Research & Insight

Research & Insight

managing for success

Is Outsourcing Research Relevant?

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

A deluge of research studies on nearly every aspect of outsourcing has been conducted during the past decade, ever since it gained recognition as a strategic business tool to gain competitive advantage and became one of the top ten issues for survival in the 1990s. You’ve no doubt read many of them.

Of Equal Stature

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

BPAmoco is one of the world’s leading providers of energy and petrochemicals. As the third largest integrated oil company in the world, it enjoys considerable reach and scale. BPAmoco recognized that its core skills revolve around the products that it markets to its customers. Its accounting and transaction functions are not part of that core. We can certainly get comfortable with a third-party providing that service, allowing us to focus our attention on those things that we are good at and need to be good at, suggests David Hulf, CFO of BPAmoco Oil Europe. But only an outsourcer of equal stature would be able to supply BPAmoco’s needs.

Growing Together

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

Compaq Computer Corporation and Jabil Circuit, Inc. This award illustrates the ability to expand SAP outsourcing into a whole new venue, e-commerce. E-commerce, of course, is the hottest area for outsourcing expansion. Jabil originally outsourced its SAP application to Compaq to manage its global growth throughout North America, Asia and Europe. This outsourcing proved to be the perfect springboard to attack e-commerce….

Overcoming the Inherent Gridlock in Outsourcing

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

If you look at most traditional outsourcing contracts, says Ben Trowbridge of Ernst & Young, there are a number of built-in conflicts of interest in how they are priced and how they are structured. Trowbridge, who is responsible for the Services Market within Ernst & Young’s Operate Practice, says that equal sharing is not always possible in a typical outsourcing relationship.

Integrate the Best-In-Class Provider or Control the Single Integrator

Dr. Eelko L.P. van Leeuwen

Outsourcing changes are usually linked to developments in the computer industry. In the past, mainframe operations have been the dominant way in which a company runs its information technology (IT). So consequently, outsourcing has drifted towards farming out entire computer centers. With more decentralized operations, such as LANs and WANs, the possibilities of selective outsourcing has become reality, opening the door to multiple vendors and the outsourcing of different environments. This leads to the question of whether to choose best-in-class providers or single integrators.

Communication: Cornerstone For Building Flexibility

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

More and more, companies enter into outsourcing agreements as a strategy to remain competitive. But rapid technological advancements change the competition; hence, an essential element of an outsourcing agreement must be flexibility. G2R, which specializes in providing research and management consulting, assists end users and vendors in constructing effective sourcing agreements.

The Tactics of Transformation

Outsourcing Center, Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer

The outsourcing industry, having matured significantly during the past ten years, faces changes in 1999 that will not only alter the focus of the outsourcing industry itself, but will also transform the companies entering into such transactions.

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