Research & Insight

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

How Outsourcing Buyers Benefit from Benchmarking

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Cost and price. It’s crucial that buyers understand both when it comes to outsourcing. What is the cost of providing business services internally? What elements comprise that cost? What is the price for comparable services from an outsourcing service provider? What cost elements affect the provider’s price? For the service levels it commits to perform, …

When an Outsourcing Service Provider’s Lack of Domain Knowledge is a Good Thing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

How important to the value proposition for an outsourcing initiative is the service provider’s domain knowledge specific to the buyer’s industry? Many buyers report that the provider’s expertise in a particular business process ranks higher in importance than industry expertise when selecting a service provider. But there are situations where industry knowledge is crucial, especially …

THE ROI for Strategic Change Management in Outsourcing

Laura Stone, CEO, Stone + Company

Why do outsourcing initiatives fail? I believe poor change management is to blame. Poor change management translates into: Slower speed of adoption Lower ultimate utilization Lower proficiency Together, they all hurt the “return on investment” (ROI) “in an outsourcing effort and are limited to a “past focused” thinking to do the same activities better, cheaper, …

New Contact Center Management Solution Enables Social CRM, Streamlines Processes, and Ensures Cost-Effective Flexibility

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Today’s contact centers drive revenue and build customer relationships. Management of processes in those centers (whether outsourced, hybrid, or internal centers) is now easier and less costly using VContactCenter. This new CRM solution also facilitates capturing and managing data from social media such as Twitter, makes it easy to segment data, and provides multi-language yet standard capabilities for globalization.

Outsourcing Alleviates Logistical Growing Pains

Outsourcing Center, Bruce McCracken, Business Writer

Success threatened Wellington Technologies. The HP maintenance provider signed a big contract, but the scope of the win was beyond the capabilities of its existing parts delivery system. And the fact that its parts delivery agreement had penalties didn’t help. After paying those penalties, the company outsourced to meet its delivery challenges and enhance its capabilities.

How Verticalization and Business Process Utilities Will Impact Outsourced Services

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Transparent pricing, highly standardized processes, vertical solutions. Companies will select service providers that deliver the best quality and value-add, not just the best price. “Increased adoption of standardized solutions in outcomes-based models will drive outsourcing to become more utility based,” says Don Schulman, General Manager, Finance and Administration at IBM. “And that becomes where the …

What Companies Need to Understand about Outcome-Based Approaches in Outsourcing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Among the various changes that will impact outsourcing over the next five years, Don Schulman, General Manager of Finance and Administration at IBM, says the first will be a focus on outcomes-based pricing models. “Focusing on clients’ end-to-end processes, the discussion moves to outcomes pretty fast when considering the advantage of an outsourcer doing a …

Upcoming Challenges and Opportunities in Healthcare Outsourcing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) (the economic stimulus package for the U.S. economy), healthcare reform, and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), the next five years will see a dramatic increase in outsourcing in the healthcare industry. But there are significant challenges for decision makers beyond …

How and Why Cloud Computing Will Change Outsourcing Services

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Technology enables business change, but it doesn’t drive it. Jim Stikeleather, Chief Technology Officer at Dell Perot Systems, says change doesn’t happen unless there is an economic value. And that’s why cloud computing will make such a huge impact on outsourced services. It changes companies’ ability to consume IT. “This will create a very different …

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