Before you tuck into your Thanksgiving turkey and guzzle a gallon of bad quality Chardonnay, please take 10 minutes to complete our industry-wide study entitled "The New Normal in Outsourcing Delivery". And if you're in Asia or Europe, currently giving thanks for US declaring itself independent from everyone else, this includes you too.
Anyhow, we are actively seeking the collective opinions and experiences of services customers, providers, and advisors and need 10 minutes of your time to complete this quick survey, designed especially for the patience-challenged, attention-deficit-inclined executive. Simply click on the following link:
All individual responses to the survey will be maintained strictly confidential. In return for your time, you'll receive a free write-up of the survey findings (wow).
We have partnered with the member communities at Global Services Media and the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network to ensure a powerful global participation of decision-makers and senior executives engaged in outsourcing delivery services. Please do participate and help advance our collective understanding of the industry.
Please note that "Horses" is a free resource for the sourcing industry at large, and the purposes of this research are to further all our knowledge and understanding of the direction of the global sourcing industry, whether you buy, sell, advise, criticise, market, commentate or analyse sourcing delivery. And if you do neither of these activities, please seriously question what you're doing here in the first place -:)
There's little doubt about what's been providing the rocket-fuel behind the rebounding services business: IT outsourcing. Simply put, there are plenty of eager providers to choose between, they have access to most of the technical skills companies need, and their rates are far cheaper than retaining or hiring staff inhouse. Some are also getting pretty handy at becoming consultative business partners, and not simply low-cost body shops. Our recent study tells the real story – 50% of enterprises are either kick-starting, or scaling-up, their ITO right now. "So tell us something new", I hear you groan into your laptop screen…
What's different as we emerge from this crisis, is that the perceptions of IT from the other parts of the business are becoming increasingly cynical in many companies. Many companies are hiring new CIOs with the mandate to "turnover half the department, or outsource it", and IT middle-managers are being seriously questioned about the value they are adding to the business. While much of the bottom-layer of IT has already been contracted out, it's now the middle layer of IT professionals which is under threat. CIOs are under pressure to prove the value of maintaining these heavy middle-layers, or move them out of the organization. Some CIOs are already operating under the strategy of hiring a few people who "genuinely get it" to drive IT value, while outsourcing as much of the operational work as they can.
Remember marketing in the '80s and early '90s, where firms had these bloated marketing departments doing multiplous tasks such as PR, communications, database management, which used to be so critical to keep inhouse etc? Today, nearly all CMOs surround themselves with a handful of folks who "get it" and parse most of the operational work out to agencies. That is the norm today, and no-one questions it.
My fear for IT, is that it's going down a very similar path. Or should this really be "fear"? Maybe this should be "hope" of much-needed change? CIOs can't exactly hire 20 people over night who "get it"; firstly, they may only know a couple of suitable people who'd be prepared to join them, and secondly, they'd likely have a hard time getting the requisitions for a lot of expensive high-end IT talent which can apply innovative-thinking and new technology to source fresh avenues of revenue and productivity for them.
So the middle-layer of IT has a shot at saving itself - their CIOs need to pick talent that can prove their business value to the firm and mould them into the IT engine of the future. I do not believe that IT is going the way marketing did, but it does need to step-up a gear and win-back credibility from the cynics who simply want to offload the excess fat in this economy. That means CIOs need to train their staff to think out-of-the-box, to learn how to work more effectively with the business units, and to bring technologies into the organization that can truly impact the business and the corporate culture, such as virtualization, Cloud, video-conferencing and social media.
I do believe we're genuinely arriving at a critical juncture in the IT world, where it's time for CIOs shape-up their teams, or look outside of the organization to regain the lost credibility.
Our recent discussionon Xerox's acquisition of ACS certainly served up some meaty discussion, and even got picked up by CIO.com, among other media.
My dear friend, and former colleague at AMR Research, Dana Stiffler(pictured), recently sent us in some of her views on the merger. Dana actually got promoted today to VP and Head of Research for AMR's services research, where she will be offering clients "cashable benefits, or your money back" with her group's output.
Anyhow, thought this a good time to showcase her talent… Over to you, Dana:
Xerox-ACS: Cloud Services Potential, or Dinosaurs Huddling Together for Warmth?
