Offshoring v Onshoring - Which Way is the Pendulum Swinging?

by Adrian Guttridge, EMEA Head of BPO, HP Enterprise Services.

 
In recent years, we have seen UK businesses moving away from the tendency to outsource business functions overseas and once again seeking delivery of these services within their borders. However, have national pride and political sentiment now become the drivers of the onshoring vs offshoring debate? Or do cost-consideration and expertise still determine where a business locates its services? Adrian Guttridge, EMEA Head of BPO, HP Enterprise Services investigates the importance of these factors and the role of vendors in this decision process.

Since late 2007, most of Western Europe has been in the shadow of economic uncertainty. Large numbers of reputable business institutions have struggled to survive and for some, the impact of the debt crisis has been overwhelming. The UK banking sector witnessed the nationalisation of Northern Rock and saw both the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB receive an injection of public funds to shore them up. One might think that such developments would, if anything, strengthen the allure of offshore cost-savings. However, cost was no longer the only consideration.

Alongside a renewed cost-cutting imperative, the economic downturn also ushered in the politics of protectionism. Sending business abroad to create jobs, infrastructure, and skills overseas when these are needed so desperately at home has a negative impact on companies and political goodwill, another valuable asset, already in extremely limited supply.

The past 12 months have also been characterised by social and political unrest, particularly in many developing markets. This has demonstrated the geopolitical risk of locating business services abroad and alerted corporate decision-makers to the fact that while offshoring delivered benefits to the balance sheet, it also brought with it the very real possibility of denial of service and the business challenges that come with this. Such cost-savings, it suddenly seemed, could have a significant cost in themselves.

These factors have indisputably shifted the context of a CFO’s thinking when grappling with the offshoring vs onshoring debate. In HP’s experience, what will ultimately remain the most pressing consideration, and the easiest sell internally, is cost. While the events of 2011 have demonstrated that the analysis cannot stop here, the essential savings to be made from offshoring through, for example, labour arbitrage, have not lost their allure.

As such, businesses have had to find the middle ground. At HP, we are finding that organisations are increasingly seeking to get the best of both worlds by adopting a hybrid model with the core business at home and selected services strategically outsourced overseas. HP’s Best Shore delivery strategy caters to this dual requirement by giving the customer the advantage of a global infrastructure and balanced global footprint. This enables the business to react quickly to any uncertainly, but capitalising on the cost benefits of offshoring.

Individual customers may have specific reasons for wishing to keep certain services onshore – such as data-protection and security – but it is more than likely that for other services, location choices will depend largely on the vendor’s judgment that conditions are suitable. Moreover, what will ultimately determine a market’s viability as a centre for, for example, the provision of BPO services is the expertise, the people, the processes, the tools and the infrastructure available. This is what a vendor will look for when deciding where to establish itself.
HP’s approach is to develop centres of excellence for specific services in broad based key global hubs supported by regional language centres. What delivers value to customers is our investment in people, technology and modern facilities; it means they get more time to spend on managing their core business and don’t need to worry about their location strategy.

As ever, advancing technology will continuously shift the goalposts of this debate. Connectivity has created a global village in which individuals and communities everywhere can contribute in the outsourcing market. As this trend moves towards its logical conclusion, the particular resources or characteristics of a specific market will lose their significance and a location-based outsourcing proposal will become less relevant.

For now, the pendulum on the “onshore vs offshore” debate will continue to swing back and forth, impelled by transitory political, social and economic exigencies. Cost is still what the CFO will have front of mind when tackling this dilemma, but the growing sophistication of technology may make it a headache of the past.

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Time to Look Again at Outsourcing

by Joanna Sedley-Burke, Business Development Director, Sovereign.

It is nearly four years since the banking crisis precipitated the recession and the majority of global businesses have cut costs to the bone. But as these organisations face up to the fact that the era of austerity is set to stay for several years to come, it is clear that business models need to be reviewed.

Following systemic under investment, internal resources are simply no longer good enough. Consolidation is rife; companies are looking at international expansion and building global business networks. Research carried out by TPI* in the third quarter of this year shows that there are many different models of outsourcing used throughout businesses around the world. However, with times tough and business competitive, it is key that each organisation chooses the best model of outsourcing to work for their business.

As Joanna Sedley-Burke, Business Development Director, Sovereign explains, in tough times, companies across the globe need to do far more with less and become far more savvy about leveraging external outsourced expertise to derive additional value.

One size fit all?
As Gartner describes**, the offshore IT outsourcing market is “big, and there’s no turning back. Everybody is either doing it, planning to do it, or should be doing it.” But with this comes various additional options of outsourcing choice, from staff augmentation, out-tasking, project based outsourcing, managed services or BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer). However, the right choice for each business can vary immensely based on a whole array of varying factors. There is far from a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

The right outsourcing choice must be assessed on the best model to fit each organisation and this will vary hugely around the globe. Different countries carry out business in so many different ways and can be at differing ends of the scale in terms of their development when it comes to infrastructure and economy.  Even from business to business, the culture of an organisation must be fully understood by any external provider in order to ensure the correct IT choices are implemented to complement and support the organisation appropriately.

Skills and costs
The TPI research suggests there is a trend in global outsourcing from EMEA, down by 23%, to Asia Pacific, that experienced an all-round year on year increase. It is clear that the availability of highly talented and experienced workers in this region are able to carry out the same level of work as in EMEA but at a significantly lower cost.

With rising inflation and escalating fuel costs just two examples of how businesses are being hit, each year is bringing a new financial challenge for business. Over the past four years, these organisations have cut costs to the bone – not least across IT. But is this really a sustainable long term approach? Is the current internal skill set really capable of supporting the current business needs or any potential expansion into more buoyant global markets? Can it deliver the robust communications required to create international networks of collaboration or exploit innovative technologies to increase efficiency and the timeliness of service delivery?

Leverage Expertise
Successful organisations will know the value of external expertise when used appropriately. But continuing to rely on limited internal resources as they come under increasing pressure is increasing corporate risk and potentially constraining opportunities for business growth.  Companies would do well to exploit the proven experience and skills of external providers and look globally when they do.

Turning to an outsource provider in any part of the world offers companies a real opportunity to drive down the risk associated with day to day operations; provides a chance to reduce costs and delivers access to the experience required to build a solid business case for on-going investment. The TPI research shows that BPO is strong and expected to increase further, with businesses having to consolidate and keep the chargeable heads whilst the back-office functions go elsewhere and thus reduce the overheads.

It is those organisations that accept the need for external professional services provided by a company with no vested interest in boosting CVs, and with the required depth of skills and experience, that will be best placed to adapt and respond to the continuing economic challenge.

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ITC Infotech : Journey from XP to Windows 7

by ITC Infotech

ITC Infotech, Heineken and Insight took part in a webinar on the 22nd September 2011 which discussed in detail the issues, risks and processes associated with migration to Windows 7, from each perspective

Although Windows 7 is rolling out quickly to favourable reviews from a consumer perspective, 75% corporate enterprises are yet to complete their migration to Windows 7 and many are in the early stages of planning. This is because, from the enterprise perspective, like any major update or operating system migration, migrating can be challenging, time consuming, and costly. In any case, all enterprises will need to set about migrating to Windows 7 because it promises the productivity, reliability, performance and security enhancements they need, and primarily because Microsoft has scheduled a tight April 2014 deadline to pull out enterprise support for Windows XP.

This webinar hosted by ITC Infotech in association with Heineken International and Insight addressed issues and risks associated with successful on-time migration to Windows 7.

Webinar Highlights

• Issues and risks associated with a federated and distributed enterprise- strategies that hold promise to manage the transformation- A case study of Heineken International
• Typical challenges of planning and migrating to Windows 7
• Challenges of full enterprise rollout-A case study of Insight Enterprises.

Issues and Risks Associated with a Federated and Distributed Enterprise

Heineken International– Windows 7 Migration Case Study

Heineken is one of the world’s leading brewers with a wide international presence through a global network of distributors and breweries. Heineken owns and manages one of the world’s leading portfolios of beer brands.

With a portfolio of globally distributed operating companies, Heineken has a very federated and distributed enterprise IT landscape. The organization has 48,000 workstations running over 2000 windows applications.

Heineken started the Windows 7 upgrade in January 2011 with the support of ITC Infotech at the 2nd and 3rd level to:
• Standardize and globalize the workplace environment
• Attain the flexibility to cope with local diversity
• Improve user experience and decrease TCO

Issues and risks Heineken faces as it migrates to Windows 7

Application compatibility, ensuring applications will install and run predictably on Windows 7, is at the heart of Heineken‘s Windows 7 migration issues. Simplifying the management and deployment of applications during Windows 7 migration poses the most time consuming challenge. Another key issue Heineken faces is managing the change in terms of the time it will really take individuals to adapt to the new features and functions and be able to operate with the same speed and efficiency as they do now. Heineken also battles with the risk of not being able to complete enterprise wide rollout by April 2014(when Microsoft plans to pull out enterprise support for Windows XP).

Issues and Risks Associated with a Full Enterprise Rollout

Insight Enterprises - Windows 7 Enterprise Rollout Case Study

Insight is a global provider of information technology (IT) hardware, software and service solutions to business and public sector organizations with Operations in 21 countries, serving clients in 191 countries worldwide.  Evidently, Insight had a very distributed IT landscape with applications portfolio of over 200 applications. Insight was using Windows XP with the latest service place and was quite sceptical about the Windows rollout. Along with the upcoming expiration of enterprise support for Windows XP, the company was motivated by an opportunity to acquire new tools for tightening network security, accelerating PC performance, and improving employee productivity to move forward with a companywide upgrade to Windows7. Also, the company placed an emphasis on minimizing the impact of the upgrade on employees.

Challenges faced by Insight Enterprises in migrating to Windows 7

Ensuring application compatibility and deploying applications for optimal performance and functionality posed the most challenging and time-consuming challenges. The IT team spent months before the deployment performing readiness testing on more than 200 applications.  Memory was surprisingly an issue with the OS running extremely slow on less than 2 Gb.

Typical Challenges of Planning and Migrating to Windows 7

• Application compatibility
• Hardware compatibility
• Assessment & remediation of applications and hardware
• Project planning
• Windows 7 deployment

Benefits of Migrating to Windows 7

Windows 7 offers desktop and server optimization, management flexibility faster PC performance, while strengthening its network security capabilities. Deploying Windows 7 offers gains in productivity across the organization as more employees take advantage of enhanced desktop tools and simplified access to network resources. A central benefit of Windows 7 is its extensive cost savings, which can be as much as 20% in direct costs and impressive IT cost savings with MDOP. So even though Windows 7 migration has key benefits for an organization, the risk of failure and the enormity of the project may be intimidating and can have significant impact on an IT organization in terms of time, budget and internal reputation.

The ITC Infotech Approach to Windows 7 Migration

ITC Infotech has a clearly defined process of helping organizations migrate to Windows 7. This involves determining client readiness by checking hardware and application compatibility, ensuring security from a policy and governance perspective, image engineering, migration and deployment, and finally operation of application - end-user acceptance and helpdesk support.

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Procurement BPO - Helping you Accelerate Value Realisation For Your Company

by Philip Allouche – Head of Solutions

Often BPO is used by Procurement as a means of applying labour arbitrage, exporting a bundle of processes and activities off-shore, for these processes then to be optimised overtime.

Some use BPO as a means to augment procurement resources and cover more spend. However few use BPO as a strategic lever to “drop in” a new best in class business process that will resolve current inefficiencies and secure Procurement is involved in the right places throughout the purchase cycle.

Procurement professionals can buy best practice processes for specific business activities (or spend categories), like Fleet, Travel, Resourcing, or FM. Proven solutions that have Procurement embedded in the right places of the business cycle, and with the visibility to manage the supply base for continuous improvements.

Take for example Resourcing Process Outsourcing (RPO), often offered by recruitment companies, followed by Outsourcers specialising in off-shoring. RPO often creates a “black box”, from which Procurement can only influence via audits. This puts procurement in a difficult position. After the honeymoon period is over. The better alternative is to have Procurement inserted at the right stages of the process, and make sure the suppliers are engaged in win-win solutions that incentivise them to offer best value. Xchanging offer a vendor neutral process, where we manage the supply chain from start of hiring to payment to the contractors. We ensure this is done efficiently to a high service standard. Along the way we manage compliance to policies and save our customers money by ensure accuracy in billing. We work with the supply base in a collaboratively to create win-win situation been the suppliers and our customers. We don’t focus on reducing the agencies mark-ups on candidates, but rather on incentivising them to find the best value candidate for the customer.

Another example of where BPO can solve procurement challenges is FM outsourcing. A full outsource of the FM portfolio also creates a “black box” which is difficult to un-tangle. It also creates a challenge around spend visibility, not allowing finance or procurement to understand the drivers. We manage the back-office financial processing for our clients in the FM market, covering transactional and administrational tasks from Vendor set-ups to Payment, including all the financial reporting. Our standard platform services are able to deliver clear tracking of budgets and spend across the portfolio. Most finance and procurement functions recognise the challenge in obtaining granular visibility of the spend across a real estate portfolio. “Drop-in” Xchanging’s platform services and achieves full visibility to track budgets and compliance to the procurement strategy. 

Furthermore, we are seeing emerging interest for complete “drop-in” Procurement solutions, inclusive of people, processes, and technologies, across all categories of spend. These solutions enable our customers to drive procurement value across their businesses to an accelerated timetable, as opposed to building from scratch or adding to legacy business processes

Procurement professionals can apply BPO to act quicker in the value delivery, while becoming strategic contributors to their businesses.

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Don’t Let Clouded Thinking Make You Forget The Network

by Michel Robert, Managing Director, Claranet UK

All businesses that have outsourced, or intend to outsource, parts of their IT infrastructure should consider the vital importance of the network to the successful operation of their cloud service, according to Michel Robert, Managing Director, Claranet UK.

“In our experience, many haven’t, and the consequences of this include them paying over the odds for a networking solution that is often not suitable for taking advantage of the cloud, with businesses suffering from poor application performance as a result,” stated Michel Robert.

“Much has changed in the networking space over the past decade: incumbent carriers are no longer the only providers of high-quality connectivity. The market has greater competition than ever before, thanks to the rise of new network providers. In addition, a new breed of IT outsourcers has arisen - managed service providers - who can leverage the array of networks available and combine them with other technologies in one complementary service that suits the specific needs of each customer.  All of this has had a positive effect on prices, choice and service quality,” he continued.

The broadband revolution has bought about faster connectivity and an increasing demand for next generation networks that can support greater voice and data traffic volumes at greater speeds.

Michel continued: “New networking technology gives businesses unprecedented freedom regarding the types of networks they use for cloud services. For example, instead of having to utilise fibre-based networking technologies, carriers can now combine multiple legacy copper lines – traditionally used for phone and broadband services - to create a lower cost, copper-based Ethernet connection with data transfer speeds, both up and down, of up to 20Mbits/s.

Speeds like this, whilst falling far short of those provided by fibre-based technologies, would be sufficient for a small business that wants to access some cloud services,”

“The drop in connectivity costs and the increase in the choice, reliability and sophistication of networking solutions mean that cloud services are potentially available to businesses of all sizes. They also mean that businesses should assess their network provision as part of a move to the cloud if they are going to ensure it is as cost-effective and seamless as possible. In some cases, it may be worthwhile to, for example, break a contract with a carrier and incur related penalties in order to get a new service that is much faster, cheaper and more reliable,” he added.

It goes without saying that you need the right network for the job, and if you are going to outsource business-critical IT functions to the cloud, then you need a connection with strict performance and availability guarantees. But who is responsible for the performance of the network and the overall cloud service?

“Whether a business is moving to the cloud, or just thinking about it, they must consider who is accountable for the performance and availability of whatever might be outsourced. If multiple providers are involved in an overall cloud service – e.g. a carrier, hosting company and application provider – there may be problems when it comes to identifying the root cause of service disruptions and fixing the problem. For example, a number of businesses that have come to us for combined cloud hosting, application management and networking services have done so because they were frustrated with the finger-pointing by providers of different elements of their outsourced service,” he added.

