Reetika Joshi contributes regularly to HfS Research’s BPO research coverage, in areas such as analytics and vertical processes.
Reetika is a Senior Research Analyst at ValueNotes Sourcing Practice, based in Pune, India. She currently tracks the outsourcing industry, with a special research focus on the fast-growing technology-enabled learning segment.
Based in India, she has undertaken several research assignments across the outsourcing spectrum, including market studies in niche BPO and KPO areas such as medical transcription, research and analytics and e-learning. Over the last few years at ValueNotes, she has had the opportunity to work on multiple bespoke research services for outsourcing providers, including in-depth competitive intelligence, investment opportunity assessment and custom publishing.
Reetika’s work has appeared in many industry-relevant publications and websites, including Outsourcing magazine, Global Services Media and the Horses for Sources blog. She has presented her views on the state of the outsourcing at various conferences. A strong believer in the power of communities, she manages ValueNotes Sourcing Practice’s corporate blog, as well as an e-learning industry knowledge-sharing group on Linkedin.
Reetika has completed her Master’s in Marketing Management with distinction from Aston University, UK, receiving Beta Gamma Sigma honours. She was awarded the Accenture prize for Best Student on her course. Her final year dissertation was titled ‘Learning from Management Mistakes: Are Today’s Top Business Students Prepared for the Flawed Realities of the Business World?’. Prior to this, she received her Bachelor’s in Business Administration with distinction from Symbiosis International University, India.
On a more personal note, she enjoys reading (fantasy series in particular). She loves listening to music, you’ll always find her with headphones on – her all time favourite band is Radiohead (who she had the great fortune to see in concert). Not quite the sportsperson, but she gets her fix from adventure sports and scuba diving (when she’s lucky). Her other interests include travelling, watching the odd foreign/independent film, and lastly, rooting for Google Android and the open source community.
If you have any questions regarding her work, would like to exchange ideas, or just say hello, do reach out at reetika at valuenotes dot com.
We are delighted to be associated with Deborah Kops, the “doyenne of outsourcing” and managing principal of sourcingchange.com. Deborah recently left one of those high powered corporate jobs to focus on the challenges of change for outsourcing and shared services through www.sourcingchange.com, the only dedicated industry resource. HfS Research is now the first analyst firm to recognize the implications of change management on sourcing success by collaborating with Deborah, who will be contributing her analysis and insights for HfS subscribers and research clients.
Deborah acknowledges that she learned about the challenges of sourcing change management the hard way—by failing. As a result, she is able to deliver results in situations where change is required and the rules must be rewritten, focusing on elimination of barriers to adoption, and helping stakeholders acquire new skills to effectively adopt, embrace and expand new business models such as outsourcing
With experience as a corporate managing director, consulting partner and provider, Deborah has a unique perspective on the major challenge to outsourcing and shared services implementation—effectively and sustainably changing the way people work in light of the myriad implications of sourcing—new relationships, different cultures, enhanced technologies, different delivery locations, new cost structure, changed workflows, focus on the customer, increased quality, introduction of commercial structures, and other considerations.
As a client, Deborah had end-to-end responsibility for global sourcing implementation at two financial institutions. At a global investment bank, she served as the transformation leader for a market-first global procure-to-pay outsourcing implementation, and set up an enterprise-wide “smartsourcing” initiative. For a top 7 US bank, now part of Bank of America, she managed and sourced administrative processes, increasing customer satisfaction of the all-important retail banking division.
Formerly an executive with one of the largest offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, and a founding partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ pioneering outsourcing line of business, Deborah saw the implications of change management issues from the provider perspective first hand. And, as advisor, she has honed consulting and communication techniques that help clients institutionalize change leadership, working with major corporations in North America, Europe and Asia.
Deborah is a prolific writer who currently writes columns on change management for SSON Network and Outsourcing Today. She is an occasional columnist for Global Services and is a contributor to the Human Resources Business Review, a journal of the Human Resources Outsourcing Association, Business Trends Quarterly, and the European Outsourcing Review. Deborah has presented at industry forums sponsored by such organizations as Deloitte, the Financial Times, Corporate Research Foundation, SSON, Das Shared Services Internationale/ Management Circle , The Conference Board, HROA, and Global Services. She has delivered workshops at institutions such as University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, Carnegie-Mellon University, and Lancaster University School of Management.
Deborah is probably the only graduate architect in the sourcing world. Late nights at the drawing board earned her a bachelors degree at the University of Illinois and a masters from Virginia Tech. After six years of hard graft in the design world, she thought there were better ways to make a living.
