Category Archives: Outsourcing
A few weeks ago, Aon Hewitt announced that Russ Fradin, who led Hewitt since 2006 and is currently the Chairman and CEO of Aon Hewitt, will be leaving to become CEO of SunGard. Kristi Savacool, Aon Hewitt’s current chief executive officer of Benefits Administration, and Baljit Dail, Aon Hewitt’s chief executive officer of Consulting, were appointed co-CEOs of Aon Hewitt and will report to Greg Case, President and CEO of AON. Jim Konieczny, current chief executive officer of Aon Hewitt’s HR … More
“Be careful what you ask for” — it’s fortune cookie wisdom. We have many client situations where they want to know whether they are really getting the value out of their outsourcing relationships. They ask us to look at the situation from all kinds of angles: services, invoice and resource unit accuracy, risk, productivity and so forth. We do these types of assessments from time to time, and they almost always show that there is some value loss in the … More
By Cynthia Batty Something is changing in the outsourcing universe. We suddenly see companies that have never outsourced before are becoming deeply engaged in multiple concurrent outsourcing transactions. These companies seem to have an essential need to transform their organizations “overnight.” They are undertaking these transformations by outsourcing functions such as information systems, transaction processing, Finance & Accounting and Human Resources — all within a few months of each other. Companies that are rapidly transforming have learned from mistakes of … More
Does having no Internet for nine days take a country back to the Middle Ages? Maybe. Does shutting down the Internet country-wide disrupt outsourcing operations and create supply chain risks? Absolutely. Egypt hasn’t left the global headlines within the past week, and one reason is because the country cut off access to the Internet on January 26th in the wake of civil protests and unrest. The Internet went live again on February 3rd. The Government shut down the Internet to … More
Egypt wasted no time positioning itself as a center for outsourcing after India inspired other developing nations to become outsourcing hubs. In December 2009, in fact, Egypt was listed on Gartner’s top 30 countries for outsourcing. Shortly thereafter, Intel opened a production center in Egypt. According to an article by SourcingMag.com, a report by Arabian Business said that Egypt is up to $1.1 billion in outsourced revenue. By 2015, the country plans to exceed $3 billion in outsourced revenue by … More
By Rob Patton A few essential elements will greatly facilitate your quest for the right index formula to meet your needs. 1. Am I optimizing or creating? Determine if you are creating a new index or looking to optimize an existing price index formula. If the seller’s price includes an index-based formula focus attention on understanding the formula and looking for ways to optimize and improve. If there is no index formula the first step is to gain seller agreement … More
by: Bill Huber, Director, CFO Services I recently had the opportunity to chat with Cognizant’s Ramesh Gudalur, Head, Global BPO, and Paul Roehrig, Director of Strategy for Cloud Business Solutions, regarding the implications of Cloud Computing for BPO. Bill Huber: Frame the big picture for our readers… How does Cognizant see the cloud impacting the way in which BPO services are delivered? Paul Roehrig: Broadly speaking, multiple converging contextual forces such as the reset economy, intense businesses pressures, the increase … More
By: Jim Kane Healthcare providers have an opportunity to take advantage of new, advanced technology in cloud computing. Given the heavy industry regulation, it is important for health professionals to determine if cloud computing can provide them a secure, reliable, scalable, and inexpensive computing platform that can be used to facilitate healthcare customers’ HIPAA-compliant applications and data. HIPAA, which protects the privacy and security of certain health information, is a national standard that all healthcare providers need to be compliant … More
The Senate bill that would overhaul U.S. financial regulations at a level not seen since the 1930’s. The legislation proposes to close holes in regulation and curtail some trading practices that many believe led to the 2008 crisis in the financial markets. The Senate bill differs from the House bill in that the Senate eliminated the $50 billion fund that firms would have been required to pay into for use as a bailout for troubled financial firms. Proponents of this … More
By Steven Hall How do I work with the Service Provider? Should I interview the offshore resources? What are SLAs? What can I do to improve quality? These are questions we hear repeatedly from our customers. In response, we’ve developed a series of workshops to address these pressing needs. The content is structured to be delivered in ½ day to 2-day highly-interactive sessions, which allows organizations to truly understand and implement the concepts. We’ve conducted these with a number of … More
by Dinesh Goel Not too long ago, I shared an observation in a recent post about the Demand-Supply syndrome. I noticed that subdued demand resulting from recessionary pressures and supply exceeding the industry requirements of manpower were impacting the offshoring industry. Companies were unable to create new jobs or even sustain full operating capacity because demand in the market was so weak. Consequently, service providers needing to reduce staff shifted the balance of power to employers after several years of … More
by Dr. David Howie, Director, TPI Winning bidders in auctions often experience buyer’s remorse, a gnawing sense that they have paid too much for something that they don’t need and perhaps no longer want. Something similar can happen in reverse when a client selects the cheapest service provider in a competitive tender for outsourced services. For example, in today’s tough conditions, many clients are anxious to strike deals that shift fixed components of their cost base onto the provider. But … More
Many companies negotiate small package programs to cover the documents in small packages, but how much consideration is given to those shipments with weights between 200 and 300 pounds. Normally a shipper will tender those shipments directly to an LTL carrier along with other shipments. These shipments are known as minimums in the LTL industry and are either tendered loose or stacked on a pallet and shrink-wrapped. These shipments can create problems in handling simply because they command an allotted … More
While the cost to deliver a unit of computing resource continues to fall, there is a “traitor” to the cause of lower costs – Software. Software, eight years ago, was typically in the 40% range of the total cost to deliver a MIPS. Now, we see software taking over more than half the spend in mainframe computing; in many cases greater than 60% of the spend. While other major cost drivers have fallen through the years, software costs as a … More
Many organizations measure on a monthly basis on time carrier performance assuring both manufacturer/shipper and end-user/customer on-time delivery of product by the service provider selected. These measurements are used in carrier selection and negotiation purposes by both the shipper, customer and service provider and being based on actual service standards set forth by the carriers. It is important to understand what on-time performance means and to what detail you are likely to consider to drill down to capture the data … More