The most obvious solution to this is to secure a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the overall service, not individual elements. However, this is only possible if the service provider controls both the cloud hosting and network services. If a business has multiple providers, it will need to ensure the company’s SLA with their network provider covers the cloud application, and consider what headaches may be caused if it doesn’t. Businesses need to weigh up whether they’re prepared to take this risk or whether it’s more worthwhile to place networking and cloud hosting with one provider.

Michel concluded: “It’s easy to get wrapped up in the wonders of the cloud and the business benefits available, and only consider the means of accessing and retrieving your data as an afterthought. The good news is that, with good due diligence, it’s relatively easy to have the right networking solution and cloud service provider for your business. This in turn will ensure cost-effective and reliable access to, and operation of, your cloud-based infrastructure.”

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Persuading Staff to “Pull in the Same Direction”

by Shirley Barnes, Client Relationship Director, Dinamiks Limited

Persuading staff to “pull in the same direction” can deliver hard business benefits, writes Shirley Barnes, Client Relationship Director, Dinamiks Limited

Today’s often tough economic environment makes it imperative that all aspects of business performance be studied to see if they offer prospects for optimisation. 

Staff behaviour and attitudes are one area where the complexity of the subject might make change look daunting. Individual behaviour, attitude and motivation, team working and alignment to objectives and values - and compliance - may all need to be addressed.

However, new, online approaches to measuring and managing performance, as well as attitudes and behaviour, have brought costs down and improved ease of use very considerably. 

Where reducing costs and improving productivity of employees are top of the agenda, the effort can be particularly rewarding and the means to get there relatively pain-free.

Traditional route
In large organisations, the traditional route to change has been to use external specialists and an array of tools and techniques to map what is going on in the company, and then roll out a programme of change.  It often involved using modern variants of time and motion studies to highlight where individual improvement was required. Workshops and training were employed to make the changes required.

Smaller businesses relied on the MD or FD changing the company culture through group or face to face meetings, perhaps following informal or formal performance appraisals.

With the switch to web enabling applications, the traditional ways are being replaced by a simpler and more automated approach.

This analysis piece looks at how Medex Research, an SME,  made the changes that have resulted in a more cohesive workforce; where staff now pull more strongly in the same direction.  The lessons learned at Medex Research can be scaled up or down.

The company is a full service global market research agency, operating in the medical devices and diagnostics market, which outsources research to companies like Medex. 

Traditionally, Medex used paper-based appraisals to track staff performance to
ensure its people were permanently focused on the essential business objectives and values.  MD Sarina Masson recognised the drawbacks of that approach and decided to switch to a new generation of employee performance management.

Complete picture

The new generation is automated and web-based and gives management a complete picture, from the employee performance and behaviour perspective, of what is going on in an organisation

“Many people,” she says, “are now more familiar with web-based applications than paper ones, which makes the switch to web-based appraisals an increasingly painless one.  There is the added advantage that they can be rolled out very easily at any time locally or globally. All that is needed is web access and computers.”
The appraisals at Medex Research are carried out with two objectives in mind – (i) staff development, including meeting training needs and how best to improve performance, if it needs improving.  “The system will tell us if it does,” says Masson (ii) using the system to build and maintain quality across the business.

These objectives complement the business goal of always producing the highest quality research, in order to secure solid long-term client relationships.
Staff development and re-direction

“We’re different to a lot of other companies, but similar to market research companies, in that sales output can’t be objectively measured,” Masson cautions.  “So, we focus on staff development in areas like analysis and report writing – generally, how to perfect the different stages of market research.

“Now in its third year here, the system is key to optimising our employees’ market research skills, as well as their knowledge of the medical industry, through highlighting any gaps in it, which we then address.”

Masson says the system “has helped us formalise and systemise employee appraisal and career progression.  Paper-based systems can be run very informally and will take more time. A computerised, web-based system enforces good discipline by the managing director, or the head of HR or whoever manages its use.”

The introduction of a new approach to performance management “also gives the opportunity for staff ‘re-direction’ in their personal development.  It’s not just useful for showing where training is required; it can pinpoint where change is required in attitudes, attention to detail and overall quality of work, in line with company goals.

“And it helps with fostering a better ‘connection’ with the company, in terms of individuals helping other staff; for example in generating more sales, being pleasant to work with, having ideas for the business and the workplace, being proactive in company support – including the way clients are serviced – and working better as a team. 

“Where a company’s positioning is ‘quality’, the system supports the drive for excellence in every area that contributes to it,” she says.

Medex’s experience of the online approach is a good pointer for other SMEs and departments or divisions of large operations. It shows there is a new way for change and it’s one that challenges fear, cost of change and the assumption that managing employee performance is a complex and time consuming process. It’s not.

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How a Business Can Benefit From Employee Legislation

by Shirley Barnes, Client Relationship Director, Dinamiks Ltd

It’s not necessarily the burden it first appears to be, writes Shirley Barnes, Client Relationship Director, Dinamiks Ltd

Employee legislation has not made it any easier to do business in the UK. The latest significant piece of legislation was the abolition of the Default Retirement Age [DRA] which came into effect on April 1st 2011 in a phased manner. The completion date is October 1st this year. 

It means that employers will no longer be able to use the DRA to compulsorily retire employees. Employers who fail to embrace this new legislation may face claims of unfair dismissal and discrimination

Preceding it with another challenge to employers is legislation that has increased the maximum limits on statutory unfair dismissal compensation, redundancy payments and other awards.

The increase in retirement age means that many companies will experience situations where age/experience/capability will be a challenge and where the companies will require evidence leading up to and beyond the legislation change to justify why people should retire from a role or even why they should stay.

Employee legislation can help employees but it also increases costs and adds to the many burdens that businesses face.  Legislation changes also add a layer of complexity to HR and other aspects of the business.

Changes provide challenges around constructive dismissal, data protection, DRA, disciplinary procedure, equality, employment tribunals, fair and unfair/wrongful dismissal, grievance procedures, statutory rates, working time regulations, performance, training, coaching and productivity.

Key points about, and arising from, the abolition of the DRA

Guiding principles associated with the retirement age change are provided by ACAS.  Below are key points to consider and take action on.

Until April 6th, the law set a DRA of 65 years.  Provided an employer properly followed the prescribed statutory retirement procedures, a business could fairly dismiss an employee on the ground of retirement at or above the age of 65.

The DRA change means that in order to retire an employee, a company now needs to demonstrate just cause and follow due procedure.

“Just cause” and “due procedure” are viewed as problems but, as with other issues arising from employee legislation,  can be managed to a satisfactory conclusion with an online system that…

(i) Aligns every employee’s objectives to those of the business
(ii) Provides the means to set development plans, track and record progress
(iii) Provides a record of capability for all employees, thereby supporting a common and consistent set of guidelines and principles that apply across all employee ages of the business.
(iv) Allows an employer to demonstrate just cause and follow due procedure

A variety of factors can determine at what stage an employee should step down. All these can be tracked, recorded and analysed by the system.

The DRA has long been viewed as a valued stake in the ground for employers, because it has been a focus for performance issues and succession planning. It has allowed poorly performing employees to retire gracefully and has enabled - in an orderly fashion - open discussion for succession planning. That has now changed.  From October 1st, the door closes on it.

The “stake in the ground” concept does beg the question of why or how organisations don’t take action about poorly performing employees before they retire. Succession planning may have been months or even years in the making, to ensure a smooth transition and the engagement of a [hopefully!]  more productive employee, but that does not excuse the inaction.

The opportunity for businesses

The reasons why unproductive employees are tolerated are not in the scope of this article, but the subject does lead us to the question “Is the change in retirement age actually an opportunity for employers to re-tune the business in an era of suppressed economic activity, squeezed margins and demands from investors to optimise performance?” 
We can also ask if the legislation that increases the maximum limits on statutory unfair dismissal compensation, redundancy payments etc, helps a business in unintended ways? If the business uses a system that helps it conform to employment law while improving performance, then, yes.  The system does this by providing an audit trail of performance, behaviour, attitude and the ability of individuals to meet set objectives.

A manager in the business can track an individual’s performance over a period of time and share the view he or she has of it with that individual and/or with another manager, such as the individual’s line manager.

There is the belief in some quarters that employees don’t like change, but in reality we find that if the CEO and board get behind change initiatives, staff are happy to learn and advance in order to help the business and themselves. In fact, many desire it and employees in outsourcing are no exception.

That desire can, if harnessed, help business benefit from new, or changes to, employee legislation, by re-scoping the business where it needs it. 

More at http://www.ikdevelopments.com

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A Time of Change : From Print to Digital?

by Emmanuel Benoit, Jouve Group.

Despite the troubles in the global economy, the worldwide book market is continuing to grow. It was worth $ 75 Billion in 2010, and is expected by Outsell to hit $ 79.4 Billion in 2013.

Digital book sales are still dwarfed by print, but they are beginning to pick up at an increasing rate. Outsell predict that “the percentage of the worldwide book market attributed to e-books will rise from 3.2% in 2009 to 16.1% in 2013”. This rise in digital sales will be at the cost of print. So where in the market are these changes occurring, and what are the factors at play?

Regional differences

There are large disparities in eBook sales figures around the world, and this has much to do with the way that devices have launched at different times in different markets. The Amazon Kindle has been extremely successful in the US (while Amazon does not release specific figures for the Kindle, their overall sales for Q2 2011 grew to $9.91 billion, with much of this attributed to their Kindle store). However, the device been more slowly introduced in Europe (the UK received its first Kindles in August 2010, while the German Kindle only launched in April 2011). While both the UK and Germany have their own dedicated content stores online via Amazon, France is still to receive a Kindle store, or direct sales of the device via Amazon.fr, and thus the smaller French market is shared between Apple with their iBookstore and domestic retailers such as Fnac. 

Expansion is therefore much stronger in the United States where the market grew by 76.2% in 2010. As Ronn Dunn, President & CEO of Cengage noted at the Jouve organised ‘April In Paris’ (an international digital publishing conference held in Paris earlier this year), the “digital content market is now worth over $ 1 billion”. It’s not just the so-called ‘e-tailers’ who are profiting. Barnes and Noble is one of the few bricks and mortar stores to succeed in the digital era, and their Nook ereader (especially the color version) has also proved extremely successful.

Apple must also be mentioned. Despite the fact that they had no history of work in publishing before the launch of the iPad, the device quickly became seen as the ideal platform for enriched ebooks. This is a market which will certainly expand.

However Europe is set to catch up. Joerg Pfuhl, CEO of Random House, observed that the projected 2011 growth curve for eBooks sales in Germany matched the American market one year beforehand.
Digital reading is well established in Japan, where large numbers of adults enjoy reading novels on their phones and other portable devices, and there is certainly plenty of potential for growth in markets like China. Dianli Yu, the president of the Commercial Press, one of China’s largest publishers, has spoken about the huge potential for digital content, saying that “the market is huge”, with over 800 million mobile phone users in China.

All previous experience seems to indicate that when there is a surge in adoption of ereading devices, which can be seen as a sort of digital ‘tipping point’, then there will be a major increase in eBook sales.

Market segment differences

Print markets are shrinking and digital markets are growing; as different market sectors contract and expand, there will be significant fluctuations, and new winners and losers will emerge over the next few years.

The majority of growth will be in the Consumer Book Market. Most digital reading platforms like the Kindle, Nook, and iPad, have been fairly exclusively targeted at mass consumers. It must also be remembered that for learning, neither ereaders nor the iPad will be the preferred platform for educational content – it will remain PC based. Initiatives like Mind Tap are electronic educational environments which use digital content to create personalized learning pathways.

Nonetheless, as a percentage of the total publishing market, sales of digital content are largest within the professional sector. Businesses have adopted digital formats due to their lower price points and economies of scale.  This is another area where we will see major growth, as firms move more of their business data away from costly paper and into digital formats.

What is driving these changes?

Digital technologies can offer significant savings to publishers and wider businesses. There are none of the overheads relating to physical content, and the printing, storage and distribution it requires. However, as with the music industry, customers are demanding to see these savings reflected in retail prices.

This new generation of digital content means that books are available to download wirelessly - they never go out of print, and they can be accessed anywhere. Customers’ reading preferences can also be highly accurately tracked. Power is placed back into the hands of the author and the consumer, and publishers can build up a much clearer idea of what their customers enjoy.

Print on demand technologies also allow publishers to offer customers single copies of a book, without having to commit to costly reprints. These technologies will gain in importance, and will perhaps operate as a stepping stone between digital and paper formats. These sorts of new high quality technologies will bridge the gap between the print and digital worlds, allowing consumers to enjoy content like photographs, which might start life in digital form and end up in a traditionally bound photo album. 

Print on demand offers new business perspectives with business models (cartoons, cultural heritage content, personalized books). It’s not just a question of optimizing the back office. Jouve has 30% growth in these areas, which have been opened up thanks to our investments in workflow systems (especially in optimizing the way we process single orders).

How content providers need to respond

Publishers need to move fast to make their titles available in digital formats. With new technologies, content providers will be able to meet unlimited demand with no time delays for popular titles. If you are not in a position to meet your customers’ requirements, and offer them a range of options, then you are likely to be left behind.

The solution is to offer the widest possible range of content via digital, print and print on demand to ensure that consumers can have their book as they want, where they want, and when they want.
The future is uncertain, but working in partnership with other companies can help to create the next wave of opportunities, and can also mean that risk is shared. There is no silver bullet solution, but it’s by offering customers a range of solutions for their content needs that publishers and businesses will succeed during this testing time.

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Making Global Delivery Work

by Andrew Brabban, CTO Applications, Fujitsu UK & Ireland

Five factors that determine the success or failure of a globally delivered applications project

Love it or hate it, for the past two decades the story of global delivery (or offshoring as it’s often considered), has been a mixed bag: for every success story put forward there has been a horror equivalent highlighted as well.

On one hand, more and more organisations are eagerly embracing the concept of global delivery for application projects in order to lower costs, increase efficiency and productivity. While on the other side, communication issues, management overhead and cultural incompatibility are forcing companies to re-think their global strategy. And even within organisations, some divisions will report successful project deliveries using global teams while others fail to take advantage of the same.

Application projects are no longer delivered by IT professionals all huddled up in a single office. Today, application projects and related activities make-up the bulk of IT business delivered by global teams. The breakdown of global delivery activity makes for interesting reading:

• By sector:  While the private sector has led the way in embracing the Global delivery model with over 30% already doing some form of offshore, the public sector has stayed away from it with less than 1% usage, predominantly citing security and social reasons

• By geography:  While USA and UK account for over 70% of global delivery business and have been in the forefront of using offshore and nearshore services, mainland Europe and Japan have been slow in adopting the same and account for less than 25%

• By domain: The largest vertical sectors using global delivery are financial services (32%), manufacturing (20%), telecom (12%) and energy (11%). However, retail (5%), health care (5%), media (3%) and supply chain are still warming up to the idea

But whether or not applications projects are delivered successfully on a global scale depends on a number of key factors. Below are the five areas organisations need to be considering if they want to implement successful applications projects globally:

1. Organisational maturity

Research4 indicates that many global projects are perceived to have failed because the benefits expected are far higher than the delivery maturity of the organisation. So, it is vital that the right expectations are set with all stakeholders. Organisational maturity is a key factor that defines the type, size and complexity of the work that can be delivered using the global delivery model. Maturity in this context also means the availability of the infrastructure (e.g. remote development centres, WAN etc.), having standard global project development practices, having staff with experience of the model and, of course, commitment from management to deal with issues. All of this will have a significant bearing on what can be delivered globally and what potential benefits can be gained.

2.  The right project
Taking a blanket approach is a recipe for failure. Technically, all projects can be considered for global delivery, but, practically, not all lend themselves to offshore or nearshore development. Practical considerations likely to prevent work being carried out using global teams are often either security related (regulatory compliance, data protection and confidentiality), the business case itself not stacking up – where the cost of overheads outweigh benefits gained, or simply because the client is not comfortable with the model.
A recent report by ComputerEconomics5 confirmed that 51% of the organisations that engage with offshore use it for application development and the average amount of development work done offshore is 35%. With the evolution of cloud, there is a general expectation that the potential for using global resources on application projects will increase as the required infrastructure can easily be made available to remotely located staff.