Deborah is married to an Englishman who is a dead ringer for Samuel Beckett, is a hiker and after many years of airline lounges, still likes to travel.
Deborah can be reached at deborah dot kops at sourcingchange dot com.
One guy who we just have to have working with us is the Prince of Procurement, the Pontiff of Procure-to-pay himself, Chi-town’s own Mr Jason Busch. Jason is working closely with the Horses for Sources research team to develop a comprehensive research program covering the procurement and strategic sourcing BPO space.
Jason is Founder and Managing Director of Azul Partners, a boutique advisory firm, and a partner/affiliate of Horses For Sources. He is also Editor of the highly trafficked sourcing, trade and supply chain blog SpendMatters. He is regarded as one of the leading technology pundits and thought leaders in the trade, procurement and operations worlds, which is we we asked him to be an expert contributor to our research coverage.
His current research and interest areas include the future of global sourcing, purchase-to-pay platforms, risk management, supplier information / performance management, and the growth of communities of interest and online social networking within the procurement, trade and supply chain worlds.
Jason has extensive experience advising leading technology and solution companies on both the strategic and tactical components of marketing. Prior to launching Azul Partners, Jason directed branding and strategic marketing for FreeMarkets, a leading provider of sourcing and supply management technology and services. During his tenure at FreeMarkets, he created and spearheaded a range of marketing functions including competitive intelligence, strategic marketing, and analyst relations, while also leading FreeMarkets’ efforts to become the eminent thought leader in the supply chain arena, overseeing the publication of all marketing content to drive lead generation and sales efforts. Jason also served as Manager, Corporate Development, and was active in numerous acquisition, corporate strategy, partnership, go-to-market strategy and channel efforts, including make/buy and a range of product strategy and product management-related initiatives.
Prior to FreeMarkets, Jason served as consultant and analyst with Northeast Consulting (acquired by Nervewire), a Boston-based management consulting firm focused on the intersection of strategy and technology. At Northeast Consulting, he advised a diverse group of leading technology and services companies on corporate and product strategy. Jason served as a project manager for a range of assignments, working closely with vendors and consultancies ranging from billion-dollar vendors to small, venture-backed start-ups. In addition to working with providers on corporate and product strategies, he helped craft tactical sales tools, including strategic marketing content, ROI analyses, and market-driven launch plans. Prior to entering the technology arena, Jason worked as an analyst for a small merchant bank where he analyzed private placement convertible and fixed-income investments in the US and European markets.
Jason has authored over a thousand columns, whitepapers and op-ed pieces on supply chain, technology and economic issues (many in a private label format for his clients). On supply chain and spend management topics, he has been published in Internet Week, CPO Agenda, Industry Standard, Information Week, Electronic Buyer’s News, Communications Week, and Supply and Demand Chain Executive. Currently, he currently serves as Editor-at-Large of Surplus Record, an industrial publication with over 75,000 subscribers. Jason’s opinions have been quoted in numerous essays, articles, books, and academic papers ranging from The New York Times to the writings of Forrester Research and he has spoken at numerous industry events and conferences.
Jason holds an MA in history from the University of Pennsylvania. He also completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a BA, cum laude, with departmental honors, in history and English literature. In addition, Jason has completed coursework at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
When not hurling forth on all things procurement, Jason enjoys cooking, running, restoring antiquarian books and spending time with his family. He is also partial to the occasional dram of the Scottish firewater (but he didn’t ask us mention that).
Ed Brooks is a native Scotsman living in Manhattan, where he now spends a good amount of his time contributing expert advice and analysis on the growing Legal Process Outsourcing Market (LPO) for HfS Research’s clients.
Edward Brooks runs The LPO Program, a new-wave consulting business that delivers its clients all the Tools, Knowledge, Data and Support necessary to carry out complex Legal Process Outsourcing projects. The Program enables Law Firms and In-House Legal Counsel to quickly determine the appropriate LPO Strategy for their specific circumstances. As well as giving clients the equivalent of an MBA in Legal Process Outsourcing, The Program significantly cuts project timetables and risks, and delivers a clearly articulated LPO strategy.
Since joining Accenture in 2000, Edward has had 11 years in the outsourcing and offshoring sector leading over $5 billion worth of deals, in areas as diverse as Finance and Accounting, HR, Clinical Research, Customer Services, and Legal Process Outsourcing. This experience has covered the full project life cycle from designing and selling delivery models, through to implementation and operation. At one client he had personal responsibility for paying the UK’s armed forces, totalling £10 billion each year.
For the last 4 years Edward worked as an advisor to major corporations taking them through the complex process of determining the appropriate delivery strategy (whether in-house, onshore, offshore, or outsourced) and then ensuring the successful implementation of that strategy.
