Research & Insight

Industry

RPO Providers Debunk 14 Outsourcing Myths

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Almost 40 years after Ross Perot launched outsourcing by offering to take over a company’s IT, outsourcing has become an accepted business practice. Yet it’s surprising how much resistance there still is in the market. The Outsourcing Center asked recruitment technology service providers and RPO providers why they believe companies still refuse to outsource in …

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 …

What to Outsource in the 24×7 Marketing Age

Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer

The digital age has changed customer DNA forever. They have no patience with 9 to 5 and they’re shredding the concept of after-hours and weekends. They have a voice, and that voice demands to be heard whenever, wherever. Enter outsourcing social media marketing. Working hours, what’s that? Banks—previously such strict observers of “working hours” all …

The Seven Deadly Sins of BPO and How to Avoid Them

Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). The concept is relatively simple: instead of hiring employees to handle the necessary but non-core, transaction-based business functions in your company, pass these on to someone else. Where’s the room for BPO mistakes? Here’s the thing: BPO is not like dropping off your dirty clothes at the dry cleaner and having …

Signing a Foreign Trade Agreement Made Colombia Outsourcers More Welcome in the US Market

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

The Foreign Trade Agreement (FTA) is no longer an unfamiliar concept. By 2013 most American companies understand and appreciate the value of offshoring. Since the Indians were among the first suppliers to pioneer the concept of sending work across geographical boundaries, American companies feel comfortable offshoring major functions to Indian service providers. Outsourcers in other …

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. …

How Analysis Can Make Sense of the Flood of Data to Create a Competitive Edge

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Five years ago the big industry buzz was about the role of analytics. The excitement it generated at the time matched the arrival of another hot new technology: the first iPhone (June 27, 2007 in case you forgot!) Did the reality match the hype? (Analytics not iPhone.) Today an analytics component has become table stakes …

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 …

What Causes Outsourcing Failures?

Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer

One of the questions that continue to hound buyers and providers of outsourcing is how to mitigate the risk of failure. This is despite a longer history of outsourcing than you would suspect—outsourcing can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution. For 150 years, until 1900, industry in Europe outsourced its requirements. Functions like accounting …

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