3. The right location

Having identified a suitable project for global delivery, it is important to choose the best offshore/nearshore location that will meet the project objectives. The deciding factors for selecting your location will typically include cost effectiveness, the technical skills and numbers, the functional roles of the project and the cultural affinity, security and language requirements. The 30 Top regional locations for 2010-117 as identified by Gartner are listed below:

• Asia/Pacific: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.
• EMEA: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, Mauritius, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Turkey and Ukraine
• Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama and Peru.

4. The optimum blend

Perhaps the greatest challenge to successfully implementing global delivery is choosing the right blend to offshore. It depends on a number of factors – the platform, the project size, the project type, the development methodology, and the process maturity. There is no one size fits all solution here. Typically, there are activities such as application and product development that can see a high offshore blend. Assessing the right blend is crucial to your company’s needs. 

5. Project Management Skills

As ever, the success of rolling-out a globally delivered project lies in its management. Whether done locally or globally, the basics of project management apply in both cases. But many project managers underestimate the skills required to build a blended team: indeed it is one of the biggest reasons responsible for projects failing. Training project managers is therefore vital so that they get the expertise and skills to deliver offshore/nearshore projects. Working remotely demands a greater degree of communication and collaboration to ensure that all involved are working in tandem and are aware of all the factors that might impact their delivery. 

Global delivery is not about offshoring. It’s about “doing the right things from the right places”. Global delivery is not a ‘silver bullet’ for all IT issues and needs to be applied in specific circumstances according to the criteria listed above.  As ever, it is down to experience and judgement in order to apply the right global delivery model to your business.

ENDS

[1] - NASSCOM, 2009
[2] - PMP research, 2008
[3] - BCG Group 2007 and Data Monitor 2009
[4] Tom Philip, Erik Wende, Gerhard Schwabe - Identifying Early Warning Signs of Failures in Offshore Software Development Projects, 2010
[5] - IT Outsourcing statistics 2010/11, Computer Economics

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Unrest puts Egypt’s outsourcing credentials at risk

by Ovum lead analyst Peter Ryan

As the crisis in Egypt continues, Ovum lead analyst Peter Ryan asks what the effect on the country’s outsourcing market will be:

As the global community watches in horror at the scenes unfolding in Cairo, many in the outsourcing community are pondering the demise of what appeared to be the next big thing, in terms of location, in offshore services delivery. The virtual state of martial law imposed by the Mubarak government not only impacts the ability of outsourcers to service their clients, but also counters the pro-business message of openness that has been the watchword for foreign investment for the past several years. The largest question remains whether this once-waking outsourcing giant can recover regardless of a change in government, and what the broader implications are for offshoring.

Curfews, restricted movement, and no Internet impact service delivery

It is clear that the expression “business as usual” has no practical application for outsourcing work currently slated for Egypt. Communications within, to, and from the country have been minimal, and staff are under government curfews restricting movements to and from work. These constraints are giving outsourcers on the ground a significant amount of pain from the strain of fulfilling tactical processes and ensuring that adequate labor and technology backups are in place.

Many service providers, as well as their clients, are re-evaluating whether Egypt is still the right location for outsourcing deployments.

This is especially disturbing considering the large number of global players that have set up in Egypt in the past several years – among them most recently, Sutherland Global Services in Alexandria. Other IT vendors that have been investing in Egypt for longer periods, just as large, home-grown providers (including Xceed and Raya), could be impacted severely in the coming months as clients are anxious to minimize offshore risk. Microsoft has already begun to move some of its work out of Egypt.

Can Egypt’s outsourcing sector recover?

Over the longer term, it will be crucial to see how Egypt’s global reputation as a leading destination for outsourcing services can recover from this wave of violence and civil and political unrest. Effective damage control among prospective and existing investors will be difficult for any future administration, and convincing many outside investors of ongoing Egyptian stability will be a tough task to say the least. For nearly ten years, executives, consultants, and site selection specialists have been fed a steady diet of positive rhetoric from Egypt’s government, quasi-government affiliates, and the Egyptian private sector touting the country’s political and economic stability in order to secure BPO and IT service investment. It is unlikely that these same investors will be quick to take such declarations at face value in the future.

However, Ovum believes that Egypt’s outsourcing space retains value in the form of a sizable talent pool with significant education and language skills. This, along with generous financial incentives, has been the backbone of the country’s growth in services. That said, after recent events the extent to which educated, multilingual Egyptians will choose to emigrate to more stable shores (at least in the short term) is questionable. This could erode the country’s competitiveness further.
What are the Egyptian crisis’s broader implications for offshoring?

What has recently occurred in Egypt is certain to have ramifications for offshore outsourcing destinations the world over.

“Following recent border violence in Mexico and the 2009 terror attacks in Mumbai, the events in Egypt are certain to make outsourcers and their clients much more risk averse than any time in recent memory, and are likely to push many companies to choose the more secure , albeit costlier, option of keeping third-party work onshore,” added Ryan.

According to respondents to Ovum’s 2010 CRM outsourcing Business Trends survey, this sentiment is already present among Western enterprises. Approximately two-thirds indicated no offshoring plans, and regardless of location, the Egyptian unrest will reduce the bar for enterprise risk tolerance for offshore delivery.

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Charities and outsourcing: bridging the final frontier

by Patrick Nash, Chief Executive, Connect Assist

With donations to charities falling – the 2010 Charity Market Monitor reports that voluntary income to the UK’s top 500 charities has dropped by £64 million - the time has come for charities to re-look at the method and effectiveness of their service delivery. 

Traditionally third sector organisations have shied away from outsourcing services – languishing in the wake of both the public and private sectors.  Fears regarding the loss of personal interaction, expertise and the integrity of the organisation have all been voiced.

Yet these entrenched attitudes are why I see the current economic climate as an opportunity as well as a challenge for the sector.  I hope it will force organisations to reassess they way in which services are delivered and to look afresh at the benefits that carefully managed outsourced solutions can offer.

In fact, historically outsourcing has been one of the Third Sectors biggest secrets. According to Paula Rickson of the Charities Aid Foundation, all charities outsource to some degree, “They don’t tend to shout about it too much. Charities are often worried about losing touch with their donors, and sometimes the donor perception is that outsourcing costs money, which isn’t the case. Research suggests that outsourcing back-office costs could save UK charities £136 million a year - only one aspect of charity work amongst many that could potentially, and profitably, be outsourced.”

And cost reduction is an increasingly pressing issue for many, as the impact of Government cuts to grant funding is felt.  At Connect Assist we can typically find a 20 per cent reduction in costs when taking over a helpline from a charity’s inhouse team.  While for organisations that are looking to extend into different areas, working with an outsourcing partner means there is no need to make a significant, upfront captial investment.
Despite this, many charities have still not considered the outsourcing option. According to Professor Cathy Pharaoh of Cass Business School, “The significant advantages offered by outsourcing in offering additional expertise, taking some burdens off charity shoulders and freeing them to pursue their mission, are also acknowledged, but a key finding was that many charities, however, have simply not considered outsourcing. Infrastructure bodies provide limited promotion of outsourcing to members, partly because of lack of understanding and information, but also because of factors such as risk-aversion.”
I would argue that charities should be looking at outsourcing when they lack the capacity to deliver a particular service. Or if a service already exists in-house, but needs to be delivered at a lower cost.  A contact centre is equipped to provide a number of features that most in house services would not have.  For example, access on a 24/7 basis rather than a 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday service.  Levels of call abandonment are also likely to be significantly lower, while smart telephony such as call queue routing and automatic call-backs drive efficiency.

The benefits of such a move are highlighted by MDF The Biopolar Organisation.  It received more calls in one week than in an entire year following an EastEnders storyline that included a character’s struggle with biopolar disorder.  Having moved from a weekday, office-only helpline run by volunteers, to an outsourced 24/7 service it was able to cope with this demand.  Interestingly 70% of calls were taken during the night – calls that would otherwise have been missed.

Suzanne Hudson MDF’s Chief Executive comments, “Awareness of bi-polar disorder has increased significantly in recent years and we were struggling to manage rising volumes of sometimes very detailed calls.

“By outsourcing some of our service provision to a specialist contact centre organisation, we were able to channel member calls to a dedicated helpline resourced externally, while continuing to deal with general enquiries in-house.

Suzanne acknowledges, “Initially we did have concerns regarding the loss of personal interaction, expertise and the integrity of the organisation.  But our experience has been wholly positive and we have developed a close working relationship with Connect Assist our outsourcing partner.”
Risk aversion can appear tempting in a tough economic climate. However, where there are real savings to be made and the delivery benefits are apparent, refusing to consider change could potentially endanger any organisation, with the third sector remaining more vulnerable than most.

Patrick Nash, CEO Connect Assist
http://www.connectassist.co.uk

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Managing Outsource Providers

by Gordon Easden, practice head, FusionExperience.

Operating Model Strategy Webinar Series.

We held our second interactive webinar in November and the insights gained were fascinating. Although the webinar targeted the asset management sector, the issues raised were sector agnostic.
Outsourced service provision is central to the operation of almost all asset management firms. The basic rationale for outsourcing across all industries is that the benefits of scale outweigh the additional management costs of acquiring services from suppliers. Firms outsource all manner of services that would previously have been undertaken in-house from facilities services like office cleaning, through logistics, to call centres.

The task of managing outsource service providers is made easier through automated process management information and remote access to tracking systems. This makes the monitoring tasks far simpler, lessening the need for frequent site visits. At the same time, the ubiquitous use of email and mobile technology has further streamlined the process.
Thus, the outsourcer gains access to economies of scale. Significant sums can be invested in automation, with the cost recovered across an enlarged business. Global convergence of operating practices allows this scale to be leveraged even further. The enlarged global teams can then be rationalised to global centres of excellence, located in low cost areas delivering a 24 hour follow-the-sun capability.

The asset management industry is one of an increasing number of industries where the number of product providers continues to remain high. Distribution is increasingly concentrated through a small number of platforms. Operations are delivered by a small number of suppliers with global scale and reach. Consequently the industry’s structure makes it impossible to compete by building your own operations infrastructure. Outsourcing all major operations is therefore essential.

For example, most asset managers grudgingly admit that they get a good basic service from their suppliers. Nevertheless they feel there is an inability to implement change, and that the needs of the customer and business are disconnected from the operations. This causes a problem for firms. There are compelling reasons for using outsource providers, but in practice, firms are experiencing real problems accessing those benefits.

Hence, it is important to identify the reasons behind this and find a proven approach to ensure operations deliver brand and business objectives.
Firstly, it is important to clarify what we mean by Managing Outsource Operations. In this context, managing refers to establishing a control system.  At the heart of this control system is a set of objectives, a sensing system to monitor if these objectives are being achieved, and a mechanism for taking action when objectives are not being achieved. Overlaid on this should be a mechanism for sensing changes in the environment which require the objectives to be recalibrated.

Managing operations is defined as “ensuring that operations are delivering to their stated objectives, and that these objectives are relevant to the brand and business strategy.” This can be difficult because because of their complexity and multiple potential points of failure. Without active management each area will operate to its own priorities and the overall objectives will not be met. This can occurs on multiple dimensions, personal agendas may undermine firm objectives and long term strategic objectives may be ignored in the face of short-term pressures.

If an outsource provider has conflicting objects to the asset management firm, this can pose specific challenges to managing outsource operations. An example of this is when the outsourcer wants a predictable and stable operation whilst the product provider wants complete flexibility to react to market requirements. The product provider requires the ability to easily change supplier, whilst the supplier wants to lock in the product provider. The product provider wishes to pay less and the outsource provider wishes to charge more.

A structured approach is required for significant conflicts to be managed appropriately and all aspects of this problem to be addressed. This approach involves specific key management processes and characteristics that will ensure that they deliver as expected.

The management process can be broken into four process areas:
• service specification
• service monitoring
• issue management and resolution
• change control.

The capability maturity model will guarantee processes deliver as expected by defining a series of generic practices that must be considered; establish policy, produce a plan, provide resources, assign responsibility, train people, manage documents, identify and involve stakeholders, monitor and control the process, objectively evaluate adherence, and review status with higher management. These generic practices are often overlooked in the four process areas mentioned above.

Most contracts contain some kind of Service Level Agreement (SLE), but very few organisations articulate a policy to justify one. A key objective of the Service Specification is to maintain a current understanding of the services being delivered. This is essential to ensure the service delivery is in line with evolving market requirements, to understand the impact of change, and to enable migration to an alternative supplier. If this objective is not even explicitly stated, it is not unsurprising that resources are not committed to ensuring it is achieved. As a direct result, change becomes hard to effect, and a gulf of understanding opens up between the business and the operations.

When considering the steps in the change control process these are usually well defined and understood. However, there is rarely an explicit statement of the objectives of the change control process or a clearly defined responsibility for ensuring these objectives are met. Consequently adherence to these objectives is not monitored. Frequently, when the product provider is unhappy with the performance of this process, they find they have no adequate means of rectifying the situation. By contrast, if an objective is clearly stated (e.g. the launch of a new product within 30 days) then controls can be built into the contract to ensure conformity.

Finally, issue management and resolution is often a poorly documented process, and is only as good as the manager operating it. There is rarely an explicit plan, and documents are not filed centrally. As a result the operation can be compromised in the event of staff changes.

This clearly shows how this simple framework is very powerful. Benchmarking your processes against the model can help in easily identify and address areas of weakness.
The CMMI for services framework provides for a staged approach. The steps described thus far can secure processes to perform as expected for an organisation operating at maturity level 2. Once at this level, firms can opt to further leverage their processes, by moving to level 3, 4 or 5.

Key to this is a structured implementation. For a defined process scope, we can make an initial assessment against the level 2 requirements of the CMMI for services model. This will highlight weaknesses in the important processes. These weaknesses can be assessed for importance against your business goals, and improvement plans agreed. Following implementation of these improvement plans, the operation can be certified at level 2. The process can then be repeated for level 3 of the model. An alternative approach is to identify those process areas that are of concern. Targeted assessments can be made, and improvements made to these areas.

In practice, these two approaches are not contradictory. It is reasonable to pilot this approach to address key areas of concern to demonstrate the benefits. This can then extended to make sure the process area is operating at maturity level 2.This can then be extended out to cover the whole of the selected business scope, in this case the oversight processes. Below are a couple of examples of how this approach deployed in practice.

FusionExperience recently helped a leading asset manager to consolidate its back office operations to a single supplier. As part of this process we benchmarked their oversight processes against the CMMI framework. We ensured that CMMI compliant processes were enshrined in the contract, verifying the appropriate monitoring and controls were available. The transparent oversight processes have built scalability into their processes; this will enable the client to grow further. A much improved change control process will deliver this client the agility it needs to compete in the market.

FusionExperience also helped an outsource provider with a problem of reliably delivering change. This was a key issue that was beginning to threaten an important relationship. We pinpointed the key process weaknesses by undertaking a very brief and focussed review. An improvement plan was agreed that delivered a predictable change process that was responsive to the client. This achieved the desired aim of improving customer satisfaction. A helpful side-effect was that it reduced costs by reducing project overruns. Importantly, the experience provided a baseline for further improvements.
To sum up, Operations are important because it is through them that one delivers a business strategy today and in the future.

There are compelling reasons for product providers to outsource many of their function, but many firms have difficulty fully realising the promised benefits. Furthermore, mature oversight processes are required to access these benefits, and a structured approach is needed to ensure these are in place.  This approach can yield significant benefits if adopted by an asset management firm in its oversight processes, or by an outsource service provider in its delivery processes. However, the greatest benefit of this approach is achieved when both product provider and outsource supplier work together.
The results of the discussion in this webinar were fascinating. And we hope you can join us for the next one: ‘Managing operations’ on Tuesday 14th of December.

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Spending cuts to rely on will and luck

by David Milliken

The toughest public spending cuts in living memory will be achieved only with a mix of unprecedented political will and a dollop of economic good luck.

Chancellor George Osborne put flesh on Wednesday on the bones of some 80 billion pounds of cuts that he announced in an emergency budget in June.

Average spending by government departments will fall by 19 percent over the next four years—slightly less than the drop of a quarter expected for most departments.

But the cuts will come at a cost of almost half a million public sector jobs and a squeeze on welfare that is nearly two thirds bigger than what was promised in June.

