Research & Insight

Business Challenge

Business Transformation

Six Ways BPO Looks Different

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

The BPO landscape is changing as fast as the colors on the leaves as summer turns into fall. Why now? Professor Ilan Oshri, Professor of Technology and Globalization at the University of Loughborough, says the maturity of the BPO industry, experienced buyers gained with both captives and third-party service providers, and the providers use of …

Mobile Operators Think Small to Get Bigger Profits | Article

Debbie Fisher, Business Writer, Outsourcing Center

Small cells that is. Whether you’re a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) deploying services in urban or rural areas, a city official modernizing your infrastructure to attract and retain citizens, or a high tech start-up looking to join the ecosystem of suppliers emerging to address the ever growing data traffic demands, a small cell solution …

Big Data Trends : New Uses, New Challenges, New Solutions | Article

Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer

It’s hard to find a business enabler that’s evolving as quickly as Big Data analytics. This undisputed darling of the loyalty program and retail world has now infiltrated nearly every industry, from transportation and healthcare to insurance and supply chain management. It’s the catalyst for a new marketing mindset, where targeted offers are not only …

The Seven Deadly Sins of BPO and How to Avoid Them

Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). The concept is relatively simple: instead of hiring employees to handle the necessary but non-core, transaction-based business functions in your company, pass these on to someone else. But, here’s the thing: BPO is not like dropping off your dirty clothes at the dry cleaner and having them magically transform into fresh-pressed …

The F&A Forecast: 14 Challenges and Six Solutions | Article

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

The finance and accounting function, along with HR, have traditionally been the BPO processes that companies testing the waters of outsourcing get wet with first. Today “transactional outsourcing has been leveled to a simple commodity,” says Michael J. Alfonsi, Managing Director, BancTec Financial Transaction Services. So what are FAO’s challenges 20 years later? Processes are …

The New World Order of ITO: The View from the Inside-Out | Article

Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer

If you look back on the transforming world of IT over the past few years, it’s easy to chart the stages. First, there was denial that anything needed to change. Then came the fear of cloud and the perceived lack of control associated with this agile, new delivery model. As we move to 2013, we …

Fabric Data Centers: The End of Complex, Expensive and Inefficient Infrastructure

Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer

What’s new in the data center? Last year, the buzz was around “fabric data centers” as organizations began to worry about costs. Did it make sense to have dedicated and expensive network, computing and storage resources around applications even if the IT infrastructure was outsourced? Could IT infrastructure costs be brought down? CIOs were under …

What is Outsourcing? It’s Our Past, Present and Future

Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer

Outsourcing is not a new or alien phenomenon. Almost every organization outsources some aspect of its business. A paint company may outsource the manufacture of its paint cans; a mobile network may outsource its billing activity; a hospital may outsource medical waste disposal; an auto manufacturer may outsource servicing; and an IT company may outsource …

Transforming Supply Chain Management with RFID | Article

Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer

Some years ago, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) was going to power supply chain systems to the next level. Retailers like Target, Metro Cash & Carry and Walmart adopted it, only to discover that there were several challenges. Integration with SCM was one—tracking everything down to the last part/unit using RFID was turning out to not …

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