Featured Blog Posts – January 2010 Archive (24)

Obama, Outsourcing and Tax Breaks !

"To encourage ... businesses to stay within our borders, it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in the United States of America."

What could have prompted Barack Obama to say these lines in his first State of the Union address. His falling popularity, string of losses in the elections for the democrats or the need to act on the projection that he is not any run of… Continue

Added by Vikram Prasad on January 28, 2010 at 11:30pm — No Comments

BSkyB and EDS and what it means for outsourcing

BSkyB has won a substantial part of its £709 million lawsuit against EDS, over a failed £48 million customer services system implementation. The lawsuit, filed in 2007, alleged that EDS had fraudulently misrepresented itself in a sales pitch in 2000 for the system, leaving Sky complete the project itself at great expense. EDS complained that Sky did not know what it wanted and changed requirements too frequently.

Though EDS may appeal again, it looks likely this case won’t go much… Continue

Added by Martyn Hart on January 28, 2010 at 9:44pm — 1 Comment

The Markets Have Woken Up Again In The Last Quarter Of 2009 - Marc Vollenweider, CEO - Evalueserve

The KPO sector across the globe is brimming with opportunities and Evaluserve India’s first and foremost KPO seems to be leading the charge. Evalseserve with their team of 2500 + analysts offers a wide range of high end services including custom market research, business research, data analytics, investment research, intellectual property and legal process services . BPOVoice talked to Marc Vollenweider, CEO and Co -founder of Evalueserve to get the first hand account of the company’s…

Continue

Added by BPO Voice on January 28, 2010 at 11:30am — No Comments

Security Outsourcing: Risky Business for Businesses with Risks?

When I first heard the words “Security Outsourcing” together, the first thought that came to my mind is the word oxymoron. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against the enterprise; it’s just that putting the two words together seemed rather contradictory to me. Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because I recently read an… Continue

Added by Outsourcing Insider on January 27, 2010 at 3:16pm — No Comments

The Pitfalls of Throwing People at a Problem

When BPO contracts specify stringent SLAs on performance when they outsource to a low wage country, the vendor is in the cat bird seat to begin with.

Where you need 100 people to man the phones in a call center, you put 200 people to work. After all, the margins are pretty good and every SLA can be at 99.999% compliance. This is where the trouble starts. Once the process is on its way and people gain experience, salaries start escalating. You find people absconding without notice,… Continue

Added by Nari Kannan on January 26, 2010 at 7:30am — No Comments

BPO's in Africa need to invest in Lifelong Learning in order to compete with other industry players.

As a member within the management team in a Data Processing BPO,am approached by several fellow employees in all capacities and one of the issues that is always fronted unto me is they have done the data entry for so long that it has become quite monotonous and boring because there is no add-on value and skills doing the same stuff.Some openly confess they come to work for the sake of earning a living and meeting their own bills.

It has been noted that modern economies are based on… Continue

Added by Kigozi Kasolo Michael on January 25, 2010 at 3:15pm — No Comments

Should public sector IT professionals hang their heads in shame?

This week the Independent Newspaper decided to reopen old wounds from public sector IT failures of the past. The paper, with the bit between its teeth, decided to mount an investigation into the biggest IT ‘bungles’ presided over by a labour government. The current bill stands at a staggering £26bn above initial estimated costs.

Though most of these embarrassing projects have already hit the headlines before, the investigation brings some important issues back into popular… Continue

Added by Martyn Hart on January 22, 2010 at 6:43pm — 1 Comment

Recession Might Continue Up Till The Third Quarter of 2011 - Jerry E Durant, Chairman Emeritus - IIOM

Last December, for our year end blog post, we ran a random poll asking “what would 2009 be remembered for in the history of outsourcing industry” to get some ideas. The responses we received were pretty interesting however none as insightful as Jerry Durant’s reply . His observations were blunt, point blank and thought provoking. So the next thing we did was, dropped the idea of writing that blog and asked him if we can send him a bunch of questions to know his…

Continue

Added by BPO Voice on January 22, 2010 at 11:30am — 1 Comment

We’re all doomed ! – a response

Following my missive about the TPI results, Les Potton, one of my contacts and owner of Target HR, wrote:

The irony is that the potential savings from outsourcing could be a key route through the recession, but its the reluctance to commit funds up front or sign long term deals, that is likely to be contributing to the reduced number of contracts.…

Continue

Added by Guy Kirkwood on January 21, 2010 at 4:28pm — No Comments

Assessing offshore destinations- First stop: India

The strategy

Pentalog was nominated as the 458th company in Europe and Middle East for positive growth in 2008, according to Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA. In 2009 Pentalog’s sales clearly raised above the EUR 10M to 13.5 M. But more importantly, Pentalog was able to generate profits which would typically be found in companies 2 or 3 times larger than us. The conclusion is that for 2010 we want to reinvest these profits wisely, without wasting them. We have some new… Continue

