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. …
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 …
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 …
Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer
Today’s Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are not simple documents that define the duration and the service to be delivered against a timetable with a handful of pre-determined performance parameters. Rather, they are documents that include cleverly negotiated customization, additional provisions, provider and buyer obligations, reporting methodologies, penalties and rewards. A well-crafted and customized SLA document …
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 …
Frank Usher, Managing Consultant
When considering sourcing alternatives for IT services, buyers must make a fundamental decision on structure. Do you want a single IT provider or multiple IT providers? Both have their pros and cons. Neither of the approaches is wrong. But each presents unique challenges, both in operations and in provider management. When IT outsourcing initially evolved, …
Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer
What is outsourcing? It is not a new or alien phenomenon. Almost every organization outsources some aspect of its business. A paint company may outsource the manufacture of its paint cans; a mobile network may outsource its billing activity; a hospital may outsource medical waste disposal; an auto manufacturer may outsource servicing; and an IT …
Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer
What are the top outsourcing success factors? Completely new challenges are surfacing. CIOs are being forced to consider Big Data, Analytics, Cloud, Virtualization, and Social and Mobile technologies to deliver business value. Customers are changing. Gen X is being replaced by an information hungry, mobile Gen Y. With rapid change, demand for flexibility and the …
Outsourcing Center, Patti Putnicki, Business Writer
16th Annual Outsourcing Excellence Award Winner 2012—Best New Process/Application: Rio Tinto and Infosys Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group, and at almost 200,000 invoices a month, is one of the largest global accounts payable operations around. Until 2009, these payables were handled in house, by separate regional onshore teams in five different countries, …
Outsourcing Center, Karthik Nagendra, Business Writer
Are you at work? Check the mobile phone you are using. If you are in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, chances are your company has allowed you to bring your own smart phone to work. The results of a recent survey of the region released by Aruba Networks (NASDAQ: ARUN) suggests that …
"*" indicates required fields