As a Chartered Accountant with experience of running businesses and establishing new ventures, Edward brings a strong commercial perspective to any organization. By keeping executives and project teams focused on the strategic objectives and the short-term issues he has been able to thrive is some of the most challenging environments.
Living between New York and the UK Edward is thankful for BBC Radio 4’s Now Show and News Quiz for keeping him informed and entertained about the world, and for the Wall Street Journal for constantly challenging the status quo and reminding us all of how interconnected this small planet is.
Edward can be reached at eb at thelpoprogram dot com.
Phil Hassey is a respected veteran services analyst, based in Sydney Australia, who contributes regularly to HfS Research’s coverage of Asia/Pacific Business Process Outsourcing trends and dynamics.
Phil is the founder of capioIT, a research analyst firm focussed on driving change in the analyst and research market through innovation and collaboration, with a strong focus on IT services and BPO strategies in the Asia/Pacific region.
He has 17 years’ experience in corporate strategy, consulting and market intelligence, gained in a diverse range of organisations and industries. Prior to founding capioIT, he established the Australian and Services business units at Springboard Research. Prior to Springboard Research, Phil was responsible for driving analyst firm IDC’s research in the services marketplace across the Asia/Pacific region. During his 6 years at IDC, Phil led a large multi-national team of analysts across a range of IT related services with a particular focus on IT Outsourcing, BPO and global delivery networks.
Phil has also developed a significant amount of experience in corporate strategy, marketing and research at Accenture and Lend Lease, where he was responsible for their global research in shopping centre development. In 2000, he was wrote the first analyst research report on the CRM and Call Centre BPO market in Asia Pacific. This followed work with an Australian Insurance agency optimising their customer service capabilities. Showing how CRM has changed; a key achievement was getting the insurance agency to consider using email as a tool for customer communication.
Phil graduated from the University of New South Wales with an Honours Degree in Applied Science with a major in Applied Economic Geography. He has a commitment to lifelong learning and is an MBA student “mentor” to help provide skills for future business leaders at one of Australia’s leading business schools.
He lives with his wife and three children in Sydney, Australia. When he gets spare time, he spends it at the beach, on his bike and making most of what the Sydney area has to offer.
Phil can be reached at phil at capioIT dot com. He can also be found on twitter: @phassey
We are delighted to have R “Ray” Wang an a contributing analyst in the areas of software and disruptive technologies.
R “Ray” Wang’s dynamic presentation style brings life and energy to technology and business topics such as business process transformation, next generation software, SaaS/Cloud solutions, social CRM, analytics, and ERP. He is the author of the popular enterprise software blog “A Software Insider’s Point of View.” With viewership in the millions of page views a year, his blog provides insight into how disruptive technologies and business models impact the CXO, enterprise apps strategy, and emerging business and technology trends.
Ray works with organizations to provide strategic guidance in a variety of business scenarios including designing go-to-market strategies; reviewing and designing software licensing, pricing, support, and maintenance policies; delivering competitive assessments; evaluating software partner ecosystems, and researching business processes such as the perfect order and continuous customer management for the enterprise and SMB markets.
News outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Inc., CIO Magazine, Information Week, ComputerWorld, Financial Times, eWeek, IDG News, ZDNet, and CNBC frequently seek his point of view.
Ray is currently founder and principal analyst of his new research organization, Constellation Research, which serves the needs of buyers and end users who seek insight, guidance, and advice in dealing with a dizzying array of disruptive business models and technologies. Prior to Constellation, he was a founding partner for Enterprise Strategy at Altimeter Group. Prior career roles included VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, where he was recognized in both 2008 and 2009 by the prestigious Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR) as the Analyst of the Year and in 2009 he was recognized as one of the most important analysts for Enterprise, SMB, and Software.
Ray can be reached at r dot wang at constellationrg.com. He can also be found on twitter: @rwang0
What's happened to the industry analyst business? You may recall a discussion right here two years ago when we berated the Chinese Internet purges and the impact they could have on the development of their own knowledge services and BPO industry. While such censorship of free opinion-sharing is depressing enough in a controlled society, it's even more alarming when it's happening right on our own doorstep, when you see analyst heavyweight Forrester Research officially banning its own analysts from having personal blogs that touch upon issues related to their research coverage or technology markets.
If you saw the recent passionate debate over at analyst relations guru Carter Lusher's Sage Circle site, you can read an official statement from Forrester's head of Corporate Communications:
"We believe we can best serve our clients in their professional roles by aggregating our intellectual property in one place – at Forrester.com. Make no mistake: Forrester is committed to social media, and the number of our analyst bloggers is increasing, not decreasing. Analysts will still have the ability to blog outside of Forrester on topics not related to their coverage areas."
