Research & Insight

Industry

Manufacturing & Hi-tech

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.

Outsourcing is Taking Three Forks

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Traditionally, outsourcing has been IT oriented. Today, however, outsourcing is taking three different paths. I see outsourcing falling into three distinct categories: the traditional IT suppliers,† the application service providers (ASP), and the business process outsourcing (BPO) suppliers. Different currents are buffeting each sector. Historically, IBM, EDS and CSCformed the top tier of the IT …

Outsourcing Now Has Ebusiness Component

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

When buyers decide to outsource today, you can bet ebusiness considerations are part of the contract. Paul Cofoni, president of the technology management group at Computer Science Corporation (CSC), says he rarely sees an outsourcing proposal that doesn’t have a substantial ecommerce component. Companies want to create a business-to-business (B2B) exchange, use ebusiness to enhance their supply chain management, or simply make it easier for their clients to have access to them…

Big Companies Embrace Multi-Process BPO

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

The trend to outsource non-core business processes is ‘irreversible,’ says John Barnsley, global leader for Business Process Outsourcing for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and is steadily moving to include multiple activities. Barnsley attributes an overall increase in acceptance of BPO as an important strategic tool to the rapid transformation in technology. Constant change, accelerated by the Internet, has altered companies’ risk equations.

Double Digit Growth for BPO

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

There was a huge up tick in business process outsourcing (BPO) in 2000, says Julie Giera, vice president at Giga, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based research and advisory firm specializing in the technology industry. She attributes BPO’s double digit growth to the popularity of Web-enabled offerings. BPO soared because companies are seeing the benefits of using an application service provider (ASP). Giera defines the ASP model as application rental over the Web.

Balancing Trust and Accountability

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Trust plays a crucial role in government outsourcing. Adrian Moore of the Reason Foundation says that the less tangible things are, the more important trust is. In outsourced infrastructure projects, trust is less important. A project to construct a bridge, for example, is tangible in that you test to establish whether it was built soundly. But in a contract for such services as child adoption placement, managing a prison or welfare benefits, the outcomes are open-ended. Much of what the government wants to happen is well defined and measurable, but a lot of it is not. That type of circumstance will require trusting the vendor a great deal…

Watertight Plan

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Plainfield’s Town Council decided to use Competitive Government Strategies, Inc. as its consultant for the procurement process. They had seen its president’s success when he had implemented in earlier years the privatization of the operation and maintenance of the Indianapolis sewer utility and the utility billings. Plainfield wanted to take a similar approach…

Scaling the Hurdle of Trust

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Been there, done that is not a trite phrase to Skip Stitt, founder and president of Competitive Government Strategies, Inc. His consulting firm assists cities, counties, states and private-sector not-for-profit organizations on outsourcing and privatization. From experience, he knows it’s vital that government entities base their strategic decisions on best practices, for he was once a buyer. As chief operating officer and senior deputy mayor for the City of Indianapoli…

Netsourcing: the Life Blood of an ISO

Steve Gust

Larry Marcus, president and chief executive officer, of NY based MiracleNet.com knows that his service needs to be up to par when it comes to being an ISO. There are simply too many others out there. AOL, EarthLink and MSN are always looking for information Superhighway travelers. MiracleNet.com offers subscribers a chance to make money with memberships. If there are hiccups getting online, revenue can be lost……(outsourcing

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