Planning for an Outsourcing Evaluation
Dr. Wendell Jones
An outsourcing evaluation should follow a disciplined, managerial approach from planning through negotiation and implementation, to ongoing management of the relationship.
Research & Insight
Industry
Manufacturing & Hi-tech
In the Pink
Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer
PinkElephant is a Dutch ASP headquartered at Zoetermeer. The ASP is a PinkRoccade nv company, one of the most successful traditional IT outsourcing vendors in Holland. And that’s exactly how the ASP market is developing in Europe. The quick starting, independent American startup is the slow moving elephant in Europe, according to Leon Fock, business unit director. PinkRoccade nv was formed in 1950 as the Mechanical Administration, which was part of the central government of the Netherlands. Every 20 years the IT outsourcing vendor has reinvented itself. In the 1970s the department morphed into the Government Computer Center. In 1990 the department became a public limited liability company as part of a privatization move.
From Hamstrung to Power
Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
Italy — its name brings to mind the pungent parmesan and garlic odors, magnificent golden treasures in the cathedrals and palaces, crowded canals of Venice and mysteries of Pompeii. The nation holds many charms for tourists. Part of the culture of this historic land is endurance and pride. Those characteristics carry over into the business arena. There are people who created their businesses from nothing, and they have worked all their lives in those businesses. They are not open to change, says Stefano Valentini, an outsourcing consultant in Rome. He explains that Italy has a lot of small (under 50 employees) and medium (under 250) companies and that 80% of production comes from these companies. Although many executives even in the United States are just coming to grips with it, the fact is that a company can’t be good at doing everything. An attitude of mistrust and not wanting to let go of control of business processes only results in being hamstrung — as crippling as cutting the tendons at the ham
How to Minimize Risks When Entering the Wireless World
Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
People are doing wireless today without having thought about it first, and now they have some real problems, states John Stehman, principal analyst with the Robert Frances Group. They can’t even support all the devices they have out there. They have five to seven different devices and the help desk doesn’t even know what some of them are. Wireless technologies are still experimental, and Thomas Tunstall, Ph.D. with KPMG Consulting, believes it’s difficult to know which applications will catch on and which providers will be successful. Wireless technology is changing, coverage is changing, and providers and pricing are changing. Users are trying to decide if applications will have value. To enter this world requires a strategy built on flexibility and minimizing risk; both are best accomplished by outsourcing.
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.
The Reasonings of CEOs and CIOs
Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
Difficult business problems require solutions that are based on sound reasonings. The Internet and new economy have so drastically changed the way business is done that today’s top execs must focus on how to change their companies. Change is necessary as technology and markets evolve, despite whether a company is competing successfully or losing market share. Long-range plans keep getting shorter and shorter, and the need for risk management in such an environment is increasingly recognized as a competency. Most organizations now are a hybrid of some internal departments or divisions and some alliances with outsourcers for various business processes. Why do so many chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief information officers (CIOs) turn to outsourcing as a strategy to achieve their business objectives? Upon what reasoning do they base these decisions? Adam Braunstein, senior research analyst with the Robert Frances Group, whose clients are the top echelon of Fortune…
Fly Like an Eagle
Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
As human genome mapping starts to produce results and new drugs are developed to eradicate or control some of life’s most significant challenges, the spotlight will be on pharmaceutical companies. Time to market will drive their efforts. But the pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated, so their innovative development efforts will require tight management and control, along with certain levels of configuration management and maturity models (CMM). Outsourcers such as MERANT provide powerful solutions that will allow them to fly like eagles. Keith White, MERANT’s vice president and general manager, explains that 70% of development projects fail and 90% of them are over budget and behind schedule. The challenges are obvious for, as he points out, When you have to develop a product that has to fit in to a million different environments, the risks and time and resources required to get them deployed and to maintain and manage them is expensive.
The Future of Contract Manufacturing
Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
The Future of Contract Manufacturing In the food business over the last decade, innovation and new product introduction has been the key driver. Brand names no longer command the same premium they used to. Steinberg points to recent market shares for new candy bars, snack foods and specialty cereals that have come and gone as evidence that new product life cycles often are very short. This means the innovation engine has to be cranked up pretty high, he says. So most food companies have invested heavily in plants, equipment and process technology over the last decade. According to Steinberg, a growing number of food companies now have too much specialized and inflexible technology that often was designed to make a product that may not be as competitive now as it once was. To become competitive, many consistently over the last decade have been asked to take money out of the supply chain. Profitability has come from continuous cost cutting, rather than top-line growth. Innovation, after all, is difficult; and i
If the Shoe Fits
Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
Building for Future Competition and Growth Dramatic technological changes now regularly unsettle our ways of doing business, and this trend promises to wreak even more havoc in the future as technological advances occur even more quickly. Future organizational success already depends on strategies to make companies more agile in their ability to change so that their competitors don’t pass them by. Where will your company be five years from now? Successful companies will have evolved to operate in fresh new, more effective ways. Motivational speaker and author, John L. Mason, advises people that if the shoe fits, they shouldn’t wear it, for they are not allowing room for growth. Companies that don’t change but continue to operate as they do today will become eccentric, for growth and success require change. To stay in the game, executives must decide to stop doing things the way they have always been done, realizing that organizations have limitations and can’t be good at everything. To
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.