Category Archives: Outsourcing Advisors

So… are these the world’s best outsourcing advisors?

May 8th, 2013
Click to Enlarge

The IAOP has announced it’s 2013 “best outsourcing advisors”, and kudos to my former employer, Deloitte, for coming top. Credit has to go out to Peter Lowes and his Outsourcing Advisory Services group for their achievement. In addition, KPMG’s Shared Services and Advisory Group, led my Cliff Justice, finished in second place – a strong showing and justification of their 2011 acquisition of EquaTerra. The biggest surprises, however, are the absences of ISG, the largest transaction advisor of outsourcing contracts, and PwC…

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Is the day of the rock star analyst officially over?

April 21st, 2013
Rock-Star

There’s been a lot of backchannel lately regarding high profile analyst departures to vendor organizations, with Thomas Otter, Gartner’s hugely popular VP for Human Capital Management, hopping to SAP’s recent acquisition, SuccessFactors.

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Outsourcing Executives: What’s your career narrative?

April 4th, 2013
Deborah Kops is, always was, and always will be, Deborah Kops (click for bio)

I’m obsessed by careers. I spend time trying to make sense of the various and sundry twists and turns that the life’s work of those in our industry seem to take. And I look closely for patterns.

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HfS rated in the top right-hand-corner of analyst firms for influencing buyers and journalists

February 19th, 2013
AnalystEquity_Influence_Ratings

HFS Research was an outstanding performer in the Analyst Value Survey. Buyers of analysts’ services rate HFS Research as one of the most valuable providers, and one of a handful of firms whose influence grew most impressively in 2012

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Seven savant-like dudes and their sourcing scuttlebutt… replayed

January 23rd, 2013
FBI image click here for the replay

Your week not quite the same without seven dudes rabbiting on about best practices and being over-polite with each other? Well, your addiction can be cured by listening to the replay

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Which planet are equity analysts from?

January 5th, 2013
I'm telling you... shipping back office work to India is going to be huge

Mars, Venus or Saturn…which planet are equity analysts from?

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A new Indian marketing model – pounding anyone with a pulse with PowerPoint

December 6th, 2012
"Did someone say innovation?"

Just when you thought it may be safe to give up a couple of days of your life to get to know a service provider better, one of the Indian majors has added a whole new dimension to the sales cheese game.

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Alsbridge digs deep into the guts of the Cloud with Telwares acquisition

November 27th, 2012
Ben Trowbridge is CEO, Alsbridge (click for bio)

A subtle, but decisive, shift took place in the sourcing advisory landscape today, with Alsbridge’s announcing the acquisition of leading telecoms/networking sourcing advisor, Telwares, to firmly place Alsbridge as the main contender to ISG at the helm of the independent boutique advisor market.

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Captain Cliff of the Sourcing Enterprise Part IV… The Final Frontier

November 20th, 2012
Captain Cliff Justice and his cohorts aboard the Sourcing Enterprise (pictured left)

Let’s boldly go to the final frontier of our discussion where KPMG’s Cliff Justice talks about how the world of “outsourcing” has changed in today’s economy

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Captain Cliff of the Sourcing Enterprise Part II… The Death of Outsourcing

October 15th, 2012
Captain Cliff Justice, who happens to be Partner and U.S. Leader, Shared Services and Outsourcing Advisory at KPMG

And welcome back to our interview with KPMG’s Captain Cliff who has proclaimed the Death of Outsourcing in a recent white paper

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Captain Cliff of the Sourcing Enterprise… Part I

October 7th, 2012
Cliff-and-Danny-Justice

allow us to introduce Cliff Justice, KPMG’s very own kingpin of the extended enterprise, who’s calmly building out one of the most impressive collections of experienced sourcing operators and thinkers in the global shared services and outsourcing industry

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It’s official: the outsourcing industry has voted out its name

September 5th, 2012
O-word-dropped

HfS Research has reached out to its unique community of services and operations professionals, and can finally reveal the answers we have long been searching for – that it’s time to re-brand the industry formerly known as outsourcing, with 61% of the industry stakeholders voting to drop the term

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Sourcing advisory bounces back… with half of today’s F&A BPO deals being advised

June 16th, 2012
"Mommy - do you have to go to work today?"

While the combination of increasing commodization of basic BPO services and an ever-smartening buyer, seemed to signal the end of transactional advisory services, the consulting industry has found a way to adapt to keep itself relevant and much more price-friendly, while still being in a strong position to help clients deal with the sensitive and political task of outsourcing.

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Time to ring-fence “Lights On Outsourcing” and focus on “Business Transformation Services”

May 27th, 2012
Which camp are you in?

It’s high-time to segment the industry so we can all focus on delivering value, and not solely cost-cutting

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Ron Walker lands it safely on the green… with KPMG

May 25th, 2012
Ron Walker (pictured left and right) is Principal, Shared Services and Outsourcing Advisory at KPMG. Click for bio

Ron Walker, one of the original EquaTerra founding executives has lived the sourcing dream… from start up advisors and providers right through to a global management consultancy. So we thought it high-time we caught up with Ron to talk about his colorful career and how the EquaTerra/KPMG merger was faring over a year on… and how different the sourcing world is looking today compared to those crazy days of the outsourcing boom.

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In case you felt you had something better to do during our Services-Savants webinar…

May 20th, 2012
click here for the replay

We still haven’t quite forgiven those of you for not being one of the 1,200 people who signed up to hear six of the most influential IT and business services savants debate on the future of sourcing and services. I mean – what else were you doing? Was it really that important? However, in our spirit of forgiving even the unforgivable, here’s a replay of the event.

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Bring it on! ISG takes aim at Gartner

May 11th, 2012
ISG_Gartner

ISG analyst Stanton Jones points a nuclear missile at the credibility of Gartner’s recent Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting

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The end of outsourcing as we know it… Part I

May 2nd, 2012
Its-no-longer-all-about-outsourcing

At the end of the day, it’s not all about outsourcing and it’s not all about shared services; it’s about focusing on how to globalize processes, how to transform finance (and other) functions, and how to govern it all in a global business services context. There is no dominant model, it’s more about achieving the right balance across all delivery models to achieve the best business goals. In conjunction with global accounting body ACCA, We spoke to 682 large organizations currently running finance in either an outsourced or shared service framework (or both) – and the results are emphatic: those organizations relying predominantly on outsourced delivery, or predominantly shared services, are viewing their finance delivery performance much more skeptically

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And then there were six… meet the sourcing savants on the seventeenth

April 30th, 2012
The_Services_Savants_Web_debate

ver wondered what would happen if you brought the six most prominent IT and business services savants together for a one-hour debate on the future of the sourcing and services world? Well, wonder no more as this becomes a reality on 17th May at 12pm EST, 5pm GMT

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April truths about outsourcing: Finance leaders are looking to providers’ capabilities more than ever, but are they really prepared to change?

April 11th, 2012
who came first?

Service providers are in pole position to provide the value clients need, however, there needs to be some give-and-take on both sides to move beyond mere “augmentation”

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