The lack of certainty about the future is prompting businesses to hesitate in making bets on tomorrow. Enterprises that use Analytics and Technology to address business challenges have a tremendous competitive advantage. However, both Analytics and Technology must be used to rigorously re-engineer processes so that the need to address longstanding challenges is eliminated altogether. [...]
At the most basic level, the challenge with change management is that everyone knows it’s important, even that it’s make or break to the success of outsourcing engagements, but very few actually know what it is or how to do it. Even the most outsourcing-sophisticated organizations fall short in their change management activities. Sourcing change [...]
One of the hottest areas of the workforce today is contingent labor. But staffing firms that helped place them got their start more than 70 years ago during World War II. For example, Yoh, a managed services provider (MSP), supplied engineers and drafters to help the war effort, recalls Matt Rivera, director of customer solutions. [...]
Although outsourcing is considered a mature business strategy, many transactions either fail or must be renegotiated within the first two years. Inadequate provider selection techniques (often driven by clients and endured by providers) are significant contributors to such failures. This research paper explores the effects of sourcing failure, identifies several common mistakes found in typical [...]
Behind each award-winning global outsourcing relationship is a fascinating story of extraordinary people, excellence in service delivery, lots of sweat equity, some painful bumps in the road, a mutual willingness to constructively solve problems, and trust earned. Contracts were awarded as a result of a competitive bid, so they started with a blank recipe card. [...]
Buyers of outsourcing services want their service providers to invest in technologies that bring continual improvement to the outsourced processes. Providers want to invest only where it is also beneficial to their margins in the long run. Therein lies a conflict. Are there reliable predictors of a buyer’s intent for a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship [...]
Ask 10 buyers of outsourcing services for their keys to success in communicating with their service providers, and you’ll hear 10 different answers because, of course, the effectiveness of communication depends on the individuals involved. Some will also say it depends on whether they’re communicating about day-to-day operations, conflicts or opportunities. Others will comment that [...]
An outsourcing provider’s quality of services and the achievement of the agreed-upon mutually beneficial objectives are essential to success. But there are additional actions that service providers and buyers can take to boost the return on investment and increase the life expectancy of their relationship. To identify these relationship-strengthening actions, Outsourcing Center conducted a survey [...]
As organizations move up the value chain to achieve more dynamic outcomes and return on investment from outsourcing, the complexities and business criticality of the functions outsourced also increased. Managing through these complexities, achieving business transformation, and identifying and leveraging the “sweet spots” of value require collaboration between the service provider and client organization. An [...]
“What was horrible about our outsourcing relationship in the beginning is that our expectations were unclear. That’s a horrible formula for success.” The person stating this assessment described a troubled – but remediated and turned-around – relationship that Outsourcing Center studied in its annual Outsourcing Excellence and Sourcing Awards program. Like the relationship just described, [...]
The possible perils that can impact the success of an outsourcing relationship’s transition phase are well known. These days, most buyers are as aware as service providers of the need for a robust governance framework that facilitates the parties’ identification of challenges and working collaboratively to address them quickly. Most have also read tales of [...]
Service level agreements (SLAs) play two important roles in an outsourcing arrangement. They set the stage for the service provider’s accountability, and they are the major factor in determining the price of the service. The buyer of outsourced services can achieve a comfort level that it’s getting what it pays for if it regularly monitors [...]
Industry media, especially over the past two years, often points out that a significantly high number of outsourcing arrangements do not deliver the promised cost savings due to “hidden” costs associated with managing the relationship. This is especially true, the reports state, in outsourcing relationships with an offshore delivery component, where administrative costs increase due [...]
New capabilities, like cloud computing, software-as-a-service, mobile device web access, and data center virtualization and consolidation, are significantly changing both the possibilities and the complexities of outsourcing IT functions. Analysts predict radical change in the shape of IT “factory” functions such as end-user support and help-desk services. However, an Information Week survey notes that almost [...]
In an outsourcing arrangement, decision makers at the buyer’s organization look to maximize the value of their outsourcing investment. They therefore look for a service provider that not only has the requisite process, industry, and technology expertise but one that also can manage to uncertainties and minimize the buyer’s risks, enhance the buyer’s agility, and [...]
After buyers and service providers begin working together, they find aspects about each other and the relationship they hadn’t anticipated and planned for or issues about which they had mistaken assumptions. Outsourcing Center surveyed 64 buyers on what caused those issues and how to successfully address them.
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