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Like all journalists, my inbox fills daily with press releases. Here’s one that caught my eye this week and – believe it or not – it made me think about outsourcing.
Do you love gourmet, country style bacon? Do you love premium roast gourmet coffee? Do you love the semi-sweet, sensuously succulent flavor of maple? Then something tells me that you are going to absolutely love Boss Hog’s Maple Bacon Coffee!
The press release went on to describe the product in these terms: “taken us by surprise,” “totally blown our mind,” “actually a pleasure,” “top notch,” award… Read the rest
This is the second blog in a recurring column in Outsourcing Buzz Blog focusing on thought leadership in outsourcing, as seen from the perspectives of two industry leaders with unique views into the workings of how outsourcing deals really get put together – and the results of those maneuvers. (See “Never Underestimate the Value of PEOPLE When it Comes to Outsourcing,” the first blog in this column.)
Insights in this recurring column come from sourcing advisors, Joe Vales and Kerry Ann Vales of Vales Consulting Group and Vales Consulting Lite.
This week I asked Joe and Kerry Ann… Read the rest
Switching service providers is nearly always a situation fraught with challenges, so selecting a new provider that has an effective transition methodology is crucial. Avantica Technologies, a service provider in Costa Rica, is known not only for its software development expertise but also for the way it builds collaborative relationships with its clients and for its strategy for ensuring cultural fit. I talked with Luis Enrique Corrales, Avantica’s Regional Sales Director, about these issues.
Q: How do you help your clients get off to a good start with your company when transitioning out of a difficult situation where an existing… Read the rest
Surfing the net a couple of days ago to stay on top of industry news as it happens, four articles caught my eye and took me off auto-pilot long enough to read every word.
The article in Gulf Times, a Qatar newspaper, began with this statement made by Azim Premji, the renowned Indian entrepreneur and chairman of Wipro:
“India is far from where it needs to be …. Country after country is stepping ahead.”
It seems to me that for a long time the media has treated the words “India” and “outsourcing” almost as though they were synonymous. That… Read the rest
Size makes a difference. Midsized businesses have different concerns surrounding IT infrastructure management than large enterprises. Among other IT solutions, CPM Braxis, a leading IT service provider in Brazil, provides infrastructure services for enterprise and midsized companies. I interviewed the firm’s Global Clients Director, Andre Maximiano, about issues in midmarket outsourcing.
What are some infrastructure management issues that midsized companies face?
AM: Due to budget restrictions and growth pains, midsized companies often have to improve performance of one department at the expense of the overall business. They also are often forced to take actions that don’t optimize performance because… Read the rest
Henry Kissinger said that the absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously. That has been true in outsourcing in recent years. It was marvelously clear that companies could reduce their costs through outsourcing to offshore locations with low-cost labor, especially in India. But now there’s a viable alternative: companies can outsource their work to low-cost nearshore locations.
The cost, time zone, and other advantages from outsourcing to a country that is a “neighbor” and has the same culture are significant. Western European companies have successfully nearshored their work to Eastern European locations for quite a while, and China is a… Read the rest
Taking stock of what I read and heard about outsourcing news and deals recently, it’s evident that many people are predisposed to opinions and expectations about outsourcing. People are either inclined toward, prejudiced against, enthusiastic, unwilling, wedded to, or averse to outsourcing. Several comments caught my attention.
A little bit of tongue in cheek –
Of course, if outsourcing were anything close to a security silver bullet, we’d all be working for IBM.
Diving into the issues –
Fujitsu is bringing the role of Officer of Continuous Improvement to an Enterprise near you. Forget the clipboard
Trust is something that really trips people up in outsourcing relationships. In my talks with hundreds of executives involved in outsourcing over the last decade, I’m intrigued by the fact that when I ask executives about the trust level in their relationship, some can’t determine if trust is there, some say they thought trust was there but then something happened that indicated otherwise, and most who say trust is key to their success can’t describe how to build or sustain it.
Outsourcing has an inherent challenge that makes trust become crucial to achieving successful outcomes. We’ve developed all sorts of… Read the rest
I know what you’re thinking: That the title of today’s blog post must be a trick since Outsourcing Buzz Blog is presumably a strong advocate for all things outsourcing. You’d be only partly correct. If I could change things, I’d get rid of the term “offshoring.” The term is a lightning rod for do-or-die turf and political struggles, and it no longer embodies what it really is – if it ever did.
Years ago, when companies first began sending their outsourced IT and business processes to India, outsourcing made such big splashes with the stories of cost-savings possible through labor… Read the rest
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