Research & Insight

Business Challenge

Cost Reduction & Avoidance

Is Automation Putting The Human Workforce on Auto-Pilot?

Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer

July 6, 2013: An Asiana Airlines flight carrying 307 people from South Korea to San Francisco clipped a seawall and crashed, killing three people. Although all of the causes of the crash are still being investigated at this writing, reports indicate that one big contributing factor was the pilots’ reliance on automation. They were so …

New Buyer Demands and SMAC are Changing Both Providers and BPO

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

New buyer demands and social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) are changing both BPO and providers. Here’s the constant: Service providers in 2014 “have to live up to evolved client demands, increased competition and a rapidly changing regulatory environment,” notes Sanjay Jain, chief strategy officer, WNS Global Services. What’s changing is how they are meeting …

Five Reasons Why Non-US Providers Are Beefing Up Their US Centers

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Non-US-based outsourcing service providers are currently beefing up their US operations. A constellation of events are making this beneficial for both outsourcing buyers and providers. “Every provider wants a US presence,” observes Denis Winkler, Director at Alsbridge. “And if they already have a presence, it’s growing.” Some of the factors creating this new geographical attitude …

Six Ways BPO Looks Different

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

  The BPO industry 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 …

Top Five Reasons for IT Directors to Outsource IT Services

Mark Walker, Business Development Director, Ubertas

Fear of surrendering control is probably the main factor holding many IT directors back from realizing the benefits you’ll reap when you outsource IT services. But if you can find an IT services supplier who will work with you in a genuine partnership, understanding the specific needs of your business, it soon becomes clear that …

The Flexi-pricing Route to Cloud Innovation

Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer

I’ve got a little story about cloud solutions. A wealthy looking woman entered an optician’s shop, pointed to a very stylish frame and declared to the shopkeeper, “I’d like to buy that. How much?” Gauging at a glance her capacity to pay, he replied: “$500.” When she didn’t bat an eyelid, he added quickly, “for …

The Do’s and Don’ts of Payroll Outsourcing

Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer

Payroll outsourcing is an excellent way to improve accuracy, streamline processes and offload time-consuming, often tedious tasks to a proven specialist. While the service is designed to simplify life for the client company (and the people in it), without careful planning or adherence to some best practices, the whole thing can get a little complicated. …

Why is Outsourcing Innovation So Hard? Here’s How to Make the Impossible Possible!

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Talk to most outsourcing buyers at the outset of their engagements and innovation is always on their wish list. Talk to them two or three years later, and the one thing they wish they had gotten is innovation. The lack of innovation in outsourcing seems to be one the few things they are unhappy about. …

The F&A Forecast: 14 Challenges and Six Solutions

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 …

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