Xerox is the latest in a long line of technology manufacturers to realize that its future lies in services, not products, particularly in the B2B value chain. Once manufacturing and supply chain efficiencies have been wrung out, it’s time to turn to top-line opportunities: services that use product heritage as a foundation. The fastest way to acquire these capabilities is by acquisition. Xerox’s predecessors in this journey include IBM, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, and, just recently, Dell, with its acquisition of Perot Systems.
In this case, Xerox’s target is Affiliated Computer Systems (ACS), a $6.5B, Dallas-based outfit best known for its broad set of business process outsourcing (BPO) services. The acquisition makes sense when Xerox and ACS executives talk about synergies in document management and transaction processing, though there’s some distance to travel to put together a viable offering and go-to-market strategy, even for this supposed sweet spot. The two companies’ traditional target prospects appear to reside in different universes: ACS’s in the finance function and strategic sourcing, and Xerox’s in administrative operations and procurement.
Important areas within ACS likely to languish post-transaction include the company’s burgeoning technology outsourcing business, as well as broader, full-scope, back-office offerings like finance and accounting services (the jewel in ACS’s crown) and human resources outsourcing. ACS businesses most likely to retain executive attention and investment are the more targeted processing products in healthcare, government, and financial services. Xerox had already made investments in mortgage processing as well as litigation support.
The combined entity will need to move quickly to prove to Wall Street that the transaction is about delivering industry-focused, asset-based business services (hint: use the word “cloud” a lot—they love that), rather than two dinosaurs huddling together for warmth.
Dana Stiffler (pictured), is Vice President and Head of Research for AMR Research's Global Business & Outsourcing Services Practice
Attend any European analyst meeting and there’s one character guaranteed to be propping up the bar. Scratch that, there are normally about 50 analysts propping up the bar. But in the midst of the throng you will undoubtedly find the stolid Euan Davis of Forrester Research.
I recall a conversation with Euan back in '95 when I told him “you should give this analyst lark a try” (If you want to know what he working on in those days, drop me a note…). Anyhow, the story began from there, with Euan rising through the ranks at IDC’s European operation, making a curious detour to Yankee Group, before finally attaining new heights of stardom and adulation with Forrester.
Euan now boasts the words Principal Analyst in his job title and waxes lyrical about IT services in the Eurozone. Ask anyone in the industry and you’ll discover he’s fast becoming one of the most popular analyst figures on the European services circuit. And, despite the fact he once lost to me at tennis (a shameful occurrence for any man or beast), he still warrants an airing on the Horses…
Phil Fersht (PF): Euan, firstly, what are the main issues you’re hearing from your Euro clients these days? What are the main contrasts between now and before the economic crash last year?
Euan Davis (ED): The issues are many and varied but if I was to distill it down to what I see as the issues that clients are facing today then they fall into three categories: Some are “firefighters” and are looking to reduce costs wherever they can, pushing for discounts and getting economies of scale through aggressive supplier consolidation. Others are “explorers” and are directing energies into investigating a host of emerging options for IT service deliver—and business process outsourcing is one such area. The exciting ones to watch for my money are the “builders.” These firms are sinking the foundations that underpin a profound shift in their operating model architecture, IT/business redesign, and supplier engagement models. These firms are building hybrid operating models driven by a structured sourcing frame works, regulated through a retooled service management structure, and connected to a core set of suppliers. And the recession has speeded up the process of change.
PF: With ITO are you seeing more clients moving to broader managed services and away from staff augmentation, or is it the same story of project based spend using offshore resources?
ED: It makes sense for clients new to global delivery or offshore outsourcing to begin on a staff augmentation, time-and-materials basis as a way to gain experience and reduce initial risk. But such relationships have a tendency to stick — conversations with my clients reveal how stakeholders insist on such one-for-one relationships in mainland Europe anyhow before moving to more remote IT delivery models. But I do think this is starting to change. When engagements are based on staff augmentation, little motivation exists for the client and provider to concentrate on improving software development processes, for example, which can potentially have an economic impact greater than the labor arbitrage itself…I see a part of my job is to educate and persuade them otherwise and many are get this.
PF: Which European nations are stepping up sourcing initiatives since the recession? What are the contrasts between the behavior of British, French, German firms? Are other European nations getting more aggressive with BPO/ITO?