Job cuts on this scale will go beyond efficiency savings and require scaled back or reduced quality services, piling pressure on the government to renege on its plans.

Welfare savings are even harder to bank with certainty as they hinge partly on the long-term unemployed finding jobs, and government growth forecasts for when the cuts start to bite next year are more upbeat than those of many other economists.

Osborne was clear that he believed Britain’s budget deficit of 11.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the largest in the G7, left him no option to such drastic action if the country was to avoid a Greek-style fiscal meltdown.

JURY OUT

However, economists said the jury was still out on whether he would achieve this goal with his current plans, which rely overwhelmingly on spending cuts rather than tax rises.

“It depends on political will,” said Andrew Smith, chief economist at accountancy firm KPMG.

Such determination could not be taken for granted, despite the Conservatives campaigning in May’s election on the promise to reduce the budget deficit faster than the Labour government.

When a Conservative administration last had to make cuts in the early 1990s, they ended up balanced roughly equally between spending cuts and tax rises, Smith said.

“That was partly because when push came to shove, it became very difficult to make the spending cuts. Until you see it happening, it’s slightly questionable.”

The National Institute for Economic and Social Research expressed a similar view on Tuesday.

Cuts are not distributed equally across government. While health and schools spending is largely protected, day-to-day funding for the ministries in charge of police and prisons is due to fall by a quarter.

“It will be interesting to see how the Ministry of Justice will manage a 6 percent a year cut with upward pressure on prison populations,” said Jon Sibson, head of public sector at accountants PwC.

Ultimately there was too much political credibility at stake to avoid the 490,000 job cuts that Osborne forecast.

“If people are determined to get headcount down, the machine will do this,” Sibson said. “The extent and quality of some services will go down, there is no question.”

However, while the government has direct control of the 395 billion pounds of departmental spending this year, it has less influence on the more than 200 billion pounds it spends each year on debt interest and welfare payments.

Welfare costs in particular could balloon if official forecasts for growth of around 2.7 percent over the next four years prove too optimistic—whether due to an underestimate of the impact of the spending cuts or because of a global slowdown.

“The resumption of robust growth is crucial to the deficit reduction arithmetic. But the Chancellor is making some rather heroic assumptions,” said KPMG’s Smith.

“Households may continue to save and pay down debt rather than spend, businesses may remain reluctant to invest and export performance could suffer from a lacklustre global recovery.”

“PAPER CUT” OR “AMPUTATION?”

Economists polled by Reuters in September—when the scale of the fiscal tightening was clear if not its precise make up—forecast Britain’s economy will grow by 1.6 percent this year and by 1.9 percent in 2011.

The CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce said reductions in infrastructure investment were less severe than feared and that tackling the deficit was a top priority.

Others were much more pessimistic.

PwC forecast that a total of 943,000 jobs in the public and private sectors will go by 2014/15 because of the spending cuts, which will damage private sector suppliers too.

This is equivalent to 3.4 percent of jobs nationwide, but regions more reliant on government money such as Northern Ireland and Wales may suffer job losses of 5.2 percent and 4.3 percent respectively.

The worst hit sector is likely to be construction, where PwC forecasts a 5.1 percent loss of output due to a reduction in government capital spending. Business services will be the next biggest victim, with output taking a 3.9 percent knock.

Regardless of these figures, Osborne is likely to draw comfort from the most important audience for his spending review—the ratings agencies whose threats to downgrade Britain’s AAA credit grade is driving the rapid pace of deficit reduction.

“Today’s Spending Review ... enhances the credibility of the deficit reduction plan by detailing the spending priorities and measures necessary to stabilise UK public finances and debt, and secure the UK’s ‘AAA’ status,” concluded David Riley, head of sovereign ratings at Fitch.

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE69J54G20101020?pageNumber=1

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Of outsourcing and pensions…

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

A couple of days ago, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) renewed its pay and pensions outsourcing contract with Logica, a £10m deal.

The extension will give the MPS the opportunity to introduce organisation-wide electronic payslips, overtime and expenses for the first time, as well as providing staff with greater use of self-service IT systems.

Similarly, reports suggest that UK-based Diligenta, the insurance and pension outsourcing unit of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has been approached by two prospective clients for outsourcing contracts worth more than £100 million each.

But it doesn’t stop there. A couple of days back Alliance Boots announced its decision to outsource part of its pension plan, which according to reports, could see the pharmaceutical retailer and wholesaler, offload about £300m of retirement fund liabilities to Pension Corporation, a specialist buyout vehicle.

As part of the plan, Boots has closed its UK defined-benefit pension schemes to future accrual for active members. Whether this is a cost cutting measure or not, Boots is not the first – and it’s unlikely it will be the last – to decide to reassess and reorganise its liabilities.

Last year, Barclays Bank decided, despite initial opposition from its staff, to axe the final-salary pension schemes for existing members.

Pension consultancy Mercer suggests that deals like that closed by Boots are part of a trend that has been increasing over the last 12 months.

It seems that after three years of living in a difficult financial environment, the City folk are trying to come up with new ways to keep their jobs resulting in innovative products. Which is good, as long as we don’t see another mess like the one that ensued from the sub-prime and CLO market crisis…

Concerns from the outsourcing industry may stem from the Government’s decision to apply the consumer prices index (CPI) instead of the retail prices index (RPI) for the price indexing of public sector pensions.  The result of this has been an uncertain environment for public-to-private outsourcing exercises although the implications for outsourcing projects will depend to an extent on whether bulk transfers have been agreed or not.

What is certain is the emphasis on pensions in relation to outsourcing will likely become more prominent as the Government’s cost cutting measures begin to be rolled out. It will be a bumpy ride ahead.

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Cloud Services find silver lining

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

Earlier this year, advisory firm Gartner released figures which projected that 2010 would see global cloud services revenue reaching $68.3bn; a 16.6% increase from the $58.6bn recorded in 2009.

But that is not all; the industry is poised for strong growth through 2014, when worldwide cloud services revenue is expected to reach $148.8bn.

Indeed, according to Gartner estimates, enterprises will spend $112bn cumulatively on software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), combined over the course of the next five years.

With such forecast and figures on the line it is no wonder HP and Dell are both keen to increase their share of the cloud computing pie as the bidding for data storage firm 3Par over the last week has illustrated.

However, raising the stakes on 3Par is not the only thing HP is doing as it looks to position itself in the cloud computing segment.

The company has also announced the launch of HP CloudStart, the industry’s first all-in-one solution for deploying an open and flexible private cloud environment within 30 days.

Built on HP Converged Infrastructure, HP CloudStart simplifies and speeds private cloud deployments. Consisting of hardware, software and services, HP CloudStart empowers businesses to deliver pay-per-use services reliably and securely from a common portal, and offers the ability to scale and deploy new services automatically. Furthermore, real-time access to consumption and chargeback reports allows clients to operate their private clouds in the same fashion as a public cloud.

Currently, North American and European markets represent the largest markets from a geographic perspective, and all have seen an increased adoption of cloud computing and cloud services among enterprises.

However, emerging markets – like Asia – are likely to see an increase in growth over the medium term.

Indeed, according to Gartner, the US share of the worldwide cloud services market is likely to be diluted to 50% by 2014 (down from 60% in 2009), as other countries and regions begin to adopt cloud services in more-significant volumes.

Perhaps anticipating the rise of commercial opportunities in other regions and markets, Japanese electronics company NEC decided to set up a joint venture with Neusoft, China’s largest IT outsourcing provider, to offer cloud computing services in the country; NEC’s first move to offer such services outside its home market.

According to NEC’s projections, the cloud computing market in China to grow to $2.3bn by 2012, expanding at an average pace of 30% each year.

In meantime, cloud computing still raises strong concerns to issues such as security, availability of service, vendor viability and maturity.  But this may not be deterrent enough in the war over 3Par, which according to analyst may see HP victorious.

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State of mind: a bipolar affair

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

In the midst of the budget adjustments, the re-shaping of the NHS model, talks on immigration and the PM’s visit to India it has been an interesting few weeks for the outsourcing community.

So what do we (think we) know? The government will make the necessary cuts and suppliers will take them onboard. As it is unlikely either side wants to spend time and resources on costly legal battles suppliers are likely to get concessions from the government.

And while some suppliers like Connaugh seem to be suffering from price-pressure, most are looking at these budget cuts as an opportunity. This was certainly the position Steria’s chairman and CEO, François Enaud, expressed during a recent interview.

Enaud has good reason to be optimistic. As July turns to August, and financial results are published, many vendors are reporting encouraging figures for the first half of the year.

Indeed, Steria’s half year figures seem to have been positive across most European geographies – Spain was perhaps the exception as their results were ‘close to flat’ but given the difficulties the Spanish economies has faced in recent months, this is still good news. 

While results for HCL, Wipro and Patni also showed a positive trend.

Curiously enough vendor outlook seems to be fairly optimistic while data recently published by TPI in its Q210 Index indicates a preference for a more cautious approach as there are still too many variables out there for there to be any certainty. I wonder who has got it, right?

In the meantime during his first visit to India as PM, David Cameron had his work cut out as he tried to dispel fears of curbs on IT outsourcing by the country’s government departments.

This is far from an obvious task as the question of immigration crept on to the agenda, adding to already existing unemployment concerns. A tough act: to balance public expectations, trade and international relations, and a public purse strained by a 3 year old financial crisis.

My guess is the PM’s rich brown hair won’t stay that colour for long!

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Growth or recession? That is the question

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

Figures: we are inundated by them. Constantly bombarded with interpretations and statistics, sometimes it can be hard to make sense of it all.
For example, figures from the US point to a very plausible double dip recession, whereas the messages from the UK have been mixed, to say the least.

Certainly, there is the issue of exams and results and between incredible (I would stress the ‘in-’ prefix) A-Level and GCSE results, and talk of an exam-driven culture, the concern many have is how well prepared for the future are pupils leaving school – especially where IT is concerned.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The education question leads us down an equally troubling (from the UK public/government perspective) path.
Indeed, the diminishing number of pupils taking IT means that while the demand for IT-related skills is on the up, the domestic offer is on the decline. As IT companies try to fill the 500,000 new IT jobs that, according to experts, will be required over the next five years, they are much more likely to look into sponsoring skilled foreign workers.

This brings us to immigration. The coalition government promised to cut net immigration by over 150,000 each year to l00,000 or less. Non-EU work visas have already been capped.

So what is it going to be: satisfying the domestic demand for IT jobs which may see immigration cuts be revised or reverted? Or sitting back while discouraged IT firms move elsewhere – and I don’t know how well that would fair for the economy long term.

Certainly, the Office for National Statistics may have put out figures indicating a 1.2% quarterly rise in GDP between April and June; apparently demonstrating the fastest growth in nearly a decade. But, is the growth indicative of an improving trend? Is it sustainable or is it misinformed optimism?

It’s funny how although economics is a science many of the factors that contribute to it and its indicators are subject to ‘confidence’ and its presence or lack thereof.

And while GDP figures show a recovery gathering speed, economic commentators have surprisingly discovered that the less privileged in society are likely to be hit the hardest by the budget cuts.

Talk about mixed messages?!

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Exam results keep rising but pupils taking relevant subjects continue dropping

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

Exam results keep rising but pupils taking relevant subjects continue dropping
Hot on the heels of the recently announced A-level results, this week’s release of GCSE results indicated a rise in the pass rate – for the 23rd year in a row.

But if students are getting smarter, why is it that options/subjects such as languages and ICT have seen a drop in the number of pupils taking them?

In today’s multicultural/multilingual world, technology filters into all aspects of life; so does it make sense to opt of the subjects which could very well determine (or at least significantly influence) future job prospects?

“The IT industry may well value qualifications in areas other than IT, such as. Science, Mathematics etc, above pure IT subjects in the future,” observed Roger Newman, senior vice president at IT solutions provider Mahindra Satyam. “The next generation of knowledge workers, which are now entering higher education, have grown up with, and already have a good understanding of, the fundamentals of IT and so can develop into the type of person who can drive more business benefits from IT regardless of having a formal IT qualification.”

As the economy slowly recovers, demand for skilled labour will also increase. In this instance, the markets and industry knows what they need and know what they want. It needs skilled labour and it is ready to import or export it depending on the situation.

“The recent A-level and GCSE results suggest that there has been a general decline in the number of students taking IT subjects,” noted Newman “I believe it may be symptomatic of a shift in the types of skills that will be required in tomorrow’s IT workers. IT is now highly embedded in most business processes and businesses are increasingly using off the shelf applications and Open Source Solutions. It therefore follows that businesses rely on a higher degree of skill in understanding business processes and the application of technology to operations than the past.”

Newman stressed: “Somebody has to build the off-the-shelf applications and Open Source Solutions and, to do this; formal training in IT is required. In summary the decline in the number of people studying IT subjects will probably not affect outsourcing trends in the short or even medium term but will have a profound effect on the IT industry in the long term, unless a sensible balance is maintained.

In its August 2010 Labour Market Outlook survey, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that the demand for migrant workers has increased in line with improvements in the UK labour market during the past year.

The study surveyed 600 organisations of which 45% indicated that they had vacancies that were proving difficult to fill from the domestic labour market and were now looking overseas in a bid to fill the positions.

According to their figures about one in six (17%) employers intend to recruit migrant workers in the third quarter of 2010, which is above the previous peak of 15% recorded three months ago. Employers in the education and healthcare sectors are most likely to hire migrant labour (27% in each sector).

In a technology-based world, the budget cuts will continue affect the quality of education – among other public and social programmes – the outlook for Britain just keeps getting rosier…

 

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Suppliers: going, going, gone?

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

Recent media reports have been insisting that a number of suppliers have been ‘going bust’ this year.  But how accurate is this?

Yesterday’s online editions of The Guardian, The Telegraph and the FT – amongst others - reported a 47% increase in the number of public sector suppliers affected by the degraded economic environment.

The figures derive from research attributed to accountancy firm Wilkins Kennedy, which claims that H1 2010 saw an increase to 168 insolvent companies, up from 114 in the same period last year.

However, it would be interesting to put that 47% increase into context.

A few figures:

According to statistics reported in February’s HM Treasury speech on government procurement:

• There are 4.7 million small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, representing 99.9% of UK business
• At the time the government was spending 95% of £220bn of public sector procurement in UK-based firms.

Needless to say, that by its size the well-being of SME space is fundamental to economic recovery, which is perhaps why the news of a near 50% increase in the insolvency rate made such news.

I do not mean to down play the meaning this increase has for individuals whose livelihoods depend on the jobs created by insolvent companies.  However,  it’s clear that £209bn (95% of £220bn) has been spent in UK-based procurement suppliers, which begs the question - how much of this percentage actually goes to SMEs?

“There’s no doubt that public sector work is of major importance to small businesses” said Chris Gorman, Private Business Forum (PBF) spokesman.

“Countless small firms up and down the country rely on bodies like local authorities, health trusts, police forces, schools and colleges for business. If these important contracts suddenly start disappearing, I think it’s safe to say many smaller businesses are going to suffer and may even go to the wall.”

It is probably not much although according to the Government, in 2004/2005, SMEs won 59% of the total value of local-authority contracts and 22% of central-government contracts.

Similarly, around 10% of members consistently report concerns about public procurement-related issues, according to proprietary research conducted by the Forum of Private Business.

It is something the coalition government has promised to address and the ‘supply2gov’ website is supposed to be part of the answer. The website, designed to make it easier for micro-business to tap into public contracts, originally launched in 2006 it is expected to re-launch later this year.

The portal in theory, allows SMEs to gain free access to contracts worth £10,000. Higher value deals, with tender documents worth more than £25,000, would follow, in order to meet the target of allocating 25% of all state contracts to small businesses..

The current ‘supply2gov’ portal does not seem to delivery. Let’s hope the portal re-launch changes that.

The stats presented may have been a bit misleading, having omitted the size of the business community – however, they do depict the reality.

While many will say that any economic downturns serves to ‘cleanse the system’ and rid it of inefficient players, the fact remains that some competitors are too small to absorb the shock caused by unfavourable trading conditions which makes them more likely to go bust than larger players.

“Although small business owners traditionally favour low taxes and low spending, many are very wary of calling for ‘slash and burn’ public spending policies from the new government,” noted Gorman.