Analysts will still have the ability to blog outside of Forrester on topics not related to their coverage areas? Hmmm… I really do want to know about their CRM analyst's stamp collection.
Aren't analysts supposed to create buzz?
I fondly recall the heyday of industry analyst business in the '90's, where the technology and services business thrived on innovation, on research, on unfettered opinion, where people had a vision and were unafraid to give forward-looking – and sometimes far-reaching - views regarding what was going to happen next, in a world that was being dramatically impacted by the onset of the Internet and web-enabled technologies, readily-available computing power and networking infrastructure, and steady globalization.
The "rock star" analyst had arrived. People paid good money to spend time with these people, to hear their views, use them as a sounding-board, or just to be associated with them. And their growing corporate stables certainly didn't refuse the increasing moneys that came rolling in off the back of their growing relationships and influence. The rock stars created buzz and drove the industry, challenging both vendors and customers to innovate and transform business models.
However, like anything else, corporates like to monetize their brands to the max, scale their businesses and drive down their costs. It's business economics one-on-one, and the big analyst firms are no different.
We want Bill, not Ben
Having their clients say "I want Bill, not Ben" was (and still is) infuriating to the analyst firms. They want their clients to pay the same for the 28-year old fresh from her MBA, than they did for the rock stars of yesteryear. And they're currently succeeding, as there aren't too many alternatives right now.
Most of the analyst rock stars have ventured off to start their own ventures in recent years, move into related industries, consult, run blog businesses or go work for vendors. The "rock star model" simply wasn't scalable for the analyst firms - it look too long to develop them, and the risk of lost revenues were they to leave, proved too uncomfortable – not to mention the fact that they were hard to control once they realized their monetary value.
However, just like any business utility, once you remove the personalization and the added value, clients wind-up only receiving the transactional services stipulated in the contract (sound familiar?). If analyst firms trained all their analysts to be rock stars, surely they could scale their highly-profitable assets and have junior rock stars step in when the senior ones choose do move on?
I don't blame Forrester for their new policy - they're simply protecting themselves from analysts building strong personal brands and jumping ship to more lucrative climes when they become famous – even though there are only a small handful of blogging analysts who have ever chosen to do this. Plus, their competitors haven't exactly embraced social media either. Banning their analysts blogging on their industry issues is probably not illegal (am sure they considered all the angles before issuing this new policy), and they are free to choose how they run their business and manage their culture. They're also probably getting paranoid that one of these days they'll get slapped with a law-suit from some vendor that got caught on the wrong end of some angry analyst tirade – although today, most vendors seem to be able to distinguish between a blog post and a Magic Quadrant… it's social media one-on-one.
Competent analysts should be trusted to write blog-posts
Another core issue here is trust. Some analyst firms would rather have their analysts' work sit in editorial queues for weeks, than get their craft out to market while it's still relevant. Rarely is a piece of analyst work altered in this process – simply modified slightly into a consistent look-and-feel. C'mon… if an analyst cannot produce written materials that isn't fit for a blog, then you have to seriously question why that individual is an analyst in the first place.
Once an analyst has proven that she can be trusted (i.e. after 6 months), surely it's time to let them leverage social media to drive awareness to their work and engage in intelligent debate with other smart people?
The implications to the traditional analyst model could be severe
All-in-all are some powerful implications that this type of policy could have on the analyst business:
1) The traditional analyst firms are losing touch with today's social-media driven society. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but most of the research we see these days isn't telling us a whole lot we didn't know already (and am sure I am equally guilty here). People simply aren't as desperate to read it as they once were. Sectioning it off behind a firewall for big-paying subscribers is only going to damage their relevance in a marketplace which is increasingly driven by rapid, to-the-point, relevant and compelling insight. For example, our post covering the ACS/Xerox news hit the media before everyone (about 8.00am), got thousands of web-hits and generated some very interesting debate. By the time the big analyst houses put out their take on the merger, it was old news, and few people took any notice. Hey – it was already old news by 11.00am that morning, let alone two days' later! If these analyst firms cannot trust their own analysts to give their opinion in events in a rapid manner, then they will fade – and fade fast in this environment.
2) Ambitious analysts will lose their energy if they are muzzled. While some veteran analysts are happy picking up a pay-check and toeing the corporate line to keep their jobs, the younger breed are eager to impact their market and get their name out there. Removing their ability to blog is taking away a major outlet for them. Analyst energy thrives on the recognition of their craft, and cutting them off at the knees is surely a de-motivator for many. Simply-put, the top analyst firms will lose their ambitious talent if it's muzzled from our new socially-media driven world.
