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Industry-wide Outsourcing News
Clouds Vs. Outsourcing: The Next Battleground
IBM, HP, and other established vendors entering cloud computing are often already outsourcing partners to the firms that are now frequently looking for an infrastructure service provider. But that doesn't mean they have an inside track on the business. They do not. Established vendors are going to face stiff competition for outsourcing business from the new infrastructure providers: Amazon, Rackspace, and others, according to a report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
Outsourcing fatigue: Why CIOs have gone from fans to fed up
Outsourcing has long been a standard component of business strategy, a popular choice for firms keen to get rid of tech infrastructure that provides little competitive advantage. The idea is that outsourcers - with their scale and greater experience - can deliver IT as a service more efficiently and cheaply than their customers ever could through having their own IT staff. Add in offshore support and the cost savings really start to pile up, so the argument goes.
Outsourcing:The loss of knowledge
The last Post-Trade Forum debate was all about the pros and cons of outsourcing v internalisation. A cross industry panel of outsourcing experts debated with an audience of equal experts and thrashed the topic to arrive at some really interesting conclusions and observations. Not least was operational memory loss. This knowledge can be expensive to replace, if at all and the Post-Trade Forum were unanimous that this concern must be addressed before any decision to outsource is made.
Outsourcing 'does not aid services'
Most public sector managers say they outsource work to save money, with few believing it leads to improved services, a study shows. A survey of 100 human resources directors from government departments, local authorities, NHS trusts and police forces revealed worries that outsourcing services to private firms would lead to a loss of expertise in the public sector. The research, by jobs website Totaljobs.com, found that almost two-thirds of managers believed outsourcing would cut costs, while only one in four said it would deliver better quality services.
Pudong pursues potential in outsourcing
The Pudong New Area in Shanghai aims to boost the outsourcing industry by attracting 500 outsourcing companies with 130,000 employees in the next three years. By the end of last year, Pudong had more than 300 outsourcers with 70,000 employees. The district plans to help three to five outsourcing companies based there to go public within three years as it builds outsourcing capacity.
The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) has just released details about the 15th annual Outsourcing World Summit, an upcoming event that will bring together hundreds of outsourcing leaders from around the world including with the call center industry. The annual event is scheduled to be held from Feb. 20-22, 2012, at Disney's (News - Alert) Contemporary Resort & Conference Center in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
IT Outsourcing
IT outsourcing spend up on last year already
The first nine months of the year saw the retail, telecommunications, manufacturing and media sectors increase their spending on IT outsourcing. Figures published by the information service TPI show that outsourcing investment in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea) has already exceeded levels set in the same time last year.
Popularity of outsourced IT 'is on the rise'
More firms are said to be turning to outsourced IT as a way to make savings and improve efficiency in their day-to-day operations. Martyn Hart, chairman of the National Outsourcing Association, told Computerweekly.com that the rise in popularity is largely the result of retailers turning to the process.
Study reveals sectors boosting investment in IT outsourcing
Meanwhile, the financial services sector, which accounted for about a third of total spending last year, has slowed its spending on outsourced IT services. After the first three quarters of 2011, the sector's spending is just under half (48%) of its total for 2010. The latest figures from sourcing advisory TPI showed.
Now hiring: companies move away from outsourcing to control their IT destiny
With all the talk about companies becoming more "agile" and outsourcing their IT operations to service providers, there's an interesting counter-trend starting to develop. While technology companies appear to be holding off on hiring because of economic fears, companies in sectors like healthcare and retail are moving to build their IT teams, in some cases reversing course on a strategy of outsourcing as much of their IT operations as possible.
Human Resource Outsourcing
The Market is Smarter than You Think
A group is trying to launch a survey to compete with the HRO Today RPO Bakers Dozen Customer Satisfaction Survey. Our webmaster was checking on something with the web site for the RPO summit and received a number of automated RPO offers and one was for myrpobakersdozen.net. It seems someone just bought www.rpobakersdozen.com.
IBM signs $80m HR outsourcing deal
IBM's expansion in the HR outsourcing market continued as the company inked a deal worth $80 million to provide a range of human resources services for Canadian flag carrier Air Canada, reports Information Week. Under the agreement, IBM will provide the airline with systems and administrative support for employee travel, benefits, payroll, time management, data management and other functions. IBM will also provide application support for Air Canada's underlying HR systems.
Business Process Outsourcing
Phillippines tagged as the "rock" of global BPO industry
Citing the way Filipinos deliver their services through call centers and outsourcing firms in the country, the Philippines today was tagged as the "rock" of the global Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry.
"If before we call the Philippines as an important key in the field of outsourcing, we call it today as the rock of the global BPO industry," said Martin Noel Conboy, president of the Australian BPO Association (ABPOA), during this afternoon's press conference of the 3rd Annual International Outsourcing Summit (IOS) at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza hotel.