The question in everyone’s mind is: will the measures taken by the government succeed in rebooting the economy as well as boosting investor confidence?

It would seem that uncertainty remains close to the only certainty – aside from taxes and death!

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Failing out of the future?

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

A-level results are out - rising to another record high of 97.6% while an unprecedented 27% of entries achieved an A.

I don’t want to burst the celebratory bubble but…

Notwithstanding how indicative the rise in A-marks is of the quality of the graduating classes or how students will be able to afford university if indeed they get a place, what worries IT firms is the low marks received on technology related subjects.

Compared to 2009, there was a 2.4% drop in the number of pupils taking IT related A-levels. The UK is not producing the new IT talent for which the industry is so thirsty.

If we compare the figures to five years ago the decrease is even more significant, with the number of students falling by a fourth. This year 16,251 gained computing and ICT A-levels, compared with 21,450 students in 2005.

What is going on with Generation Y in the UK? What is certain is that with growth forecast for the IT sector set at four times the average for the UK, the industry is likely to import talent in the not so distant future if it is to meet its needs.

The UK may have led the Industrial Revolution but it sure isn’t leading very much right now…

Companies like IBM are trying to attract young people by offering an alternative for school leavers or those whose marks would not suffice for a university education.
The IBM apprenticeship scheme, developed in collaboration with sector skills council E-Skills UK, offers 20 apprenticeships for students looking to go straight into work rather than go to university.

Twenty is better than nothing but it is still unlikely that the number will make a dent in the 500,000 new IT jobs that will be required over the next five years.
The increasing need for innovation in IT, generally speaking, is not likely to slow down. Intel has paid a hefty close to $8bn price tag for McAfee in a bid to improve its data security development capabilities. It’s a big bet Intel is placing and analysts don’t quite understand the reasons behind the merger. But then again it wouldn’t be the first time an M&A deal goes through that does not result in the ‘foreseen’ synergies.

In the meantime, we had better get better at jumping on the band wagon as the world continues to go round not waiting for anyone.

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Outsourcing away

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

India already holds at least 50% of the global outsourcing market, and has become the world’s back office where Western firms set up call centres, number-crunching and software development outlets to cut costs.

It is, therefore, not without good reason that the visa bill which, if passed, would double the cost of visa application fees and add $200m in visa costs to Indian companies, has had such an unsettling effect in India.

Compared to the US, David Cameron’s statements during his visit to the Indian sub-continent a few weeks back was quite the positive one – comments about Pakistan notwithstanding. Maybe if chicken tikka were also a national dish in the US things would be different…

Indeed, HM Revenue and Customs is considering outsourcing sensitive tax processing work to India, a move that would save tax payers as much as £205m a year. Meanwhile, the British Council could outsource 100 IT and finance jobs also to India; the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as well as the Treasury could all have similar plans.

Outsourcing may be what Cameron had in mind when he devised his ‘Big Society, Not Big Government’ election campaign.

Thus the UK remains open to outsourcers provided there is increased inward investment in the UK.

But while this provision may have been intended to appease the public in general, that jobs are not off-shored does not mean that they won’t disappear; after all, efficiency often comes at the price of redundancies.

Certainly the government probably expects that the private sector will absorb some of the jobs lost in the public sector. But what happens when budget cuts also mean that private sector companies (working with the government) have less money with which to work, grow and create jobs?

Quite a tough decision to make: on one side cost-saving measures supported by efficiencies resulting from outsourcing.  On the other increased unemployment, the problem of redundancies and increased cost of benefits.

Ah, the bitter-sweet taste of the path to economic recovery!

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Double Dips: not as exciting as you may think

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

All things considered, this has been a successful week for the outsourcing community, with a spate of newly signed projects and announcements arriving in all of our inboxes on a daily basis to warm the cockles of even the most hardened doom-and-gloom monger.

Don’t believe us?  Well, take the announcement by BT that it had been awarded a contract by Nationwide to provide managed security services as an example. 

Or even the engineering management contract signed this week by Meggitt with HCL or, come to think of it, the record 2nd quarter results announced by leading provider of information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing, Cognizant.

But before you start putting up the bunting, balloons and flags to celebrate the end of all your financial woes, it’s worth sparing a thought for those less fortunate.  This week, the Co-operative announced that it was bringing 36 IT roles back in-house following its acquisition last year of supermarket chain Somerfield.

The roles relate to helpdesk and store systems support, with the company opting to re-create jobs previously outsourced by Somerfield.

Further proof, were it needed, that our economic woes are not yet at an end, came with the news that cancelled public sector contracts could precipitate a Double Dip Recession.

Although that may sound like an exciting new ride at Alton Towers, we’re fairly sure that it’s much, much longer, and far less exciting, so perhaps a little perspective is no bad thing.

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Of expectations and legal battles in outsourcing

by Francinia Protti-Alvarez

In recent weeks, IBM has been in the news the other side of the Atlantic as it tries to respond to two legal cases brought against it.
It is interesting to note how, despite the maturity of the outsourcing sector   – particularly in the US -  it seems as though the issue of managing relationships and expectations is a skill that has not yet been perfected by the industry.

Although legal action is always considered a ‘last resort’ option, the public sector is under pressure to deliver savings and efficiencies.  When multi-million contracts   have ‘gone wrong’ or are ‘significantly delayed’ somebody – usually, it seems, the vendor –  has to be responsible.

But it’s much more complicated than that. More often than not, vendors and suppliers deliver what they were asked to deliver. Where they seem to fail is to meet the untold or unclarified expectations that buyers and end-users have in mind for the venture.

A recent example is IBM, who has been facing two recent legal disputes in the US.
The first of these relates to the state of Texas and a seven-page letter the Texas Department of Information Resources sent detailing what it calls “chronic failures” of agreed service levels.

In the letter Texas expresses to IBM it remains discontented with services provided, indicating that IBM is in breach of its contract.

This is not a new problem. Indeed, it has been ongoing since 2008, when the state first suspended the $863m, seven-year outsourcing contract.
IBM obviously contests the claims. Meanwhile, Texas IT officials are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst after giving IBM 30 days to fix alleged problems with the state’s $863 million data centre outsourcing contract.

The second incident involves the state of Indiana and sees both parties suing each other since May. The heart of the problem:  Indiana’s 10-year, $1.6bn outsourcing contract with IBM to streamline welfare eligibility in the state, which the state governor cancelled in October last year.

According to reports, the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) is trying to recover $437.6m it paid IBM until 31 January. The lawsuit also includes costs incurred for any third-party lawsuits, federal penalties and employee overtime, plus triple damages worth more than $1.3bn.
As for IBM, it has counter-sued Indiana for $52.8m reportedly for hardware, software and automated processes Indiana IBM left there and is still using.

In both cases, each side disputes the other’s claims.  We’ll just have to stay tuned to see how the saga unfolds; only then will we get sight of what the possible repercussions for the outsourcing industry will be.

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Public Sector Sourcing Success

by Morgan F

Public sector outsourcing has been a much spoken about issue of late. It has been widely reported that 2010 will see government agencies needing to follow the private sector’s example and use outsourcing to both cut costs and better deliver the services the public expects. However, a report this week from Deloitte has questioned local councils’ ability to manage IT outsourcing contracts effectively. The research also claims that councils’ mega-outsourcing days are numbered. So where are councils’ going wrong and why does this mean the demise of large IT outsourcing deals?

Interest in public sector outsourcing has piqued recently for numerous reasons. A perfect budget-squeezing storm seems to be encircling the sector and outsourcing and even offshoring look to be vital solutions. One of the biggest drivers has been the recession which has sparked a wave of prudency in the sector. The government’s huge debts from the banking bailout mean there are harsh budget cuts to come, whether Tory or Labour. Increasingly it seems, government agencies will be looking towards outsourcing as a method of maintaining services whilst cutting costs. Bringing in outside skills will also be an important factor in increased adoption. But it is lack of skill in outsourcing itself that Deloitte is looking at.

The Deloitte report, ‘Taking Control of IT’, which is based on Deloitte’s experience of advising local councils, explains that local council IT departments’ have a tendency to outsource problematic technical functions which results in their outsourcing projects rarely being successful. Costi Perricos, author of the report, observes that councils have for “too long” viewed IT as a “black art that is better performed by external contractors”. The report emphasises that local councils need to change their overall approach to IT rather than hoping outsourcers can step in and solve all their technical problems. To those of us in the outsourcing industry this appears commonsensical in its essence.
Greg Jones, Senior IT Sourcing Advsior, PA Consulting Group agrees that the report highlights an “oft-repeated mantra in the sourcing industry” which is that a company, public or private, should never outsource a problem. Jones explains that this is one of the most fundamental pieces of guidance that can be given. More accurately, he says, it should perhaps be read as “don’t outsource a problem you don’t understand.”

However, Jones does not think this will spell the end for large ITO deals. He says all that is required is “a change of attitude and renewed emphasis on the business leading the transformation, and appreciating precisely why the deal is being pursued and what deliverables are being looked for.” This is not, however, a belief held by all in the outsourcing industry.

Alistair Maughan, Partner at Morrison Foerster LLP, on the other hand anticipates that megadeals are generally coming to an end. He explains that there has been “much more focus on multisourcing and best-of-breed outsourcing projects.” He describes that outsourcing is a casualty of the recession with the typical outsourcing deal being “more about cost saving and surviving the recession than about strategic positioning.”

Controversially Anwen Robinson, managing director of ERP software firm Agresso, thinks that local councils have been duped buy some outsourcing providers. He laments; “unfortunately many external consultants have seen local government as a bit of a cash cow and have delivered unwieldy, often unsuitable systems which subsequently demanded expensive support contracts to make necessary changes. You have to question whether or not they had the best interests of the customer at heart.”

Although the Deloitte research has opened a can of worms when considering local councils and IT outsourcing, it by no means predicts the end of public sector outsourcing. It outlines that outsourcing still has the potential to “lower operational costs” and bring in much-needed “expertise and capacity to transform”. Local councils’ must remember that building an effective corporate IT capability is not the job of the outsourcer. Outsourcers provide a skill but the management of that contract needs to be kept within the council. Local authorities need to provide “vital input from its service areas into defining, training and testing systems” insists the report.

The report has highlighted an important bugbear in public sector outsourcing. Outsourcing can be effective but only if it is not seen as the answer to all problems. Public sector bodies clearly need a new approach to outsourcing for 2010 and beyond. Only by acknowledging the mistakes of the past and working to understand how outsourcing can be, and has to be, a big part of the public sector going forward.

 

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Source Aid?

by Morgan F

This week Time Magazine online published an article that asked ‘Could the information economy help narrow the gap between the rich and the poor?’ Apparently this is the implication of a new study which appeared in the journal Science. The research is a collection of data from 21 populations in order to look at how wealth gets trapped within certain families.

An interesting conclusion resulted from this study. As wealth shifts from material goods like factories to intangibles like social networks and the ability to innovate, there’s more of an opportunity for a person who is born poor to work their way up and penetrate the once elite word of the rich. Similarly, someone who is born rich can just as easily lose their place in the economic food chain.

For me, this study has a clear tie with the outsourcing industry, in particular offshoring. After all, the very nature of offshoring is the participation in the global economy by less developed countries. Information technology has resulted in gloabalisation which has facilitated the redundancy of time and space barriers. As such, relatively undeveloped counties are not as marginalized as they once where and can, sorry excuse me, and are supplying services to the once infallible developed nations.

Farhan Mirza, Partner, AT Kearney, the global management consulting firm, agrees explaining: ‘the IT industry has in many ways been a great leveler to put many emerging economies on the map and give them a leg-up.’ He continues ‘the intangible nature of most IT services has enabled ‘location’ to be less of an issue, opening up this potential.’

Miraz says that by looking at foreign direct investment as well as IT exports from low cost countries, you can see significant growth over the last decade; ‘the availability of skilled IT labour, and attractive IT services from these geographies has qualified them on to the buyers shortlist.’

In essence IT has had a major role to play in making equality a reality. However, this news analysis is in no way claiming that global equality will ever be a reality. This an extreamly complex issue that one can not claim to know the answer to. There is also an insurmountable sum of arguments that support the notion that outsourcing/offshoring works to keep the economically stable countries in their authoritative position and the less developed counties in there place, dragging behind, never able to fully compete. This argument is formed through the actuality of offshoring being the consumption of cheap labour from poorer countries. Nonetheless, this argument is highlighting a problem without a solution.

One can pontificate for generations about the exploitation of poor counties and how to bring them on par with the developed world. This pontification has been, I believe, a crime the developing world has been guilty of for far too long. Studies have proven that charity does not necessarily work. On the other hand India, which is famously one of the most prolific outsource providers in the world, has experienced robust economic growth. Countless studies have attributed this to globalization and liberalization of the Indian economy. This denotes that India’s participation in the global economy has had a positive impact on the country. Where charity has failed, economic participation seems to have prevailed.

Outsourcing is not infallible in its approach nor is it the answer to social inequalities. It does however seem that it may be a step in the right direction when looking at global inequalities. A brave statement to make, I hear you gasp. A writer can only comment on the evidence that has been put before them.

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The Wipro Effect

by Morgan F

Wipro released its revenue results for the second quarter last week. Perhaps not surprisingly it reported that its IT services revenue in U.S. dollar terms had declined by four percent to US$1.1 billion in the quarter against the same quarter last year.

It also revealed that the company’s IT services revenue in Indian Rupees for the quarter was higher by five percent from revenue in the same quarter a year ago, because of exchange rate gains. These gains will have an obvious negative effect on offshoring contracts to the country. If one of India’s largest outsourcing providers is experiencing a plunge in revenues, what indication does this have for the omnipotent Indian outsourcing industry as a whole? 

It is not only the fate of Wipro that has experienced ramifications from the all-consuming economic depression. Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest outsourcer reported earlier this month a fall in revenue. Similarly, Infosys Technologies, India’s second largest outsourcer, reported a decline in revenue. It seems it is a fruitless pursuit when trying to avoid the recession’s unavoidable hold, even in an industry that’s primary focus is to cut costs and increase efficiency.

Ironically it was the spectacular end of the dotcom boom which resulted in the rise of offshoring IT services to lower-cost destinations. Dr Roger Newman, European vice president, Mahindra Satayam concurred; ‘This gave real impetus to the Offshoring boom’. This recession, however, is not treating the offshoring industry so kindly.

David Skinner, a London partner at Morrison & Foerster’s Global Sourcing group explained that ‘Indian providers have suffered an offshoring backlash from the USA and UK because some companies do not want to be seen to be exporting US/UK jobs to India’. He also highlighted the Satyam scandal as contributing to the negative view held by the West about offshoring.

The apparent decline in offshoring processes to India has also resulted in the emergence of new sourcing trends. Converged solutions specialist, Intrinsic Technology Ltd (ITL), has seen a 40 percent increase in companies choosing to implement permanent home-working for employees.

Dave Griffiths, head of the ITL Unified Communications Business Unit, commented on this trend: “Many businesses looking to avoid large overheads and promote green credentials are turning to homeshoring instead of offshore outsourcing as it offers improved manageability.”

All though it seems that all of this doom and gloom is contributing to similar negative predictions about Indian outsourcing circulating the press, there is still a glimmer of hope. Technology Partners International (TPI), an outsourcing consultancy, reported earlier this month that there is pent-up demand in the global outsourcing market that has been deferring decisions in the economic recession. Providentially, TPI expects that the market will begin to improve over the next six to nine months.

Skinner agreed with positive predictions explaining that ‘in ITO, India remains very highly skilled and well priced and so deals continue to be won there’. He continued, ‘Indian companies are also winning more Indian local work and trying to expand their operations in other countries such as China’.

It does look as though the economic downturn has had an unavoidable negative effect on the Indian outsourcing industry. It has also resulted in the diversification of the industry and its offshorings. However, although change is inevitable, the pessimism that has plagued the giants of Indian outsourcing’s revenues will be short lived. The Wipro effect is just a spot in a vast ocean, an ocean that is gaining scope and depth.

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Where did all the grads go?

by Morgan F

Businesses across the world have been using outsourcing as a strategy to reduce costs, streamline workforces and improve quality.  On the whole, this strategy has been effective and has resulted in management teams across all industries turning to outsourcing more frequently. 

