Genpact just opened its fourth U.S. operations center in Richardson, Texas on April 4. It joins centers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; Irvine, California; and Danville, Illinois. Scott McConnell, senior vice president, Americas for Genpact says the U.S. is “the fastest growing country based on the percentage of people being hired.”
In fact, McConnell says the company is “investing more and more of its leadership in the U.S.” Genpact has just under 3,000 people employed in the U.S. across all but eight states.
Why is this important? What does it say about the direction of outsourcing?
McConnell says today mature outsourcing… Read the rest
Given the maturation of the outsourcing industry, it’s likely that several of your transition team members have already gone through at least one transition. And that they’ve done so – albeit on different teams, even at different companies – can be highly advantageous to your initiative. They fully understand the complex and grueling nature of a transition, know many of the pitfalls you can encounter during the journey, and appreciate the criticality of finely-tuned plans and processes.
However, the fact that they have prior transition experience can, in and of itself, also result in unexpected challenges. Does this sound counterintuitive?… Read the rest
The retail sector is a significant contributor to a country’s economy. In 2010, retail consumption accounted for two-thirds of the U.S. gross domestic product at $4.35 trillion. In the UK, retail sales were over £293 billion, according to the British Retail Consortium.
The retail industry has seen upheaval with the global economic crisis and intensely competitive environment, where margins are slimming down and customer loyalty is constantly fluctuating. It is critical for retailers to obtain insights to decide how much and what merchandize to stock, how to operate, and which customers they should fight to retain so that they can… Read the rest
Wave 5 of the technology revolution is upon us. (Preceded, of course, by mainframes, client/server, desktops and then the Internet.) Cloud computing is a key component of this new wave.
Contracts, of course, form the bedrock of beautiful outsourcing relationships. How do you contract for cloud services? Are cloud contracts different from contracting any IT service?
In his book “Cloud Sourcing the Corporation,” Ben Trowbridge outlines a list of concerns. He points out that many of the current cloud providers have business-to-consumer roots. “Their current contracting practices place much emphasis on the provider and not enough on the corporate customer,”… Read the rest
While the typical benchmarking clause provides the opportunity to benchmark the services, many clients find third-party benchmarks to be expensive, disruptive and time-consuming. Results may just as likely confirm that a vendor’s price is market competitive, and no savings are to be had. Further, third-party benchmarks by their nature pit client against vendor – making them all but impossible to complete – and risk damaging what otherwise might be a good working relationship.
There is a better way. Clients looking to confirm market competitiveness are increasingly relying on screening benchmarks (often referred to as “pre-benchmarks” or screening benchmarks) that help… Read the rest
The middle managers of any established business have the responsibility to operate the core of the business, and hold a wealth of knowledge about what works well versus areas for improvement. When sourcing becomes an alternative for any part of the business owned by middle managers, it is imperative to involve them and make use of their deep understanding of the operating requirements.
Engaging middle managers in the details surrounding the sourcing process will:
- Enlist their vast operational knowledge
- Convey your value and trust in them
- Keep them well informed so they can communicate appropriately to the broader
I remember 2003 and 2004 because that’s when most companies I interviewed about outsourcing arrangements started talking in earnest about “taking a partnering approach” to get more value from outsourcing. Since 2006, many have talked about their successes in partnering. But here’s the reality; they were only partial successes.
Partnering helped them get through the transition phase easier and helped them try to resolve challenges in a win-win manner; but when the business situation changed and thus impacted the buyer’s savings or the service provider’s margins, most of them still hit a wall despite the partnering approach.
There were foundational
With outsourcing being used for ever-more complex services, there are more variations and risks that could impact intellectual property, particularly when outsourcing product development or research and development (R&D) functions. I spoke with two attorneys, James Nelson and William Russell in the New York office of Venable LLP, who frequently counsel clients on intellectual property and outsourcing matters and asked them to share some insights for buyers of outsourced services in these situations.
Q: There are so many companies that don’t use third-party consultants or attorneys anymore because they have experience in outsourcing and have a center of excellence or… Read the rest
I worked with a potential client whose five year infrastructure outsourcing contract was coming up for renewal in six months. They were struggling with whether to move ahead with pricing that their provider had offered them (with some negotiation, of course) or whether to step back and examine what the going market rate was for the services being provided. The big question was really this: “How do you know you are getting a competitive price?”
There are two ways to solve that: 1) Get a “competitive benchmark” for the specific services you are outsourcing, and/or 2) “Test the marketplace” with a… Read the rest
Almost as fast as a wink – that’s how quickly word spreads on Twitter. And everyone’s doing it – you’d have to have been under a rock, so to speak, not to know of the tweets covering the Royal Wedding (2.7 million social media mentions) and of the even bigger stats on tweets about the death of Osama bin Laden.
But did you know that there’s a hedge fund now using tweets to predict market movement? Research by two universities says the emotions expressed about companies tracked through tweets will predict market movements up… Read the rest
Recent Comments
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