1997, ING Barings decided to outsource management and first level support of its help desk function in Hong Kong.
As the outsourcing industry heads into 1999, Richard Raysman, an attorney with the New York firm of Brown Raysman Millstein Felder and Steiner LLP, expects to see not only larger transactions, but an expansion of the services being outsourced.
John Fretwell had a problem. His company, ING Barings Securities (Hong Kong) Limited, needed to improve the quality of service provided through their whole organization, as part of a fast track upgrade program for their equity business.
When Don Borgschulte, managing director of information technology and services, New Century Energies, arrived on the job in November 1996, his mission was clear. He had been hired to ‘fix’ his company’s badly faltering outsourcing relationship with IBM Global Services.
Most Improved Relationship: TransAlta and Digital Equipment Corporation. In 1995, TransAlta, a privately owned Canadian electrical utility company, and Digital Equipment Corporation were involved in an outsourcing relationship that was headed south in a hurry.
Outsourcing Buzz Blog Outsourcing Alert