Now, if businesses outsource to UK based suppliers then jobs remain onshore, graduates have a chance to learn the vital basics and the UK moves into the future happy in the knowledge that it has a well skilled workforce.  The problem is, many of the biggest businesses are not using UK suppliers, instead they are opting to offshore, leaving the UK with a growing skills gap. In fact it is safe to say that the gap is quickly becoming a void. 

Over the past few months there have been a host of businesses receiving less than favorable reports about their offshoring practices.  Most recently, Lloyds Banking Group has been under fire from the media as a result of a Daily Mail report that said Indian IT contractors were being brought into the UK to work in place of UK counterparts. The article was supplemented with internal documents that revealed the concerns Lloyds managers have about knowledge gaps within their IT department, hence they were possibly looking to their Indian partners to provide them with the necessary skilled workers.

What this means for Lloyds is that they lack the necessary skills to do basic IT processes without calling in the offshore cavalry.  This is worrying; a large financial organisation should have the capacity and the business sense to keep a retained team of workers on-shore.  It is probable that Lloyds became a little too focused on cost cutting and rapid ROI whilst losing sight of the future security of their organisation. 

Mass offshoring is not just having an effect on the capabilities of UK businesses, it is also having a distinct effect on those yet to begin their business life, the graduates. Firms excessively offshoring work and not investing in their own staff has resulted in fewer graduate opportunities and in turn means that mid level IT specialists are becoming a rarer breed.  Graduates need on-the-job training in order to become tomorrow’s IT specialists.  Who will train future developers, networkers and IT managers if there is no one left in the country with the foundation skills?

Martyn Hart, Chairman of the National Outsourcing Association, commented, “As India and various other destinations enjoy a wealth of low level IT work, IT specialists in these countries will arguably have had better experience and training than their UK counterparts. In turn, those IT workers that have climbed the career ladder in key offshore destinations would have had such a breadth of experience that they may be better placed to manage the IT teams of the future.”  So, where does this leave the UK? 

Of course offshoring is understandable if not vital within a global economy.  However, retained knowledge and balance are just as essential as offshoring.  Companies must realise that they need to have an even spread between on-shore work and offshore.  Their Indian suppliers will not tell them to keep work at home, that is for sure.  So management teams need to wisen-up and be aware of the risks involved with overzealous offshoring.

Mr Hart points out the risks involved with handing over IT to an offshore supplier, “By not retaining enough good quality in-house IT expertise, businesses are at risk. They will no longer have the capability to design and run applications or IT systems themselves and will have no choice but to rely upon their offshore service providers. This would leave them in a very vulnerable position; suppliers could essentially charge what they wanted for applications and systems and they would lose their competitive edge because they would have to rely upon the same ‘off the shelf’ package as their competitors.”

So what are companies going to do?  Well one area that is worth exploring is sending an in-house graduate team offshore for a period of time to learn the trade. The offshore suppliers will be best placed to train them because they have been fulfilling the work already, the graduates get the experience they need and supplier relations will be significantly improved.  After the team’s tenure at the supplier’s base, they can return back in-house and bring their new found skills and knowledge with them. 

The fact is that excessive offshoring is contributing to the UK’s ever increasing skills gap.  If companies want to be best placed to ensure that they are prepared for future challenges, then they need to have the skills and knowledge in-house.  Having a good mix of outsourced and in-house expertise is paramount if businesses don’t want to find themselves at the mercy of a supplier’s sales team. 

Graduates need nurturing.  It wont just be the likes of Lloyds quaking in their boots as they stare at their empty IT department, all businesses may find themselves at a distinct disadvantage unless UK organisations start taking the time to invest in the future of this country’s talent pool.

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IT spending down but do not fret!

by editor

Gartner forecasts released early this week will have confirmed what most CIOs knew and have been struggling with over the last year and a half. The recession has truly hit the IT industry with global spending down six percent to $3.2 trillion in 2009 compared to $3.4 trillion in 2008. When you put it in decimals the change seems small but it is highly significant. The collective fall in spending is the result of a lot of stress and wide scale efficiency initiatives being made by CIOs around the world. Prudence is forcing companies to look at cost cutting across the board and IT budgets have not escaped the spotlight. Gartner predicts IT spending to pick up slowly in 2010 but recent Ovum research provide a bleaker picture until 2013. In short, IT departments are likely to be under pressure for some time yet.

“The full impact of the global recession on the IT services and telecommunications sectors is still emerging, and forecast growth in these areas has been further reduced significantly,” commented Richard Gordon, research vice president and head of global forecasting at Gartner.

While no executives like budget reductions, it appears a forced reassessment of IT efficiencies could turn out to be a good thing. Richard Barker, MD of Sovereign Business Integration, an outsourcing company, sees the downturn as a wake-up call for IT.

“The past decade has been defined by conspicuous consumption across the board. The cheaper goods have become, the more the nation has bought. And the IT department has been one of the biggest culprits in encouraging this ‘pile it high’ culture. Cheap servers, network bandwidth and storage have encouraged inept practices and allowed users to treat the corporate network as an extension of their personal online presence,” commented Barker.

Of course, not all IT departments will have taken this approach, but where it has occurred this kind of profligacy will no longer go on unchecked. Those CIOs that have always erred towards prudence in their IT strategies, will happily continue down their well-planned paths. However, as budget reduction targets hit those less-prepared organisations, big changes will be necessary. So, what are the options for CIO’s to make the changes that matter?

The experts sourcingfocus.com spoke to were adamant that indiscriminate cost cutting is not a sustainable approach. A slash and burn mentality may bring significant cost reductions now but will not stand a company in good stead for the future.

“In past recessions, the ‘soloist’ CIO rapidly cancelled contracts, cut headcounts and really cut into the bone of IT. Companies quickly realised that this was damaging the core of businesses,” comments Myron Hrycyk, CIO of Severn and Trent, the utilities company. “IT is just too central to business for this approach to be viable now,” he adds

Indeed, approaching cost cutting now that IT is so central to the way a company runs, is a highly sensitive task. It seems that the approach can no longer be to simply reduce overheads but must be more of a balancing act of canny expenditure and efficiency in operations.

“CFOs and CEOs are facing a heightened challenge in identifying where to scale back and where to keep investing. This is particularly the case as stringent compliance requirements and cost of failure means cut backs in the wrong areas could be catastrophic,” comments Steve O’Connor, VP of IT transformation at BMC, an IT services provider.

He adds, “As IT is the only integrated function underpinning the entire organisation, it is crucial for business success that CIOs can clearly demonstrate to the board exactly where IT investment is needed, and where the fat can be cut. By doing so the CIO is able to strengthen his/her position as a business leader and can ensure that the business runs as lean as possible, whilst still maintaining success.”

With IT providing the backbone for most large organisations nowadays, it appears the CIO’s moment to truly shine has finally arrived. Clear, decisive and strategic actions could help consolidate his or her rightful place at the board table.

Balancing act in mind, the opportunities for cost cutting are many and a large number of them fairly simple to enact. The budgetary pressures may actually provide an opportunity in disguise, allowing CIO’s to ultimately create a more efficient and effective IT-driven organisation.

sourcingfocus.com asked the industry their top tips on how CIO’s can make positive cost cutting measures:

Consulting costs:
• “n good times, consulting companies made a lot of money from your company. Now it is time for them to share some of the pain. Request a ten percent to 20 percent rate reduction. Make it clear this is temporary – but also that companies who participate will continue to be long-term partners when economic conditions improve with the implicit understanding that not participating in the rate reduction will directly impact the long-term partnership with the consulting company.” Rich Murphy, Executive in Residence, Planview (and ex-CIO at Deutsche Bank).

Applications:
• “Retained support costs can often be reduced. We went to one supplier after realising we only used 60 percent functionality for one system. We proposed to pay them 60 percent of the existing retainer and they went for it.” Myron Hrycyk, CIO, Severn and Trent.

• “Pull together an inventory of your applications, their purpose, and the number of users. You can collect more information but start with the basics, which is easy and low-cost to obtain, and progress from there. This inventory of applications will allow you to identify duplicate, low usage, and low value systems.” Rich Murphy, Executive in Residence, Planview.

Hardware and software:
• “Normal cost reduction measures for hardware are to extend the useable life of the equipment and thus push off the replacement cost. While this works in many cases, it is not always the best alternative. What if the replacement hardware uses 50 percent less electricity requires little to no maintenance, can handle five times the volume, or runs two to three times more efficiently than the old equipment? The total cost may be lower if you decide on a replacement strategy. Plus, hardware providers are also impacted by economic forces, so you should be able to negotiate a reduced price.” Rich Murphy, Executive in Residence, Planview.

• “Look at storage costs and policies, because technology changes in this area over the last few years provides a great opportunity for cost reductions,” Rich Murphy, Executive in Residence, Planview.

Outsourcing partnerships
• “We are no longer ‘soloists’, more part of a band. Work with partners to come to agreements on cost reductions. Our suppliers have an appetite for ensuring Severn and Trent gets the best value from its IT investments. They understand the long-term relationship is more valuable than their short-term margins.

“There are possibilities for reducing blended rates, recalibrating contracts and account management costs. It’s also not unreasonable to ask suppliers to invest in proving the business case for new projects as they will benefit if deals come through,” Myron Hrycyk, CIO, Severn and Trent.

• “Organisations also need to consider options such as pragmatic overhaul of procurement models, redefining “risk and reward” based approaches to managing suppliers, shared services and outsourcing,” David Roots, MD, local government, Civica.

• “At Severn and Trent I have brought IT and procurement closely together so each can more easily adapt to the needs of the business. This is part of our vendor management strategy to enhance vendor relationships,” Myron Hrycyk, CIO, Severn and Trent.

• “I’m a strong believer in multi-sourcing to create the strongest partnerships. The benefits to be gained far outweigh the extra management time involved in such relationships,” Myron Hrycyk, CIO, Severn and Trent.

• “Hidden IT spend is an important area to look at. Those IT expenses that appear in different departments can add-up. CIOs need to get a handle on every IT cost across the organisation,” Steve Wathmought, MD, Xantus, an IT consultancy.

Amid the gloom, there are clearly many opportunities for CIOs to make bold, business enhancing decisions that not only drive efficiencies but also create long-term effectiveness. And, while projections on the arrival of IT industry ‘green shoots’ vary, it is important companies are ready when they do finally arrive.

“If there is one good thing to come out of the recession, it will be that organisations will become far more prudent when it comes to purchasing and managing technology. IT departments may be feeling the pinch. But a return to good, business based IT practices will not only enable organisations to address IT costs today but will stand them in excellent stead as the recession lifts and the economic outlook brightens,” says Richard Barker.

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Green IT – A CFO’s best friend

by editor

Green IT has been on the radar of service providers and end users for some time now.  Increasing regulations involving carbon reduction, energy efficiency and environmental impact have meant that green IT has crept up the boardroom agenda and is now probably one of the most discussed topics amongst C level executives.  Analyst firms have recently been getting their teeth stuck into the issue and this week Datamonitor released a report entitled ‘Can green IT bloom in an economic downturn?’ CFOs are not keen on being put in a position where they have to hand over money in response to meeting government regulations, but would they change their mind if they could see that money making its way back into the coffers, with interest?

Over the past few years, green strategies amongst businesses have predominantly been half hearted initiatives.  Organisations have been keen to appear to do something rather than to actually implement an effective strategy.  Greenwashing became synonymous with big conglomerates and corporations were found to be making outrageous false claims about carbon neutrality, green infrastructure and other green fingered exploits.

Now however the paradigm has shifted.  Greenwashing has lost its impact as stakeholders and the public have wised up to the real issues at hand and are adept at spotting phoney strategies. 

Of course, any investment in time or money into the green agenda is spurred on by increasingly tougher government (or EU) legislation and not some altruistic need to save the planet.  However, businesses are starting to explore whether there is a return on investment with initiatives which previously would have had CEO’s gritting their teeth as they watched their money go down the green drain.  Green IT has become one such area where investment may mean efficiency and cost savings for many firms.  The Datamonitor report has highlighted that organisations do not see green IT and cost-effective IT as mutually exclusive.  Here is why:

The first area where savings are made is energy costs.  Greener technology means less energy is used and the dial on the electricity meter doesn’t spin as fast.  This may seem like a small saving, however when you consider the billions of pounds spent in keeping the world’s data centres running, a 10-25 percent energy saving means big bucks. 

For vendors, investing into green IT may be one of the best moves they make in terms of winning new business.  The majority of public sector contracts have rules and regulations with regards to the green credentials of a potential third party supplier.  By investing in green technology, suppliers can make themselves as attractive as possible to green fingered government officials. Private sector end users are also not exempt from environmental regulation. 

The Carbon Reduction Commitment is due to come into force in 2010 and businesses of all shapes and sizes will need to be aware of their emissions.  Data centre outsourcing will increase as end users look to cut back their carbon by outsourcing it to the greenest suppliers.  There is plenty of opportunity for vendors pushing a green USP.

Cloud computing is frequently being considered as a green IT tool.  Companies are considering this virtualised route as a way of not only reducing the amount of old and inefficient servers they have, but also as a way of allowing employees to work anywhere and everywhere.  Working from home (hotels or pubs are also very popular) schemes are allowing businesses to totally streamline the amount of IT they have and in turn reduce their carbon footprint. 

Vendors are offering bespoke cloud computing applications that allow work to take place on a huge scale, meaning thousands of employees are able to work seamlessly with one another without having to switch on the office lights.  Combine this with the reduction in emissions as a result of fewer workers needing to make the daily commute and cloud computing seems like an attractive green route.

Of course, all this comes at a price. Initial investment into any new technology is costly and if done without careful forethought can cause disruption to business.  During times when IT budgets have been cut, the last thing on an IT manager’s mind would be to spend resources on helping the environment.  However, businesses need to thoroughly investigate the ROI opportunities associated with clean technology and properly implemented green strategies.  If people can show that being green can bring monetary benefit to a business then CFOs up and down the country will be prepared to listen to a proposal.

Displaying ROI in green technology will benefit both the business and of course the one thing that tends to be ignored in all of this, the planet.

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Sri Lanka stepping into the outsourcing spotlight

by editor

Sri Lanka has had its name in the press a great deal over recent years, coming to a grand crescendo in the past few months.  The Tamil Tigers conflict has caused a vast amount of opinionated articles to be written, some neutral, but most cast a dark cloud over Sri Lanka’s politics and military activity.  However, the 25 year conflict appears to have reached a final conclusion and, while the rest of the world pick through the pieces of the aftermath, Sri Lanka is setting it’s sights on building the country into an outsourcing hub.

In a bid to drum up business and support, Sri Lanka has this week launched its IT and BPO Industry Chamber into the UK market place.  SLASSCOM (yes, like NASSCOM but Sri Lankan) has the UK in its sights and has one aim in mind, to attract new investment into Sri Lanka’s BPO and IT industry.

Big name Indian BPO companies have already setup operations in the country.  More look set to follow suit as organisations such as Genpact ready themselves to launch a Sri Lankan presence.  Tholons, the sourcing advisory company, has ranked Sri Lanka as one of the top 15 emerging outsourcing destinations in the world, so what makes Sri Lanka an appealing destination? 

Well for one, they have a huge pool of UK certified accountants, all with cheaper salaries than their domestic counterparts.  Government incentives are coming thick and fast in the form of tax breaks, infrastructure investment and other tantalising perks and language skills are also of a high standard.

One particularly unique angle being taken by Sri Lanka is its push towards making the country the destination of choice for SMEs.  SLASSCOM believe that SMEs can fare particularly well by using Sri Lankan services and, in a market where many outsourcing destinations look to fight over the scraps from the tables of large cooperates, an SME targeted push may be one of the more innovative and interesting opportunities available to Sri Lanka.

However, the question remains, how much damage will the Tamil Tiger saga have had on promoting Sri Lanka within the UK?  India was notoriously in full support of the Sri Lankan government during the conflict and it would be realistic to assume that the conflict did little to the confidence of Indian companies looking to open up Sri Lankan venues.

