Simon Shah, Redwood
There’s a reason automation solutions are on every business owner’s mind. Today’s business enterprise is in a state of continuous change—the pressure to optimize performance while lowering costs is enormous. The real-time expectations of the ‘now’ economy is no longer limited to manufacturing and shipping but is driven by information services, an increasingly mobile workforce …
Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer
Fast access to meaningful, real-time information is critical to running a successful business, but today’s CEO dashboards fall short. Most are generic, out-of-the-box solutions, created by vendors who don’t understand the companies’ businesses or the type of information each specific CEO really needs. In a world where consumers can get personalized information pushed to their …
Thomas Keenan and Geofrey L. Master, Mayer Brown LLP
The entire sourcing value chain for consumer products sourced or manufactured in Asia has become increasingly interconnected and mutually reliant—ownership of physical manufacturing assets and intellectual property rights has become more ambiguous and contentious. With ambiguity over ownership and rights to manufacturing assets, customers lose the key leverage of mobility. While brand companies were able …
Outsourcing Center, Staff Writer
Enterprise IT and compliance groups agree on one thing for certain: their cloud environments could use some work on the security front. Less than half of the 1,018 IT security practitioners and enterprise compliance officers surveyed by the Ponemon Institute, which conducts independent research on privacy, data protection and information security policy, believe their organizations …
Thomas Keenan and Geofrey L. Master, Mayer Brown LLP
The product supply chain from China is not what it used to be. Over the past 20 years, Chinese consumer-product manufacturers have become increasingly sophisticated and capable of taking on more “value-adding” tasks or segments of the product creation supply chain and have moved from mere manufacturers to multi-functional suppliers. In doing so, they have …
Linda Tuck Chapman, President, ONTALA Performance Solutions Ltd.
Despite quantum improvements to outsourcing deals and governance over the past 10 to 15 years, when it comes to achieving outsourcing process excellence there’s still plenty of opportunity. Part of the challenge is that once the decision is made to outsource or change providers, the clock starts ticking….fast. It takes real discipline to know when …
Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer
It’s not easy being an independent insurance agent these days. Margins are down, the market is soft and direct sellers are promoting a virtual, ‘click-and-pick’ approach to an industry traditionally built on personal relationships and trust. To increase profitability, these agencies have to run lean, automating as many processes as possible. However, even with the …
Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
Buyers of outsourced services want their service providers to invest in technologies that bring continual improvement to the outsourced processes. Providers want to invest only where it is also beneficial to their margins in the long run. Therein lies a conflict. Are there reliable predictors of a buyer’s intent for a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship …
Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
The bulk of most companies’ operational costs are in manpower, says Ragu Bhargava, CEO of Global Upside, Inc., a finance and accounting (F&A) service provider. That’s one of the reasons companies in all industries are increasingly bucking the long-held practice of retaining full-time F&A staff in house. Mountain View, Calif,-based Global Upside, Inc. provides services …
Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
There’s no shortage of methodologies and advisories on best practices and risk mitigation strategies for the transition phase of outsourcing relationships. Even so, many buyers encounter situations they didn’t foresee when structuring their arrangement, which cause costs to rise and delay time to value. Outsourcing Center studied these types of situations by surveying companies nominated …
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