ED: The IT services industry in Europe continues to mature, with global delivery strategies superseding traditional offshore approaches—so if I was to characterize sourcing, I would characterize it around the use of global delivery rather than BPO. First, movers with standard IT process models configured for sourcing maturity fully exploited global delivery; but now I see a second generation of clients exploring the services on offer and how these can be tuned to uniquely serve European firms no matter where they are. Skeptical stakeholders are starting to understand the commercial imperatives propelling global delivery forward in the Nordics, Germany, France, Italy etc and how blending global delivery allows deal-makers to hedge its risks. My advice is that European firms need to quantify the interplay between cost and risk and then tune the model around the blend of onshore, nearshore, and offshore resources. They then need to invest in vendor management functions.
PF: Do you see specific industries getting more active across Europe? And how are the European banks approaching sourcing these days – have many put their sourcing plans on the backburner, or are they now stepping up?
ED: Questions fielded by Forrester’s sourcing team have revealed to me what life's like at the sharp end of the banking crisis for an embattled executive. An examination of our inquiry traffic among banking clients highlights three core outsourcing topics that banks are trying to address: offshore, business process outsourcing (BPO), and selecting the correct outsourcing model for their firm. What interests me are the new operating models built by the COO office, the enterprise architects, and strategic sourcing that are beginning to connect siloed divisions together. I fully expect to see new IT services-led consumption models build around an ecosystem of vendors—systematic multisourcing—which will offer a profound shift in technology value.
PF: So what do you see next on European companies’ agendas in the medium term? Is it going to be all about cost-containment, or do you see a greater focus on innovation with their approach to global sourcing?
ED: Depends on how strategic the sourcing function is run: firefighters will be pushing for discounts and cost reduction while those using the recession to deconstruct IT delivery and reconfigure it around innovation. I see my clients setting the parameters for inter-provider collaboration—so across multiple providers and across multiple service towers like the banks in the previous answer. It’s a trend in the outsourcing industry that I have noticed for some time now—this shift from global, single-source deals to a world of multiprovider relationships. What I think you’ll see start to happen is more structured approaches to sourcing as executives work on integrating multiple IT services from their IT providers through overarching governance mechanisms—what I call systematic multisourcing.
PF: And finally, you’ve been an analyst since the heyday of the Internet boom, the onset and maturing of global sourcing, while tackling two recessions. How do you see the analyst and consulting industry evolving? Do you see the impact of social-media (blogs/twitter etc) blowing up the delivery models, or is it just a lot of hype?
ED: Well I am really starting to feel my age when you put it like that Phil! You know what firms need are trusted advisors that can help them in making the right decision about an IT provider, whether to use the cloud, single source versus multisource or whatever. That is the role that I see consultants and the analyst industry should be doing. I also see the value from social media allowing clients to make IT services decisions, inform others of those decisions, execute and monitor the outcomes, and report them to their peers. This is where the power of digital media resides. But the greater power is still vested in the oldest information source open to executives: word of mouth shared with peers and colleagues. IT services market information — whether vendor intelligence, pricing trends, or contracting best practices — comes to those that network for it and that it what an analyst worth his salt should be doing. These emerging social technologies propel these networks forward, adding value at different stages of the outsourcing life cycle.
PF: Spoken like a true analyst, Mr Davis… thanks for your time today
Euan Davis (Pictured) is Principal Analyst for Forrester Research, based in London, where he writes and consults for Forrester's Sourcing & Vendor Management professionals and is recognized as a long-standing expert in IT services and sourcing-related issues. He lives in Cambridge, England, with wife Hannah and two kids, Rosa and Oliver. In spite of his one embarrassment, he is a fine tennis player, avid connoisseur of real ale and cheap wine, and also an accomplished skier.
This truly has been a pivotal quarter for the outsourcing business. As we've discussed several times here, many services contract decisions have been delayed during the economic crisis while organizations worked out the best course of action to get through the downturn.
In Q3 we've started to see definitive action, with many service providers meeting, and some even beating, Wall St. expectations. But while some providers are clearly delivering, others are struggling to compete in this "new normal".
So what is this "new normal"?
Operational service provision is commoditizing and leveling the playing field. Coming out of the recession, there is a backlog of engagements which are largely labor arbitrage-focused and it's often a question of price balanced with the promise of delivery performance for most clients. There isn't a lot of secret sauce these days for what many clients are currently demanding, where in the past, incumbent service providers could play the "capability game". With many of these skills becoming mainstream, the competitive playing field has leveled out.
