Industry | Outsourcing Center

Contracting With ASP’s What’s the Customer to Do?

George Kimball

Application service providers (ASP’s) promise to make all this go away. Rather than pay large license fees and hire swarms of consultants, companies may rent the software, or buy applications by the drink, paying so much per user, per month. Applications will be delivered to the desktop, over the Internet. Just pay the money, and someone else will buy, install, connect and configure everything. The allure is plain, and has aroused interest in the marketplace, and from service providers, including well-financed startups, as well as such stalwarts as Intel and Oracle. The appeal is especially strong to new and smaller companies, who can adopt standard functions from popular packages more easily than larger, long-established organizations.

Underwriting a Successful Result

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Before homebuyers can complete the transaction to purchase a home, they must demonstrate they have also arranged for homeowners insurance. Up until now, the process for obtaining that coverage was almost as arduous as finding the house in the first place…..

Wanted: Outsourcing Provider to Reduce Recruiting Times and Employee Turnover

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

In July, 1998, a national electronics retailer approached Spherion Corporation, an Atlanta-based outsourcing provider that offers high-volume sourcing, screening and selecting employees. The retailer was facing its busy Christmas season and habitually couldn’t find enough people to man its stores to handle the crush……

E-Procurement Evolving in Europe

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Vincenzo Marino worked for a company that used robots on an automobile industry assembly line. There, he watched as workers sat idle while the plant waited for a crucial part that someone had forgotten to order. Every time you make a mistake, the company loses time and money, observes Marino. In 1989 Marino left to join Unitec, an outsourcing supplier specializing in supply chain management and logistics. The company has two offices in Europe, one in Augsburg, Germany, the other in Saubaudia, Italy. Marino, the CEO, was determined to improve the process….

E-voking E-commerce E-mmediately

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Companies today realize that if they want to stay in business they will have to enter the e-commerce fray. Specifically, they must embrace Internet Protocol (IP) based technologies. If you want to be in business, you need to be in e-business, says Elena Christopher, senior analyst at Gartner DataQuest in Egham, England…….

The Long Arm of the Law

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Ecommerce between customer and buyer can be tricky. But the degree of difficulty increases when those two partners reside in different countries. If there’s an ocean of difference between the laws of the two nations, the transaction must adhere to the stricter set of regulations…..

A Gifted Outsourcing Relationship

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Today the company, now called Send.com, has 20 different product lines, ranging from cigars to cars. The company partners with local specialty retailers to fill its orders and deliver its gifts. Like a winemaker mixing a champagne cuvee, Send.com has merged e-commerce with old-fashioned retail…

Web Watch Dogs

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

It’s 4 a.m. Do you know if your Web site’s working? If the Web site resides on a NaviSite server, you can leave the worrying to them. If one of its experienced trouble-shooters notices that something is not quite right with a Web server, the employee explores the problem and fixes it before it affects Web performance…. (outsourcing)

The Importance of Infrastructure: When Going Down Can Mean Going Under

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Internet businesses depend on their Web sites being available when their customers are. Downtime is expensive because a customer that clicks away can be lost forever. When a Web site is down, an ecommerce company loses revenue, brand recognition and customers, notes Tom Jones, CEO of StrataSource, a Fremont, California BPO provider…

E-Government: From Standing in Line to Going Online

Outsourcing Center, Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Senior Writer

Every year American individuals and businesses complete about $600 billion worth of transactions with the local, state and the Federal governments, excluding their various tax payments. To date, less than one percent of those interactions occur on-line, according to Adrian Moore, director of privatization and government reform for the Reason Public Policy Institute, a Los Angeles-based think tank that studies government management. But, like death and taxes, you can be sure that percentage will increase.(outsourcing)

➤

Let’s talk more

Consult Form

"*" indicates required fields