Category Archives: Outsourcing and Politics

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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The dreamSource countdown continues… Meet Mads (Part II)

April 12th, 2013
Madelein Smit is ready for dreamSource... are YOU?

If you have recovered from the mental impairment caused by the really awful governance dancing, it’s time to get back to the serious discussion about the narrowing onshore/offshore cost gap, and diversity in sourcing…. so let’s visit the final part of our recent interview with Madelein Smit, outsourcing head at the global logistics giant, CEVA Logistics

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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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Why the mid-market is the mother-in-law of outsourcing

March 9th, 2013
I want the best SaaS platform, some great BPO and a bunch of data scientists...

When it comes to outsourcing, dealing with the middle-market has been somewhat akin to dealing with the mother-in-law: can be awkward to deal with, very hard to please, and always has complex demands on your patience and resources.

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Why middle management is often as influential as the C-Suite when it comes to outsourcing

February 15th, 2013
Insanity

The official definition of insanity in sourcing: recounting how many times a service provider has said to you, “We’ve got to get to the C-suite to pitch innovative ideas because middle management is too risk adverse.”

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Genpact joneses after JAWOOD to capitalize on healthcare insurance mayhem

February 9th, 2013
Tony Filippone

Get ready for the healthcare market to heat up over the next three years as a result of state health insurance market places, the rapid expansion of accountable care organizations, and ICD-10 implementations.

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Sourcing no-no’s for 2013: what’s gotta go

December 27th, 2012
What's going cheesy in 2013 then?

Here’s some sourcing cheese we don’t want more of 2013

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Tiger Tales Part IV… The sourcing industry’s virtuous cycle

December 18th, 2012
Tiger_Genpact_Part_IV

And just when you’d forgotten we hadn’t published the final installment of our interview with Genpact’s CEO NV “Tiger” Tyagarajan…

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So… who’s got the bottle to buy HP’s BPO services business?

November 23rd, 2012
HP-Gift-Ribbon

In today’s commodotizing market for IT and business services, HP’s services business can only really look to defend what it still has against the encroaching competitive bite of the likes of Accenture, Cognizant, Genpact, IBM, TCS etc. However, there is one option that could revitalize its legacy: merge with one of the market leaders.

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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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Tiger Tales Part III… Working with the 57%

November 18th, 2012
NV “Tiger” Tyagarajan is President and CEO, Genpact (click for bio)

In Part III, we ask Genpact CEO Tiger Tyagarajan his views of the “57%”, the percentage of enterprise customers who feel their provider does not understand their business

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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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The great outsourcing talent-chasm: 57% of service provider staff don’t understand their clients’ businesses

September 30th, 2012
The-O-word-Final-Word

In terms of business understanding, initiative, innovation and culture, non-US staff are miles behind local staff. For example, only 43% of outsourcing customer feel their non-US staff understands their business, when compared to 88% of local staff. Yes, this gap will surely close as the industry matures, but I find this talent-chasm unacceptable in today’s global marketplace.

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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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Give Infosys a break

August 3rd, 2012
Indo-US

Having petty stories, like this Infosys visa issue, being blown up in the media is only causing negative emotions and xenophobia to be stirred up needlessly in this year’s political melting-pot. We operate in a global business climate these days, in case anyone hasn’t noticed… it’s time to embrace and compete, not resist and fall further behind.

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Happy birthday, Dodd-Frank!

July 21st, 2012
Whoever said we were't stimulating new growth for the professional services industry?

Please join us in wishing Dodd-Frank “Happy Birthday.” This is the largest financial reform act in U.S. history, amassing 884 pages when it was finally signed in 2010, designed to enforce the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the regulatory reform that followed the Great Depression.

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Caught in the xeno-bamia crossfire, these are dangerous times for the “outsourcing” industry

July 15th, 2012
Don't you just love the name...

The industry currently known as “outsourcing” is currently under its greatest-ever attack. President Obama has made attacking Bain Capital’s promotion of itself once as a “one stop outsourcing shop”, the focal point of his re-election campaign. And this is a serious attack – he has $512m in campaign money left to burn, and only $25m a month is currently being spent on attack-ads from both parties – the worst is yet to come. So how should the “outsourcing” industry deal with this?

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Healthcare reform survives until November. Then what?

June 28th, 2012
obama-romney-hcare-rfm

So we’re now one election away from the biggest outsourcing opportunity ever… the healthcare insurance industry trying to figure out how to move from a B2B to a B2C model. Quite simply, the insurance companies ain’t gonna figure out how to send a nuclear warhead into their service and IT operations… they’ll turn to the outsourcers to do it for them

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Published today – a blueprint for the industry known as “outsourcing”

June 28th, 2012
Finally....a Blueprint for this outsourcing business (click to access)

Ever wondered what would happen if you locked 41 outsourcing buyer executives in a room for a couple of days, then brought in six of the leading providers to have an afternoon’s discussion? Well, now you can read for yourself, as today we unveil our first Blueprint report for this curious industry known as “outsourcing”.

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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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