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
Congratulations to Francisco d’Souza, president and CEO of Cognizant! The South Asian MBA Association recently named him “CEO of the Year.”
Cognizant is enjoying double-digit growth, ranking among the top outsourcing companies in India, and was added to the Fortune 500 this month.
D’Souza took the helm at Cognizant in 2007 as one of the youngest CEOs in South Asia. He’s no stranger to awards and accolades. Business Week ranks him as one of the world’s most successful immigrants; he also received the Economic Times Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2005.
Don’t you just hate having to say “I should have paid more attention to that”? Here are four news items that caught my eye, as they bode strongly of trends that will change the outsourcing pulse.
Pay attention to these trends now and start planning for them in your future outsourcing strategies — or you’ll wnat to kick yourself later for not having done it sooner.
Trend #1. U.S. and UK banks are currently reducing the number of service providers they use, narrowing them down to two or three providers with whom they have a high level of… Read the rest
As companies increasingly turn to software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for their monthly subscription-based pricing model and business agility benefits, HR recruitment tools are a focus of SaaS software development companies and venture capitalists funding them.
Two SaaS recruiting tools to be aware of: Evolv and PeopleMatter.
Evolv is science-based talent intelligence software that goes beyond job-matching according to skills. It matches applicants to job types based on behaviors, motivation, and workstyle. The company claims its SaaS tool reduces attrition by 20-30 percent and improves operating margins by 20 percent. Its $15.75 million in VC funding will be used to expand to global markets.
PeopleMatter was launched in September after acquiring the software assets of Columbia-based Acadia… Read the rest
Research firm Forrester reports TCS received the overall highest customer reference scores among the 19 service providers it evaluated for its recent report, ”The Forrester Wave™: Global IT Infrastructure Outsourcing, Q1 2011.”
Assessed on 36 criteria in three categories (current offering, strategy, and market presence), TCS was ranked as a Leader for global IT infrastructure outsourcing.
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
Here’s a snapshot of today’s communications:
- Words are abbreviated into scant “code” in text messages
- Corporate branding messages are squished down to 140 characters on Twitter
- Paragraphs or even entire pages in articles and reports are shortened to bullet lists
Funny how this sound-byte way of communicating cajoles us into thinking we can similarly truncate our behaviors yet still be successful in the relationships in our lives.
Reality says that’s not the case. There are all sorts of entangling knots within relationships, and the potential for damage is high when we don’t slow down and take the time – read… Read the rest
The long-term evolution of industries has long been studied. A small market grows when competitors fill niches and primary demand increases. Innovation sparks products. Services refinement and differentiation then occurs. More providers enter the market and then, as the growth cycle matures, scale and leverage become forces for consolidation. Now joining those ranks: the IT and business process outsourcing industry.
Three recent transactions – HP buys EDS, Dell buys Perot Systems, and Xerox purchases ACS – point to a future where “one-stop shopping” indeed becomes a reality in the outsourcing market.
With IBM Global Services leading this pack of “full-service” providers, what… Read the rest
The Shared Services and Outsourcing Network announced the winners of the 2011 Excellence Awards winners for the Australasian Region.
Congrats to Infosys, which featured prominently among the winners, in two separate awards categories:
Excellence in Customer Service
National Australia Bank – In Partnership with InfosysPeople’s Choice Award for Personal Contribution to the Industry
Asheesh Mehra, Head of BPO – Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East, Infosys
The awards recognize organizations that demonstrate leading best practices while generating measurable results in shared services and outsourcing. The focus of this year’s awards shifted from “best in” to “excellence in,” a… Read the rest
The provider’s sales team has gone, all site visits have been conducted, and the contract has been buttoned down. It has been a smooth transition; now it’s time to put offshore delivery and support to the test of meeting business demands. But, in the new outsourced environment, how do you know whether the objectives against which the provider’s teams are managed are favorable to your goals?
In outsourcing, the key raw materials are people and their abilities. Delivery teams are incentivized to control the cost of people through a series of measures. By understanding these measures, you can… Read the rest
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