A not-so-secret sauce is undermining the business models of the old-guard. When selecting a provider in commodity services areas such as ERP software development and maintenance, or transactional accounting processing, it's getting harder and harder for the traditional branded service providers to command higher price-tags against the new breed of offshore service provider. Essentially, everyone's competing for the same pool of talent in commodity areas these days, and for some providers used to commanding higher multiples in the old days, they simply cannot compete effectively anymore. This is especially the case where clients simply want technical support, without significant business transformation.
The recent round of financial results from the service providers is confirming this new reality - and it's happening at a fast-pace in this environment, which is alarming the old-guard. The crux of the matter, coming out of the economic crisis, is that most clients are not yet ready for real business transformation (even though many need it) - that will come further down the road. Their current requirements are to take advantage of operational arbitrage opportunities, and this market is a long way from becoming saturated. For example, 75% of ERP services are still being delivered onshore – hmmm… that's a lot of room for future labor arbitrage.
The winners in the arbitrage game have a future seat at the table for higher end services, but need to reinvest to deliver. Those providers proving operationally-efficient and cost-competitive to win the less sexy work today, will find themselves in a strong positiong to push higher-end business transformational services in the future, because they will already be present within clients delivering operational work. They need to demonstrate they are capable of learning their clients' businesses, in order to move up the value chain to take on more consultative work.
However (and it's a big "however"), in order to move up the services value chain, the winning providers of today need to invest in their talent, their IP, their global delivery platform and their industry acumen to prove they can deliver more innovative services down the road. They need to develop, either through organic investment, or through smart acquisition, this capability to help their clients find the next phase of efficiency gains for themselves and new sources of revenue. Hence, while clients demand cost-arbitrage today, the next wave of efficiency gains can't continue to be found from swapping out higher cost for lower cost (which we discuss here). They're going to come from doing things differently and re-wiring their operations.
The struggle for differentiation. With several providers that can deliver essentially the same service within a narrow price-band, it's getting very tough for some to break out of the pack to prove they warrant being the long-term partner of choice for a client. Simply put, a client needs the following: a provider which is financially sound and is re-investing in its global delivery platform, and has a stellar track record in delivering results for its clients.
Trust trumps brand. Customer references are critical in this business. A consistent voice from multiple customers is now the tell-tale sign as to whether a provider can deliver. In most cases, where a clients have unique requirements, they have to take a leap of faith in whomever they select. It's no longer all about brand and executive relationships for smart customers today; it's about having a unique culture that encourages clients to trust their provider to deliver results and to explore constantly new avenues to make them successful.
All-in-all, as we discussed recently, those business that persist in the old way of doing things will go by the wayside, and the service provider landscape is certainly no different. There's a changing of the old-guard happening, and at a speed which is making it increasingly worried.
If there’s one person who’s been a consistent figure closely tied to the development of Finance and Accounting sourcing over the last decade, it’s Paul Nowacki (or to those of us know him, simply “Wacki”), who today leads F&A transformation for leading sourcing strategy and implementation consultancy, Everest Group.
Paul’s advised on several of the largest engagements in the business (in fact, I do think he’s worked on the largest) and taught me a lot about the space when I worked with him at Everest a few years’ back. Never afraid to speak his mind, Paul is always a popular figure at industry events to talk about what our industry needs to do to get to that next level of performance. He’s truly a “been there done that guy” who’s seen it all… Anyhow, I managed to drag Paul away from his favorite past-time of tracking global financial indices and stock markets (no joke, he does that for fun) to talk to us for a while about finance transformation and global sourcing:
Phil Fersht (PF): Paul, firstly, what are the main issues you’re hearing from your clients these days? What are the main contrasts between now and before the economic crash last year?
Paul Nowacki (PN): The trend toward smaller deals is accelerating. Cost pressures on the buyer community are so great that companies are evaluating small deals that they did not bother to consider in better times. This in turn is putting new pressure on the supplier community, that is, to find ways to provide cost reduction to buyers and make a profit on ever smaller deals. We are really seeing the envelope pushed on the question of how small is too small. There is also increased focus and pressure on the first year impact of deals. In better times, the focus was on the life of the deal economics, now first year impact is equally important.
