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 …
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 …
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 …
Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer
What is outsourcing? It 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 …
Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer
Some years ago, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) was going to bring supply chain management 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 …
Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer
Two things are of key importance in the retail industry today: margins and customer loyalty. While better sourcing, operational efficiencies and market penetration can check margins, the answers to improving loyalty or even maintaining them are complex. Retailers are increasingly being forced towards tactical solutions, rewarding customers with “money-off” deals. Much of the concept of …
Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer
16th Annual Outsourcing Excellence Awards—Best Financial Services: Deutsche Bank and Accenture The world’s largest procurement BPO engagement has realized its vision. “Working as one cohesive team, we over-delivered on our business case and we’re still on an upward trajectory. Eight years after initiating the largest procurement BPO engagement in the world, we’re here, we’re successful and …
Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer
16th Annual Outsourcing Excellence Awards – Best ITO: Towers Watson and Dell Services “The biggest mistake companies make is picking a provider and then treating them like a vendor. You can hire the best company in the world, but if you don’t work with that provider as a team, you are going to fail.”John Dabek, …
Simon Shah, Redwood
There’s a reason automation solutions are on every business owner’s mind. Today’s business enterprise is in a state of continuous change—the pressure to optimize performance while lowering costs is enormous. The real-time expectations of the ‘now’ economy is no longer limited to manufacturing and shipping but is driven by information services, an increasingly mobile workforce …
John Harney, Business Writer
What if the New York Times replaced Pulitzer Prize winner Gretchen Morgenson, cited for her “trenchant and incisive Wall Street coverage”, with outsourced personnel in India to save four-fifths of her salary? Absurd, you say? Absurd or not, doing so seems to be a developing trend in American newspapers. Though it’s unlikely a writer of …
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