3) New boutiques will spring up. The other – and most damaging – implication is a likely appearance of new boutique analyst firms that heavily use social media to reach eyeballs, research markets and share opinion and debate. Altimeter Group set up shop last year and is already turning away new clients. Their model is based on popular "rock star" analysts with successful blogs. Other new research firms are mooted to be in the works, with some customers eager for a change from the staid old model of dry reports, and toned-down opinion.
The Bottom-line
The technology and services industry is desperately searching for its mojo, and analysts can help provide the catalyst. Muzzling their views by keeping them from using social-media channels is a worrysome trend and will hold back the Forresters and co. in the long-term. However, won't their loss be others' gain? You do just start to wonder…
We've had some great contributors to the Horses over the years, and I was delighted to get a call the other day from one of the legends of outsourcing lore, offering to share some of his career learnings with us.
I'd like to think he rates us that highly, but it's more likely the two feet of snow that submerged his local golf course was what really inspired Mike Atwood to lend us some of his thoughts about globalization, the development of capitalism, and our favorite topic: outsourcing.
I recall my first meeting with Mike a few years ago at an Admirals Club in Atlanta, when we were off to impress a potential client with our knowledge of the industry. All Mike said that day to me was, "you'd better have some good charts"… and the rest is history. Mike's experience with outsourcing spans 35 years, much of which was spent leading three major divisions at EDS, before turning his hand to sourcing advisory work in recent years, where he's served as a Principal with Everest Group, and leading Hackett's ventures into the advisory space. Mike has also worked extensively in Tehran (during the Shah's days), Jeddah and Mexico. Without further ado, let's turn the stage over to Mike to hear his take on how…
Adam Smith got it right!
Over 350 years ago he observed and defined the concept of markets, specialization of labor, demand, all of it.
As capitalism grew we saw these concepts first in the industrial revolution. Entrepreneurs saw that they could manufacture goods, weave cloth, and generally produce things by breaking a job down into parts and then using their capital to create machines that produced regular, repeatable pieces in large quantities with smaller and smaller amounts of labor.
However the costs of the factory, machinery, and early on even energy were fixed or sunk costs. Labor and transportation were the variables. So they looked to minimize these costs. Factories moved from Britain to New England, then to the South, and lately to China. All following cheaper labor.
We study this in our history and it all seems natural. At the turn of the 20th century some corporation attempted to gain a competitive advantage by vertically integrating. Henry Ford developed the Rouge River complex looking to have raw materials come in one gate and finished automobiles go out the opposite gate. GM bought up every company it could find that made auto parts and even bought a forest for the wood trim in its cars. But Adam Smith got it right. Labor specialized companies came into being that did only one thing and did it well, and they both are struggling to survive.
Then came the internet, the fall of the Berlin wall, and a decade of comparative peace and prosperity in the world. The world got wired; transportation was made a competitive market and everywhere in the world is reachable in less than a day at a 1500 dollar cost.
India took stock of its resources and saw what it had the most of was people. They accepted the western doctrine that education was the path to prosperity and developed a university system that graduates over 500,000 engineers each year. Many of these people left the country to find employment and rapidly became valued employees in most western companies.
And in about 1995, people started asking, why can’t I do this in India? Jack Welch went to India and came home actively pushing all the GE units to send their accounting, clerical, and engineering work to India. At the same time several call center companies had grown up in the west. These companies learned how to manage a call center monitor the agents and generally do a better job, and they got business. There major cost was labor so it was a natural for this business to migrate to India as telecommunications costs dropped. Eventually it got so cheap that this seemed like the only place to be especially since most of the population had some English skills.
Now we have centers in India, China, Argentina, The Philippines, etc the country worries that all our jobs are going overseas, but it is just the market doing what it always has. Labor is specializing and capitalists are hiring specialized companies to do specialized jobs that don’t provide any competitive differentiation. Adam Smith got it right.
Mike Atwood(pictured right) has spent over 35 years in the outsourcing field. He led 3 major units at EDS providing outsourcing services to clients. He has spent the last 7 years as an advisor assisting clients as they decide how to offshore, develop a captive center or outsource.
For all 1055 of you who perservered through completing our survey, and then being subjected to six lengthy diatribes about what it all means, we can finally put this little study to bed with a FREE WEBCAST on Friday 5th March at 11.00 AM Eastern standard time.
Labor is specializing and capitalists are hiring specialized companies to do specialized jobs that don’t provide any competitive differentiation. Adam Smith got it right.