The UK market, on the other hand, is a completely different beast.  Organisations are already concerned about their public image.  Offshoring is considered a cardinal sin amongst unions and the public alike, however businesses grit their teeth and continue to offshore, or at least nearshore.  However, offshoring to a country that has just emerged from a very high profile and somewhat controversial civil war maybe a step to far. 

The only recent example of outsourcing crisis management we have comes from Sri Lanka’s neighbour, India.  The terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the Satyam scandal had the potential to cause a devastating drop in confidence amongst offshorers.  However, the events seemed to have little impact on the industry at all.  India came out relatively unscathed (except of course those directly involved in the Satyam debacle) and it appears to be business as usual.

Now this may fill SLASSCOM with hope, however they must realise that India is a highly mature outsourcing destination that has developed such a lucrative offering that it would be hard to see anything significantly rocking the boat.  Sri Lanka on the other hand is a new and evolving outsourcing destination and must position themselves exceptionally well in order to generate sufficient buy-in from UK companies.

Sri Lanka is on course to be a key destination, especially in the finance and accounting market.  It is hard to ignore the fact that the likes of HSBC, Aviva and WNS have set up shop and Quattro are looking to expand their Colombo operations.  SLASSCOM are making their way over to the UK in the next couple of weeks and sourcingfocus.com will be there to find out a bit more about the destination which has a lot of people in the industry talking. 

As always, any question suggestions are welcome.

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Love it or hate it, the latest edition of The Black Book of Outsourcing is out

by Morgan F

The Black Book of Outsourcing is revered and derided in equal quantity. The launch of the latest edition, the ‘State of the Outsourcing Industry’, last week was no different and brought with it news of trends both obvious and unexpected. Whether the report’s findings (compiled from an estimated body of 25,000 outsourcing end-users), provides a true bearing on the industry, is still a matter of argument. Either way, the report certainly provides some interesting points for discussion though.

The first big revelation settled what has been a big source for debate over the last four months – the Satyam scandal. There has been much talk about the effects that the fallout has had on confidence in the industry. Most of this has focused on the fact that end-users will increasingly think twice when looking at Indian suppliers; or at least eye them with a more intense scrutiny than before. But the report shows that India has been quick to recover from any initial shocks with 81 percent of respondents having detected increased accountability in their Indian vendors since February 09. Likewise trust, transparency and other such complementary adjectives are attached to the stoic Indian vendors community.

“The pure-plays have put a huge amount of time and effort into reassuring existing and prospective clients with regards to their own compliance and governance. This has worked well for the tier one players in India,” commented Steve Sutton, Vice President, manufacturing, retail and distribution for Capgemini. 

But it may not be the upstanding qualities of Indian outsourcing vendors that has bolstered confidence in the country. The economic downturn, of course achieved some major coverage in the report. For Mark Richards, CEO of expw: consulting, the downturn is one of the core reasons for the lack of tangible damage India-side.

“One suspects that the strength in the Indian outsourcing market has less to do with buyer confidence and more to do with restricted buyer purse strings. The Satyam issue could have been a big blow to Indian providers and offshoring in general but the global recession means that in the end buyers are willing to live with the risk if it means they are still able to invest in key strategic projects,” commented Richards.

However, the recession did not feature for the reasons most would expect. Rather than encouraging an expansion of existing and new deals, a more visible result has been a drive towards renegotiation of existing deals. 17 percent of respondents were shown to be in vendor re-evaluation and 89 percent of these were ‘outraged by three main vendor positions forced during tough times: -unwillingness to renegotiate rates, -unwillingness to provide sameshore options and -unwillingness to improve service levels.

The importance of renegotiating terms was a key theme and 47 percent of respondents reported overwhelming satisfaction with outsourcers that have agreed to address the three key issues. Of course all end users would love a push-over vendor that bows to all its demands. But the report and industry sentiment suggests that end-users want the opportunity to be able to discuss pushing costs down or at least altering the terms of agreements. Re-working or instigating new deals to create more rapid ROI was an important theme. But vendors are quick to state that trying to get too much ROI out too rapidly could result in service detriments.

“A successful outsourcing or offshoring programme should provide dramatic ROI but companies making the move to outsource or offshore should be realistic about the time to deliver that return.  One is reminded of the old but very true adage: you can have it good, you can have it fast or you can have it cheap but never all three at once. Outsourcing Fast and Cheap rarely (if ever) delivers good results or ROI.  Good and Fast outsourcing programmes are never cheap – both examples show the challenge to using outsourcing as the means for a quick ROI,” commented Richards.

Nevertheless the report found that many end users are looking for rapid ROI and ‘fast and ready’ outsourcing deals. 90 percent of respondents said that a 180 day or less ROI time frame was receiving immediate budget approvals in their companies. This trend to quick return has seen growth in the quick-win areas of procurement and accounts receivable but also in the slower-burn areas of payroll and HR benefits.

Other reasons for the expectation and interest in fast ROI came from the ITO arena and the word on everyone’s lips: cloud computing and SaaS. 82 percent of ‘large market clients’, according to the report, were actively evalutating cloud and SaaS for their US$1Bn+ annual revenue companies. It seems certain that cloud and SaaS is to become a booming business. But whether traditional outsourcers are the natural providers of such services remains to be seen.
“Cloud computing is not the death of offshoring/outsourcing but rather a new channel for companies making sourcing decision and it fills an important gap in the traditional options which all take much longer to implement and require much greater investments,” commented Richards.

So outsourcing vendors may find cloud services a natural extension of their existing repertoire. But it is clear there is still much work to be done by many before consistent integrated services can be offered. Stuart Okin, MD of Comsec Consulting UK, believes cloud becoming mainstream is still some way off.

“Cloud computing will revolutionise outsourcing, although it will take at least 10 years to become mainstream within larger enterprises. Although the savings are potentially huge, the challenges around business continuity, security and privacy are difficult to overcome.  From an IT perspective, there are a number of emerging standards to help enterprises put in place redundancy, however, the game changer will be when a number of trusted brands come together to offer a combination of programmable environments with storage and processing services such as those being offered by Amazon and the traditional service providers,” stated Okin.

As usual, the black book offers vendors and end users a lot of food for thought. It seems that 2009-2010 will be the making and breaking of many vendors. In the battle to retain clients, it seems that competitive contracts, appropriate ROI and investment in cloud computing will be key. One thing is clear though; the opportunities are still out there for vendors and buyers alike, even if they look a little different from before.

For more things to think about, sourcingfocus.com readers can order the report here:
http://www.theblackbookofoutsourcing.com/

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Respect your elders

by editor

Big birthdays are few and far between for most outsourcing companies. The reason being that most of them are still so young. To reach just your tenth birthday by 2009 is a truly momentous feat in the outsourcing industry. Not for one outsourcing company however. Though lesser known than many of today’s outsourcing behemoths, LPM Outsourcing could be looked at almost as a father of the UK outsourcing industry having just celebrated a whopping 21 years in April. LPM, a UK-based outsourcer, started doing outsourcing even before the word was commonplace. Sourcingfocus.com got an invite to its birthday party and decided to find out a little more about LPM and the secret behind its longevity.

Philip Davies, the LPM MD, stood out from the crowd in a private room above the popular celeb hangout, Ivy Restaurant. A six foot plus, articulate businessman and avid cyclist amid a room of diminutive financial-types is of course bound to make an impact. The financial types were there representing some of the company’s longstanding customers spanning from Cisco Capital to The Strategic Rail authority and a recent new client in the British Transport Police.

The industry in which LPM operates is the outsourcing of leading and asset financing. What this basically boils down to is the management of the back office finance and premises management of companies around the world. This could be anything from the management of receivables for a large retail organisation to looking after the lease portfolio of a public sector organisation. But LPM’s services are not limited to larger companies, the offerings could also be of interest to the budding start-up or entrepreneur who cannot create or access the economies of scale that a dedicated outsourcer can.

“Many customers come to launch a new venture but lack the experience to set up their own business. Either that or they don’t want to be involved in the back office,” said Mr Davies.

That is all very well, but in the current climate, catering for new start-ups is unlikely to be a booming business. The ability for entrepreneurs to convince financial backers to invest in their ventures has decreased substantially as a result of the credit crunch. Those who have money are holding on to it. But this does not appear to worry LPM as they also maintain close relationships with many larger companies.

“At the moment, the recession is good for our business. I don’t like saying it but it’s true,” said Mr Davies.

Companies across the board are looking to outsourcing to cut costs and augment their businesses and many outsourcing providers are supposedly benefiting from this. However, the opportunities Philip was referring focus mainly on what could be seen as the scraps of the recession. LPM does a large amount of business in the portfolio run-out space, where they must ‘fire sale’ failed businesses’ asset portfolios making as much money as possible from the process. . 

“Banks are withdrawing from asset financing, removing focus on new businesses and asking what can we do with distressed portfolios,” he said.

The process of a run out basically involved picking up the remnants of the company and seeing what it can be sold off for. Doing this can be a testing affair, especially working with the remaining management staff to gather information.

“You’re basically collecting information from people who you know have lost their jobs. You think, well the management has messed up, but you also have empathy for the humans who are left with other people’s problems,” he said.

It is certainly a macabre business, but someone has to do it. So how did LPM come into existence?

“When we started we were quite pioneering, the market wasn’t really known and it was a new idea to outsource. We started Five Arrows Leasing Group but wanted to focus on our new business so developed LPM as a separate business. We outsourced our back office to them but it worked so well that we bought the company,” commented Mr Davies.

For its longevity, you could say LPM has a bit of a head start on some of the other outsourcers about today. Starting out in 1988 initially benefitted from the first recession just a few years into its existence.

“In the early 90s many companies wanted saviours to come in, sort out the books and collect all the cash they can from distressed portfolios. Leasing and finance organisaions failing at this time let LPM become well-known,” commented Mr Davies.

In the midst of the second recession to engulf UK business during LPM’s long existence, what thoughts does Philip have on its future and the outsourcing industry in general?

“Our target market is going to change as time goes on. During the recession, insolvency practice is going to be a big area and there will be new opportunities from shareholders leaving markets,” he said. “Things will changes though from the more dismal recession-based customers back to more positive run-outs, new start-ups and probably the public sector too,” he added.

The recession as a whole was also seen as an opportunity not a threat for all outsourcing companies with one caveat.

“The economic pressures of cutting costs will ultimately benefit outsourcing in the short and long term. But providers need to be clever in focusing their marketing strategies in order to reap the rewards.”

It seems if other outsourcers want to survive the recession and reach their own longevity milestones they should take heed. Success in a recession is not a given – it takes insight, luck and clever thinking to really come out on top.

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Global Sourcing – a finger on the pulse

by editor

Everest, the international research institute, has recently released its 2009 Q1 Market Vista report.  This report gives an overview of the global sourcing industry and highlights in particular the transaction trends within the outsourcing world.  sourcingfocus.com takes a closer look at the report’s findings and explores just where the outsourcing market is heading.

The first thing that the report summary states is that the volume of outsourcing transactions has decreased by seven percent when compared to Q4 2008.  This can hardly come as a surprise as many organisations would have been reluctant to shell out the initial investment associated with new outsourcing deals, instead opting to review their internal strategies first.

Anand Ramesh, research director at the Everest Institute, commented on the dip in transactions, “There is a significant amount of caution about new spending or new initiatives.  Organisations are in a wait and watch mode.”

The actual cash value of transactions also dropped by 16 percent.  Does this clarify the theory that end users are taking a cost is king approach to outsourcing?  Suppliers might be having to offer lower rates in order to entice new business.  In turn, end users who are renewing their contracts will inevitably be looking for a reduction in price. 

Martyn Hart, chairman of the National Outsourcing Association warns end users of the risks associated with excessive bartering, “The recession will prompt end users to pin suppliers to the ground on price, heavy bartering will be taking place at contract negotiation meetings across the world.  However, suppliers will make up their money somehow, probably through pricey change requests and we may find end users regretting their initial price busting tactics.” 

Mr Ramesh also pointed to the fact that organisations are taking a piecemeal approach to outsourcing, “Organisations are hesitant to sign long contracts.  They are not putting their eggs in one basket and are [instead] engaging in smaller transactions for small ACV.”

As a result Mr Ramesh believes that multisourcing is increasing.  Big transactions mean big upfront costs, something which no organisation is very keen on doing. 

Despite a slump in transactions, the outsourcing industry is growing.  The amount of transactions are up from Q1 in 2008 and all involved in the market can rest assured that there will be a continued upward trend.  Mr Ramesh believes that by Q4 of 2009 the market will be significantly more positive.

One area of particular interest is the large amount of outsourcing activity within the Banking Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector.  Transactions within the BFSI sector have grown by 40 percent compared to Q4 2008, this indicates that an extensive review of resource allocation is taking place within the sector.  All those involved in financial services outsourcing have certainly had to look at efficiency. 
Large mergers and acquisitions within BFSI will mean a duplication of roles, higher overheads and costly IT infrastructure.  It is therefore understandable that outsourcing within that industry has grown.

Within the BFSI sector, ITO was reported as being by far the largest growth area with a 38 percent increase in the number of ITO transactions.  This has amounted to a massive 120 percent increase in ACV for ITO transactions in the BFSI space, bearing in mind, this is only an indication of deals for which contract value was disclosed.  BPO however was reported as staying pretty much the same as the previous quarter. 

2009 was supposed to be the year for BPO. Research from organisations such as the London School of Economics predicted BPO to be racing ahead, even overtaking ITO in speed of growth.  Well if that is the case, then the Market vista report shows BPO as a late starter, because in Q1 of this year the value of BPO transactions was down by US$530 million.  This did not surprise Ian McGowan, a Director at ADEC, a provider of BPO solutions, “Revenue losses in the banking sector last year and the Lehman Brothers collapse would have had a direct affect on BPO.” 

While BPO appears to be stalling, the report points to an increase in captive investment, with areas such as the Philippines enjoying particular growth.  “This is a clear indication of large global corporates investing in captives rather than third party suppliers. There is more risk involved, however results can be seen within 12 months”, commented Mr McGowen.

So, this report brings a mixed bag for the outsourcing community to digest.  There are certainly no signs of a long term slowdown, however there appears to be significant changes in end user strategy.  Suppliers will need to be wary of cost, which in this economy is a given.  However, vendors will also need to be prepared to deal wtih smaller, quick turnaround contracts, rather than mega-deals.  Captives look set to gain more traction in 2009 and locations such as the Vietnam and Turkey will also be looking ahead with great optimism.

The recession has not significantly slowed down the industry, it has just catalysed a change in strategy.  All those involved in outsourcing should take note and prepare for a dynamic 2nd half of 2009.

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Outsourcing the media

by editor

At the launch of sourcingfocus.com in 2007 I was confronted by a – I thought at the time – rather over-zealous outsourcer. Such was his enthusiasm in all things outsourcing that he appeared hell-bent on showing me that anything and everything can and should be outsourced. He even tried to outsource me. Two years later, the portal is going well and growing rapidly. And I still have my job – I have not been outsourced…yet.

The subject of ‘media outsourcing’ is a nebulous concept and one that has been around for longer than most think. Articles of outrage from, presumably domestic journalists can be found online from as far back as 2004. Even back in those rather good economic times some canny or crazy publishers were looking at the opportunities for outsourcing core publishing functions. The outrage was real and valid but chatter about media outsourcing has since died down, precisely at a time when publishers are sacking staff, scraping for every penny they have available.

sourcingfocus.com’s interest in the issue was piqued last week with news that Channel 4 is outsourcing its HR and payroll administration to Logica. Though not a true media outsourcing function, it does at least indicate that the big guys, and those in financial trouble, are looking again to outsourcing as a viable business option. But what of the core functions such as content creation and editing? After the initial furore and five years of silence what has been happening in media outsourcing?

“You can outsource basically anything nowadays,” commented a source that wished to remain anonymous. “Media outsourcing can be a contentious area but there are loads of companies doing it now from basic BPO right up to high-end copywriting,” he said.

The main complaint over media outsourcing came from suggestions that the high-end processes such as editing and writing would all suddenly be shipped offshore resulting in reduced quality content. Perhaps owing to such complaints, the move towards outsourcing these functions has certainly not been a tidal wave in scale. But there is a growing outsourcing undercurrent in this area. In the last few years there have been new content outsourcing deals from Thompson Reuters, Time Warner, Pearson, the New York Times, The Daily Telegraph and even the Financial Times.