PF: How are they approaching F&A transformation? Are they increasing focus on BPO and away from captives?
PN: There is significant growth in captives, for engineering, supply chain, R&D, and a number of other functions, but not for commodity F&A transaction processing. Companies recognize that the suppliers have mature offshore F&A capabilities, so when it comes to the make or buy decision, they are buying. When it comes to transformation, it is being baked into the outsourcing agreement. The old idea of transform it and then outsource it is dying.
PF: We’re hearing a lot more about outcome-based pricing in maturing areas of sourcing, such as IT infrastructure and applications. How is this impacting F&A engagements today, and do you view this as becoming increasingly important?
PN: First of all, the term ‘outcome-based’ is an often misused and misunderstood term. Most people who apply that term are using it broadly to represent both transaction-based pricing and business outcome-based pricing. Gainsharing payments for collections work is an example of business outcome-based pricing. Transaction-based pricing, such as the number of invoices processed, is really output pricing rather than outcome pricing, and it is becoming more important to both buyers and providers. However, both buyers and provides are finding that it is not a simple task to properly calibrate the appropriate unit price for various volumes of activity. What is emerging is a hybrid situation: contracts that call for an initial period of FTE pricing followed by implementation of transaction based pricing which allows both sides to take their time to correctly calibrate the unit pricing.
PF: Do you see genuine opportunities for hybrid BPO-IT offerings in F&A, for example, SAP R/3 financials being delivered in a Platform-BPO engagement model? Or is it simply too challenging / expensive to reconfigure most companies’ general ledger data repositories to move them onto these utility models?
PN: If you have not made a large investment in systems, have been growing from a small company to a mid-size company, are starting to outgrow your systems, and are facing a make or buy decision for new core F&A systems, the platform option is a viable alternative. However, the large established firms have ERP systems that have been heavily invested in for many years and are integrated with every other system in the company. These systems also have interfaces with customers, suppliers, and financial institutions. Given the current state of the art for platform BPO for F&A and the associated switching costs, the vast majority of large established companies will not be platform adopters in the immediate future.
PF: We’ve also seen advisors try and step up and deliver governance services, but many have found this challenging (clients don’t exactly ring up and ask to “buy some governance”). What – in your experience – is working, and what isn’t, in F&A BPO environments?
PN: It is challenging for a couple of reasons. First of all, the true core function of governing (cost stewardship, the alignment of business strategy with service delivery, relationship management, etc.) should never be outsourced, so when we talk about governance services we are talking about the administrative and tactical aspects of governance and the tools that support those tasks. Secondly, the service providers are getting ever more sophisticated in the tools that they provide clients with respect to SLA and metrics dashboards, so the opportunity to add value to buyers with these tools is diminishing over time.
PF: And finally, you’ve been close to many of the largest F&A BPO engagements for many years now. What are the three key developments you expect to see in the next couple of years, based on your vast experience of this industry?
PN: One: platform BPO for F&A will grow in the small and mid-market segments. Two: we will see some supplier rationalization. Currently we are seeing some supplier consolidation due to M&A activity, but new FAO suppliers are being created as fast as or faster than suppliers are being acquired; not all of these new suppliers will be viable long term. Three: we will see a maturing in FAO pricing with fewer input based deals, more transaction based pricing, and a better understanding and standardization of transaction based pricing.
PF: Paul – thanks for sharing your views with us today.
Paul Nowacki (pictured here with wife Kathleen) is Associate Principal for sourcing strategy and implementation consultancy, Everest Group with multiple leadership responsibilities including leadership in finance and accounting consulting advisory services. Prior to Everest, he was a senior operations executive for DuPont. He has over 25 years of professional experience spanning industry, consulting, and Wall Street. Paul has an MBA from the Lerner Business School, University of Delaware.
Sometimes life becomes a converged morass of email, reading, writing, number-crunching, slideware-designing, talking, selling, firefighting, and so on – and more so these days than ever. Noone has time anymore to have a quick chat about anything non-important, read an interesting article (or more than 140 characters), have a cup of coffee with a friend, take a walk, read a good book… My long-suffering wife keeps reminding me to take a deep breath, take a walk, and "smell the roses" – just thought I'd pass on her advice…
An Autumnal Sunday afternoon in Boston's Public Gardens
"Most of our managers are happy sitting on a shrinking business" bemoaned a senior executive the other day. Sound familiar?