Business process outsourcing (BPO) is an industry that people relate with the operation of outsourcing business mostly based in tier-1 and -2 cities of the country. However this thought has been rendered as a mythical view in the recent times. Rural BPO is not a new phenomenon anymore. From Bihar to Karnataka to Tamil Nadu, we are having enough examples of rural outsourcing initiatives run by different companies and authorities in India now. A growing number of outsourcing companies are shifting simple typing, data mining, or documentation kind of jobs from metros and tech hubs to poor rural areas. This move is creating many jobs at a fraction of the cost of running a business in a big city.
Bills to make BPO sector more attractive pushed
The House of Representatives is working on the passage of bills that will make the country's business process outsourcing sector even more attractive to potential investors. House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. related that the Data Privacy Act, one of the measures that the information technology and BPO sectors have been pushing for years, had been approved on third reading. Due to the nature of the BPO industry, which usually involves the handling of sensitive data, having a law that actually protected companies from data breaches was very important.
Cloud Computing
See what Martin Conboy had to say about the future direction of the BPO industry
(Video) Martin Conboy, president of the Australian BPO Association (ABPOA), was a guest speaker at the "Emerging Markets: What's in Store for these IT-BPO Centers?" plenary at the International Outsourcing Summit (IOS) 2011.
Six Reasons to Use Cloud Services for Small Business
Outsourcing IT functions such as payroll, website hosting, email, or enterprise resource planning (ERP) has long been normal for businesses of all sizes. But outsourcing critical IT functions including database servers, file servers, document storage, or application development, gives many organizations pause. Many experienced IT admins point to recent well-publicized outages, data losses, and hacking incidents that have cost companies big in lost productivity, lawsuits or penalties, and even leading to bankruptcy.
Can there ever really be privacy in the cloud?
It's a great time to be a cloud consumer. Now you can access all of your digital information - when and wherever you want - across a variety of cloud compatible gadgets (iPad, Kindle, etc.). You can store your music collection in iCloud, you can share work and personal documents over Box.net, and you can do your expenses on Expensify - the list only goes on. Despite its convenience, you must consider the cloud's privacy implications. Who owns your personal information once you've uploaded it? Does the cloud provider have any rights to your data once it's uploaded to the server?
Healthcare & Outsourcing
Outsourcing and the Pharmaceutical Industry
"From managing large scale R&D projects - testing product safety, monitoring reports, clinical data management and clinical development activities - and from supply chain networks to even leading on customer service, outsourcing has become an integral part of the way large, multinational pharmaceutical companies are run," says Sanjiv Gossain, Cognizant Senior Vice President and head of UK & Ireland.
HIMOAP promotes Philippines as top healthcare outsourcing destination
The HealthcareInformation Management Outsourcing Association of the Philippines (HIMOAP) is setting new heights in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) arena in the world today. As the leading markets - United States, Canada, Europe - pose for a growing healthcare information management (HIM) sector, the Philippines is poised to be the emerging and leading destination for various outsourcing in healthinformation management.
US healthcare regulation, technology advancements spell boom for outsourcing
Advancements in healthcare technology, apart from improvement of quality of care, are almost always associated with cost cutting. The US has the highest spending on healthcare in the world, at over 17% of its gdp. It is likely to reach $4 trillion by 2015. Steps aimed at reducing costs include mandatory implementation of emr/ehr, maintenance of minimum medical loss ratios for hospitals, and an overall emphasis on cost effectiveness. Many healthcare organizations use some form of outsourcing, offshoring or a mix of both.
Legal Processing Outsourcing
Conversation with David Morley, Senior Partner, Allen & Overy
Below is the conversation Pallavi Sawhney had with David Morley on varied issues ranging from Allen & Overy's experience in assisting India related cross border transactions, structure of Allen & Overy's India team, views of foreign clients on investing in India, his thoughts on Legal Process Outsourcing and his views on liberalization and entry of foreign law firms.
What Tasks-at Work or Home-Would You Outsource, If You Could? And What Would You Never Outsource?
Earlier this month, we saw a post at the blog Spend Matters on legal process outsourcing titled: "Outsourcing the Right Things for the Right Reasons." The post discussed different imperatives a corporate law department might have for seeking to send work out: from reducing costs, to improving performance or competitiveness, to being able to provide new, previously unaffordable services to clients.
The son of refugees who came to Chennai from Pakistan during the Partition, for Jagdesh B. Kirpalani, it has been quite a journey to his present position as Attorney at Law at the American firm Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker, Alabama. In 2006 the firm decided to focus on India, and his job is to find Indian companies that want to enter the US market. "We tell companies how to open a market in the US for their products and get the right partners to grow their business. As they grow, we grow with them." The firm had done an acquisition deal for Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals; it has 14 clients in India including the Shriram Group.
Contact Center Outsourcing
Contact Center Outsourcing Takes a New Turn
The reign of India as the leader of the outsourced call center operation has ended as salaries soared and the average cost of contact center outsourcing climbed too high to justify the destination. Now, even Indian businesses are moving to a contact center outsourcing strategy to take advantage of lower costs abroad.
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