Cloud Archives

Wireless: To Be or Not To Be

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Wireless scares people, says Adam Braunstein, senior research analyst with the Robert Frances Group. The concept that you can get anything anywhere is easy to understand and sounds great, and what company wouldn’t want to give those capabilities to its staff and customers where appropriate? The problem is that the application is extremely difficult. There are several warring technologies out there, Braunstein explains, and the wireless carriers are having huge difficulties. Financial institutions and the healthcare industry are the early adopters of wireless technology. It’s also an ideal solution for a mobile sales force, traveling executives, field technicians, logistics and other processes. The media has touted the enormous benefits for companies to adopt this technology as an extension of access to the Internet while, at the same time, making a lot of noise about the immaturity of the technology and its failures in addressing business applications and user needs.

Outsourcing in Uncertain Times

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Corporate layoffs command the headlines. Inflation numbers are jumping up and the NASDAQ index is diving down. Yet some industries still can’t find enough people to meet their growing orders. Are we heading toward the locust years or new boom? While economists are debating the answer, businesses have to decide what to do. Should they hire more people to be ready for a surge? Or should they lay off staff to stay lean and mean in preparation for the hard times ahead? Decisions today can affect the bottom line tomorrow. But one thing is clear in the cloudy horizon: Outsourcing is one of the best tools to deal with change in uncertain times, says Michel Janssen, chief operating officer of Outsourcing Center in Dallas, Texas.

Wireless Billing Complexities Crave Outsourcing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Current communication providers will need to revamp their system to handle billing processes for wireless services. Thomas Tunstall, Ph.D., at KPMG Consulting LLC, explains that the revenue streams that have come from voice will increasingly shift to data. Traffic from applications data traveling through the Internet will be usage based, rather than minutes based.

SLAs That Work

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Service level agreements (SLA) are crucial to ASP buyers. SLAs create structure for the relationship and help both parties measure performance. But how do you write an SLA? How do you monitor them? Who is responsible for managing the SLAs?

Flooded with Possibilities

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

No doubt, you’ve seen the ads with the cupped hands ready to cradle your life. With the accompanying slogan, You’re in good hands with Allstate, one would naturally assume that customer satisfaction is a high priority with this insurance company. When it comes to outsourcing, though, you can bet that Allstate is in the good hands of its supplier, EDS. Larry Moser, Senior Marketing Manager at Allstate and Product Manager for its flood and mobile home lines, recalls that a decision was made in 1986 that Allstate would join the Write Your Own Flood Insurance Program. He says the company subsequently looked at its processing operation and realized that writing flood was a lot different from its other lines (auto, life, property) and decided to explore what opportunities there might be for the processing of the flood business.

Strategic Defense

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

With technology requirements aimed squarely at their weakest point, yet with a goal to be the government’s choice to build 21st-century destroyers, BIW made the strategic decision to outsource all of its IT operations to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). We felt CSC would be able to support us in our effort to achieve our goal of being a technology leader and could do it at the rate at which our customer would like to see it done. Bowie admits that BIW had blinders on when it outsourced in November 1996, not realizing the extent of technological advancement that would be required. The original contract spend was about $27 million, and it has now grown to include new services and a value of nearly $50 million over four years. Because its customer was driving certain initiatives, BIW found it needed new PCs for all employees so that they could do design work more efficiently and win more government contracts.

Cultivating a High Yield in Outsourcing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

The fourth largest steel company in the U.S., National Steel manufactures steel for the automotive, construction and tin container industries and has annual shipments of almost six million tons of flat rolled products. The company outsourced the housing and operation of its mainframe and data center services to IBM in November 1998 with a seven-year contract worth nearly $60 million. John Davis, CIO of National Steel, explains that they wanted to reallocate its human resources to solve National Steel problems, rather than technology problems. I wanted them working on solutions that would differentiate National Steel from other steel competitors, he says. The company has accomplished that and other goals, and their agreement has yielded far more than they asked for. But, after all, National Steel is no novice to outsourcing. In the 1980s, National Steel spun off its data center (which then became a part of ACS).

Magnificent Medicaid Management

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Medicaid is one of the most controversial, complicated and expensive programs in U.S. government. It’s very political, so there is a high level of interest, and there is also a lot of change going on in it all the time, says Peggy Bartels, Administrator of the State of Wisconsin’s Division of Health Care Financing. So any entity that provides outsourcing for Medicaid is going to be in a fishbowl environment. It’s very difficult. She explains that the process of reviewing and making determinations about whether or not Medicaid will fund services is all done under the very close supervision and administration of the State. Decisions are controversial. By being our business partner, the outsourcer invites the same criticism we receive, she adds. They’re in the bull’s eye, and it is a big challenge to do that kind of work and maintain a positive presence. Nevertheless, EDS took the challenge and has been the Medicaid fiscal agent in the State of Wisconsin since their outsourcing agreement began in 1977.

Zeal for the Zone

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

BMC Software could not be more enthusiastic about its new and effective outsourcing relationship with ReleaseNow Corporation. As one of the world’s largest independent software vendors, BMC delivers the comprehensive eBusiness systems management software. It guarantees the fastest implementation so, naturally, that was a primary concern when the company decided last year to launch a new eBusiness Web site.

CRM Becomes A Star At ENSTAR

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

The I Love You virus did very unloving things to the computers of email readers who couldn’t resist opening the infected note. The malicious message did billions of dollars of damage. And an avalanche of email messages brought down Yahoo in a DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack. These high profile events made companies realize the Internet is full of lurkers and some of them are evil people.

Research & Insight

Cloud

Outsourcing in Uncertain Times

Wireless Billing Complexities Crave Outsourcing

SLAs That Work

Flooded with Possibilities

Strategic Defense

Cultivating a High Yield in Outsourcing

Magnificent Medicaid Management

Zeal for the Zone

CRM Becomes A Star At ENSTAR

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