I hate to say this, but too many senior executives I talk to these days adopted this survival mechanism during the economic crisis, and are clearly struggling to change their mind-set now it's clear that armageddon has been averted. And the main reason seems to be that the last year has exhausted them, preventing fresh, bold decisions to be made. Hey – it's exhausted everyone.
Smart business leaders are now trying to re-energize their staff, take that deep-set panic out of the daily job, and find reasons to celebrate, like a not-so-bad-quarter.
I clung to the forlorn hope that a year-long economic crash, a transformative president, and new approaches to business ideology would encourage businesses to start thinking differently. But, in many cases, I appear to have been naïve . The result is that many businesses are going to have to force real change upon themselves to escape this malaise.
From wanting change… to embracing it
In reality, most businesses are coming out of recession having already cut visible costs to the bone, for example areas where cost can be directly extracted from the business without any form of arbitrage such as travel feezes, headcount reductions from non-critical areas, budget reductions across departments in areas such as marketing or IT, and so on. The next steps are to explore cost arbitrage through labor (i.e. outsourcing), and ultimately process transformation that should accompany any form of outsourcing. Simply put, it's nigh-on impossible to dig out further pockets of cost, without re-wiring the guts of business operations to find new efficiencies.
Global sourcing provides one of those vehicles where businesses
can effect progressive shifts in their business models to approach things differently. It can provide the change agent to make this happen, but only when our management talent has the energy and determination to look at things differently – and refuse to settle for sitting on that shrinking P&L.
This malaise affecting many businesses resembles the one affecting the United States, where the majority voted for change, but now the President is actually trying to enact some, we're seeing a great deal of negativity and resitance from many who voted for him.
I recall the recent survey (see chart below) we ran with Global Services media, where the main drivers behind outsourcing – after cost reduction – are the desire to globalize business operations, effect process change (innovation) and access new skills and acumen. However, when push-comes-to-shove, will business managers really embrace such disruption from their "old normal", or will they resist it, rather like many US voters now resist the change their President is pushing?
So many of our businesses, rather like many United States' voters, have reached an impasse. It's one thing to want change, but a completely different rationale to accept it. It's time to brush off the fatigue, accept this "new normal" and make some bold decisions to start growing again. That ultimately means focusing on where you add value and finding global partners and resources to work with you on maximizing that focus. Not protecting your shrinking fiefdom.
"You are going to keep doing that blog aren't you?" seems to have been the most frequently-asked question I've had since I changed my day-job.
And a few people have asked whether I can still credibly run this blog, now I work for one of the firms actually tasked with delivering the services we have been talking about for the best part of three years. Heaven forbid.
As we have discussed at length, blogs and other social media have been a major game-changer with how we engage with issues, market dynamics – and each other.
We live in a different world today, where the rules are changing and we are constantly seeking out new and innovative ways to reach our industry. To sum up the new constant in a nutshell, credibility is in the eye of the beholder.
So here are the reasons for keeping these hooves galloping:
1) Fresh thinking. We are going to be having a more expansive array of thought-leaders contributing. We will be engaging with leading analysts, advisors, practitioners, bloggers and other influencers from across the IT services and BPO spectrum;
2) Fresh research. With 65,000 industry stakeholders on this RSS feed and 7,500 in our LinkedIn Group, are there any better platforms for guaging the industry temperature? We'll be updating our State of the Industry survey along with our media partners in the coming weeks - and welcome your participation;
3) Fresh banter. Everyone here is involved in either buying, delivering, advising, negotiating, analyzing, commentating, technology-enabling, recruiting, marketing or blogging global IT and business process sourcing services. If you're not, I suggest you see your shrink – and soon. This is an industry resource to share our views, insights and experiences… with a grin 😉
Thanks again for all the sentiments many of you sent in, or commented on the blog. Please keep them coming – your contributions are always welcome,
This truly has been a pivotal quarter for the outsourcing business. As we've discussed several times here, many services contract decisions have been delayed during the economic crisis while organizations worked out the best course of action to get through the downturn.
"Most of our managers are happy sitting on a shrinking business" bemoaned a senior executive the other day. Sound familiar?
"You are going to keep doing that blog aren't you?" seems to have been the most frequently-asked question I've had since I 