Added by Pentalog High Tech on January 21, 2010 at 4:20pm — No Comments

Growing Kenyan BPO

What a great week to start a blog about East African outsourcing. Having just returned from a meeting with some of the key people in the Kenyan BPO fraternity and the Kenyan Government, I’m really excited about the prospects for outsourcing in the country. I have just been appointed, along with Gilda Odera, Chair of the Kenya BPO and Contact Centre Society, to the government’s first BPO/ITES council. We will be working directly with the Prime Minister’s office coordinating and sometimes leading… Continue

Added by Nicholas Nesbitt on January 20, 2010 at 6:42pm — 13 Comments

2008 HP-EDS Merger in Top Ten Business Deals of 2009

Keeping abreast with the world is certainly a difficult job, especially now with social media, blogs and other such sources all over the place; it’s becoming difficult to know exactly where to look. I myself have different favored sources of information, including those for news headlines, and social media, that I search regularly. On one such occasion, I came across the… Continue

Added by Outsourcing Insider on January 19, 2010 at 1:00pm — No Comments

All BPO Processes are not created Equal... Some are more equal than others

When we talk about price competition to BPO companies in India coming from China, Vietnam and Cother countries, it is not always an either/or, black and white situation.

BPO processes vary significantly in skills needed. Some are subject to price competition severely and many are not.

The BPO business is a very fluid business. In India, the BPO business keeps changing all the time. What you see is the net gain after all the increases are adjusted for all the decreases.… Continue

Added by Nari Kannan on January 19, 2010 at 8:39am — 1 Comment

Later Part Of 2010 Will Be Critical For IT Outsourcing - Dr. Pradeep Mukherjee, President, Avasant - Asia

Avasant was named as “World’s Best Outsourcing Advisor” in IAOP's 2009 List. Dr. Pradeep Mukherjee is the President and Managing Partner of Avasant’s Asian operations. Prior to joining Avasant, Pradeep was heading the Offshore Advisory practice of neoIT. He has over 20 years of experience and expertise in Consultancy and Management of Technology Business. BPOVoice talked to him to get the first hand analysis of the upcoming trends for 2010. Below are the excerpts…

Continue

Added by BPO Voice on January 14, 2010 at 1:30am — No Comments

2010- The perspective of change

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”. Charles Darwin

2009 has been a year of significant budget and staff cuts to keep revenue from dropping drastically. With the volume of work remaining the same, organizations are faced with tremendous pressure to stay with limited IT budgets. Under the aspect of doing more for less, companies will choose to outsource in order to enable business growth -…

Continue

Added by Pentalog High Tech on January 12, 2010 at 9:00pm — 1 Comment

Turning Captive Centers into Third Party Ones

There is a distinct trend in the Indian BPO scene when many global corporates exit out of their own captives preferring to sell them to Third-Party providers.

This transition usually comes as shocks to all concerned - the global corporate, the employees of the center and the third-party provider. Many classy BPO providers have extensive experience handling these these transitions with ease but still these are some of the typical problems encountered:

a. Cost… Continue

Added by Nari Kannan on January 12, 2010 at 4:48am — 5 Comments

Who gets the upper hand: China or India?

Amy Chua (professor at Yale University) investigated how countries become so called ‘hyper powers’ and than fall. She investigated the rise and fall of the Roman empire, Persian empire, Tang empire in China, Mongolian empire, Dutch empire and the English empire. The main finding of her is that tolerance towards people with other believes and culture is one of the main preconditions to become a hyperpower. One of the reasons the United States was/is a hyperpower is their tolerance towards its… Continue

Added by Francois Zielemans on January 11, 2010 at 3:54pm — 5 Comments

New game - new luck: New challenge the outsourcing community faces

Our growing outsourcing community has just started a new year. Hopefully a year full in challenges, new brilliant ideas and great opportunities. And we tend to set our objectives at the beginning of the year. But… At the end of the year we sometimes realize that the objectives have not been achieved. No time? No motivation? Inconvenient circumstances? Any other reason?

How many… Continue

Added by Magdalena Szarafin on January 11, 2010 at 5:00am — 1 Comment

Resourcing our Outsourcing

As consolidation increases in the BPO sectors, we might take a lesson from the automotive industry. While this may not be the best time to use them as role models, there are aspects of their structures that can give us a reasonable template to consider as our business changes.

In the closing days of the last century (remember the 90's?) Chrysler Corporation established an approach called their Extended Enterprise System, essentially a kieretsu. The goal was to have a coordinated,… Continue

Added by Donald Kelly on January 7, 2010 at 6:45pm — 1 Comment

Indian Outsourcing Providers Will Remain Dominant in 2010 and Beyond ! - Susir Kumar, CEO, Intelenet

Intelenet Global Services is one of the leading global third party BPO Company with over 28,000 employees across 33 locations in India and overseas. It was recently ranked in IAOP’s Global Outsourcing 100 for 2009 and have consistently been featured among the 50 fastest growing technology companies in India complied by Deloitte.

BPOVoice.com interviewed Mr. Susir Kumar who has been the Chief…

Continue

Added by BPO Voice on January 7, 2010 at 1:30pm — 2 Comments