All these publishers have outsourced content creation in some capacity deriving various benefits such as cost reduction to the follow-the-sun capacity. For example, The Telegraph has outsourced its weekend supplements to Australia. Despite these deals, complaints over consistency and quality have not resurfaced, indicating that worries over this type of outsourcing may have been unfounded.

In 2004 Forrester predicted that 4,000 British media jobs would be off-shored for this kind of outsourcing over the following 10 years. Many more than this have been lost due to the ongoing recession and turmoil in the media sector and this has fuelled media outsourcing even more. Various domestic ‘content’ outsourcers have been created by this trend by taking on freelance journalists and creating almost ‘on-tap’ news services. Adfero is one that is taking a lead in this area.

“Everything is 24 hour now. Getting news content out there first is taking precedence over the depth of story. So many [organisations] are finding they can outsource and offshore news production and things like press release editing to cut costs whilst also giving them 24-hour news output and letting them focus on more in-depth editorial,” the source said.

But even though content production jobs are some of the most important in publishing, they are not always an organisation’s largest cost. Media organisations are also looking to cut costs in other areas. Cognizant is one company that has benefited from the media sector’s need to both cut costs and enhance operations due to increased competition. Interest in other areas of media outsourcing also appear to have surged as publishing companies attempt to adapt themselves to the digital age. IT outsourcing, the backbone for operating in the digital world, looks set to perform well in this area.

For example, one client of Cognizant’s wanted to create and monitise its online magazine presence. The company built a next-generation platform for the company which was fully able to be monitised whilst enabling them advanced tracking and reporting capabilities on the site back-end, further enhancing the saleability of the site’s offering.

Virtualisation and SaaS is also playing a big part in the growth of media outsourcing. The increasing availability of web-delivered applications and collaboration tools perfectly fits with the working style of many organisations and the 24 hour news culture. The Guardian for example, recently moved to using Google applications in favour of Microsoft. Likewise, few modern newsrooms are to be found without a wiki for organising the vast amounts of information they assimilate on a daily basis.

Industry observers predict that IT outsourcing is entering an entirely new phase, with vendors such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon increasingly dominating by offering cheaper and easier, commodity-based IT services. Gartner expects this market to grow by 43 percent this year to over US $2.7 billion.

While it has not been covered widely, the media outsourcing industry has clearly been growing steadily in the background. Though it is still a relatively niche area, the movement towards smaller outsourcing deals and ‘on tap’ provision of things like IT services seems likely to increase and make outsourcing viable for smaller players. Media companies are going through a period of rapid change and outsourcing looks set to play an increasingly large part in shaping the media company of the future.

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Obama vs Outsourcing

by editor

This week we find that Obama plans to clamp down on the overseas earnings of US corporations by making a variety of amendments to the US tax code.  His statement earlier this week certainly had some offshore service providers a little nervous, “That [old tax code] says that you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York.”

Eyebrows were certainly raised in the outsourcing world, evident through a host of sensational headlines in India’s Economic Times such as, ‘Obama torpedos Bangalore again’.  But what do these proposed tax revisions mean for US companies and their offshore partners?

Essentially the tax code system, which Obama is attempting to change, allows US companies to defer paying corporate tax on income earned overseas, until that income returned back to US soil.  A tax credit for tax paid overseas is also given to the businesses and the US Government will take whatever is left. 

Obama’s revisions will mean that US companies will have to pay the US corporate tax immediately, although the tax credit will still apply.  This revision will see US companies having to pay more tax however, will we see a significant drop in offshoring as a result?  Will this bring the big players of the global offshoring market to their knees?

Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, NOA Offshore Director and industry expert, thinks not, “This is not a big threat to the outsourcing industry.  Obama pledged these tax reforms in the election campaign so they should not come as a surprise to anyone.  He is simply trying to stimulate future investment on home soil and in turn generate more jobs.”

A rational response, however, are these protectionist policies a determent to free trade?  Emerging outsourcing destinations such as Kenya, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Egypt have previously been unable to compete within global markets, however with a booming outsourcing market, these regions are now able to step up to the plate and engage in business with the rest of the world.

“It will be difficult for the Obama administration to be harsher on offshoring.  If Obama does try to implement tougher sanctions then he would be going against international free trade laws that the US have signed up to.” Mr Kobayashi-Hillary responded.

So, can US companies and overseas service providers breathe a sigh of relief? 

Peter Ryan, head of offshoring analysis at Datamonitor, believes that there is some cause for concern, “President Obama’s recently announced changes to the tax code for US firms doing business abroad, could have significant implications for US firms with offshore sites.  Should Obama’s new tax plans become law in 2011 as planned, the initial impact for contact center outsourcers selling offshore delivery will be increased price points. In an era of ever-tightening margins, not only will this option be unpalatable for many prospects looking to work with an outsourcer, it could also force existing clients to examine other business models for customer-facing work.”

Increased prices in difficult times may indeed have an impact on the market.  However, as Mr Kobayashi-Hillary commented, “The savings made by offshoring work far outweigh the tax increases.”

Lower wage costs, lower infrastructure fees and government incentives all combine to make offshoring an attractive proposition.  Tax adjustments, such as the ones planned for 2011, will not significantly impact the outsourcing market and in all probability will not enhance the job market in the US.  Businesses don’t set up shop in Bangalore for tax relief.  They set up shop in Bangalore because it costs significantly less to produce the same work than if they stayed on home soil.

Voters will be pleased that Obama appears to be coming good on his pre election promises.  However, this is not the assault on offshoring that some were expecting. Obama may still have things in store for the offshoring community, but it is unlikely that the impact will be great.  We are on the cusp of true globalisation and I can’t see any entity halting the progress.  Outsourcing and offshoring is just too integrated into modern business to suddenly stop.

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Multisourcing – a poisoned chalice?

by editor

Outsourcing end-users are looking increasingly immature in the way they manage their contracts. What justification do I have for this sweeping and stinging appraisal? The new PA Consulting report ‘Outsourcing – what lies beneath’ - that’s what. A quality report, from a respected consultancy, based on reasoned, systematic research – who can argue with that?

Some of the findings are stark and provide a real wake up call for those that have been resting on their laurels where outsourcing deals are concerned. The first and most surprising in the current financial climate, is that 31 percent of respondents were unaware what percentage of their outsourcing spend went into managing suppliers.

The lack of knowledge on outsourcing management spend was also mirrored when respondents were asked about the levels of outsourcing maturity. Only 16 percent assessed themselves as having a mature governance model for their outsourced services. The report is clear, although many companies are now old-hands at outsourcing, the way deals are managed and the amount of focus placed on the management process has not massively progressed.

These stats are worrying when looked at alongside an ongoing industry trend. Multi-sourcing, where multiple suppliers serve different parts of an end-user’s requirements, has been the talk of the industry over the last few years. Gartner’s ongoing research into outsourcing ‘megadeals’ continues to see the overall interest in multisourcing growing. But PA Consulting’s report questions whether end-users know the risks involved in splitting outsourced processes into continually smaller parts. 

Jonathan Cooper-Bagnall, Member of PA Consulting’s Management Group, commented, “We are seeing more and more that multisourcing is a developing trend, making integration of services all the more crucial. However, many ‘tier one’ organisations have already had to invest heavily in teams of people to fulfil the integration role, simply through lack of an early identification of the need for service integration.”

There is a clear clash between the industry’s drive towards multisourcing and its overall understanding of what the concept entails. But the somewhat blind trend towards multisourcing is set to continue with 28 percent of respondents in PA’s report planning to split their outsourcing by vertical service over the next five years.

So what is driving this lemming-esque trend? Smaller vendors surely have to take on some of the culpability, after all the larger vendors will continue to push their full managed-service offerings. Multisourcing is attractive for smaller vendors who are generally high in service expertise but lack in-house management resources.

However, by and large, the biggest thing prompting end-users to explore outsourcing are the prospects of cutting costs. 75 percent of respondents said they would use competitive multi-sourcing in an attempt to drive down cost. The aim being to ‘improve competition, maximise supplier skills and expertise and, critically, drive down costs by achieving better contract pricing’.

But this is where the problem lies. A large proportion of respondents were largely unaware of what goes into the management of multiple contracts and consequently are going to have a steep learning curve.

Graham Beck, Senior Sourcing Advisor for PA Consulting, commented, “In a single-source relationship where gaps in integration occur, the supplier will usually step up to the mark. But in a multi-sourced set-up where there are interface problems, no supplier is likely to take up the slack.”

sourcingfocus.com met with the PA Consulting team at the report launch to discuss the issues. The feeling was not that multisourcing is an inherently flawed concept, but that users need to be fully appraised of what’s involved before doing anything. The management extras that full-service suppliers provide, both paid and unpaid, are not easily visible from the outside. If an unprepared end-user decides to jump headlong into multisourcing, these hidden management activities could become all too visible, all too quickly.

 

 

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India’s BPO market share to double?

by editor

In a recent sourcingfocus.com news analysis, we covered the London School of Economics’ Beyond BRIC study.  From that study we drew the conclusion that India may be having its iron-grip on the BPO industry loosened somewhat by emerging destinations.  In swift succession Gartner has released a report saying that the Indian BPO industry is as strong as ever and it sees no reason why the Indian market share should fall. In fact Gartner thinks that its share will double by 2010.

This seems to totally contradict the speculation that India’s market share may be threatened by emerging destinations, nearshore vendors and a change in end user procurement needs. sourcingfocus.com spoke with Rick Simmonds, Partner and Head if Financial Services at Alsbridge, a global advisory firm, to ask his opinion these predictions

“I disagree, I think India’s market share is set to drop,” he commented.  A reasonable opinion considering a recent FT article reported on Indian contact centres suffering from higher wage and location costs, with some having to get rid of staff and move to cheaper areas.  Mr Simmonds goes on to state that more non-English speaking countries will take advantage of offshoring and as a result will be looking at other destinations to suit their BPO needs.  “Spanish speaking nations will be looking to Morocco and Argentina.  Egypt is also forging ahead in the BPO world.” 

But It is not just the language similarities that businesses will be looking for when considering BPO.  Mr Simmonds also believes that the current political and economic climate may deter some businesses from offshoring chunks of their processes, “Cheaper regional areas in Europe and the UK may appeal more to organisations now.  Banks taking Government money won’t want to be seen offshoring either.” 

Patriotic and protectionist sentiments are also adding to the increased interest in new destinations.  Nearshore locations such as Northern Ireland are reaping the new wave of UK companies looking to offshore, but not too far.  President Obama’s administration firmly stressed the importance of keeping jobs on American soil. While this contributed to the election winning strategy, it would have sounded nails on a chalkboard to U.S. companies.  As a ‘halfway house’ US businesses will be looking to countries such as Costa Rica, Philippines and Brazil to provide them with nearshore outsourcing services.  These destinations give the appearance of being ‘homegrown’ whilst still offering the cost effective benefits.

BPO is certainly flourishing. The growth in this sector is increasing at a far rapid rate than that of ITO, however, it is not monopolised by the big players.  It seems that all nations can conceivably compete for a piece of that BPO pie.  That will surely mean that India’s market share will reduce, despite an increase in internal growth.  However, we are not prophesising India’s demise.  As Mr Simmonds says, “India is always on the offshoring agenda.”  The prices Indian vendors offer and the size of their work force are still very competitive and cannot be ignored.  We just feel that the Gartner predictions are simply over-zealous.”

This year’s Nasscom leadership conference had a whole host of major Indian players taking the stage and delivering exceptionally up-beat forecasts for the future.  This is all well and good and I am sure there is not a person out there who does not understand the importance of keeping your chin up in front of shareholders and the public.  However simply burying heads in sand and dancing around issues such as, protectionist policies and a drop in IT spending will not do anyone any good.  But then neither will over optimistic forecasts. 

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Satyam - the next chapter

by editor

Friday the 10th of January went like any other day for Ramalinga Raju – business as usual. His arrest alongside his brother that evening was anything but. From that moment he was the ex-Chairman of one of India’s most successful outsourcing companies and exposed as the main perpetrator of the country’s biggest ever financial fraud. He and those involved with him had systematically brought Satyam - once a shining paragon of India’s outsourcing elite - to its knees. Since the arrest, many more have followed, both at Satyam and their auditors, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, leaving an indelible stain on both companies. The investigation has uncovered over $1bn worth of fraud and the quest to weed out all those culpable and right the wrongs of years of systematic ‘book-cooking’ will continue for some time.

But, emerging from these bleak and embarrassing times for Indian business, comes a ray of light. This week Tech Mahindra, the telecom-focused joint venture between BT and India’s Mahindra and Mahindra, has emerged as the highest bidder in a Satyam centric ‘fire sale’. Instigated by the Government and pushed along by NASSCOM, the industry body for Indian outsourcing, it is hoped the sale will draw a line under the scandal and signal a new beginning for Satyam and the outsourcing industry in general. But will it? Are Satyam’s troubles finally over and can Tech Mahindra, a relatively small fish in the outsourcing pond, make the deal work for the both of them?

“It’s likely the Enron-esque scandal will rumble on for some time. There is still some way to go in sorting out all the problems the company faces,” comments Phil Morris, COO for EquaTerra Europe, a leading advisory firm.

Indeed there is still a big question mark over the company; three more Satyam execs were arrested just last week and investigators are still digging. And, all forward-looking rhetoric aside, there is still no telling just how ingrained the fraud had become and how deep culpability goes. But industry commentators are broadly positive about the move, presumably welcoming a change rather than leaving Satyam to burn slowly to the ground.

None are more positive than Tech Mahindra itself. Preferring not to comment broadly prior to the Company Law Board’s (CLB) final approval [approved this Thursday 16th, ed.], the company issued a gushing press release, “This is a landmark development for Tech Mahindra and I am delighted that we are the highest bidder for Satyam.” 

But the industry in general also seems convinced that this really is a new beginning for Satyam. “The fact that this move has been concluded (relatively) quickly is good news for Satyam’s customers.  The Indian government and the offshore and outsourcing industry in general has operated effectively to make certain that the sell-off off Satyam does not become a protracted experience.  The hope of the Indian Government must be that the sell-off draws a line under the Satyam scandal,” commented Alistair Maughan, a Partner at Law Firm, Morrison & Foerster.

However, despite the fact CLB approval has now come through, there is still a long way to go. Mergers and acquisitions are notoriously troublesome for those unprepared and questions still remain over exactly how Tech Mahindra will tackle the numerous challenges to come.

“The merger will stretch them (Tech Mahindra) quite a lot because M&A’s are not something most companies are geared up to tackle. Executives will be challenged and will definitely need outside help to make things work,” commented Phil Morris.

He added, “But it will help them address the limitations of the company and its having been tied into and reliant upon BT. Tech Mahindra has been limited in scope and delivery capability and Satyam gives them a great leg-up.”

The Chairman of Tech Mahindra, Anand Mahindra, sounded confident that the company can fix things, “The Mahindra Group is known for its good governance and the Tech Mahindra team has demonstrated its outstanding customer centric focus over the last many years. I am sure that Satyam’s customers and employees will welcome this news.  Looking forward, we are confident that this will lead to a positive transformation in Satyam’s business.”

If Tech Mahindra can make the acquisition work well, it will be a giant leap for the previously telecom’s centric provider. Satyam is an impressive animal delivery-wise and will open Tech Mahindra to clients and delivery capabilities in numerous new industries.

But there is still the matter of customers to consider first. As you would expect during a huge scandal such as this, Satyam has lost a reported 46 customers since the news broke including the lucrative National Australia Bank (NAB) contract. While many larger clients will be weary of risking the upheaval that changing large contract suppliers entails, Tech Mahindra must act fast to placate worries and prevent further client exodus.

“If I was Tech Mahindra or Satyam I would want to rebrand the company as a rebirth and new start. This would mark an end to the affair and I think the market would really understand and get behind such a move,” commented Phil Morris.

A rebrand is certainly an option to address Satyam’s severely damaged brand. But there is more that needs to be done directly to help keep customers on side.

“Once Tech Mahindra takes over, the main focus will be on the customers. Tech Mahindra will need to ensure that it targets the highest profile and highest revenue generating customers with the best prospect of continued relationship and focus absolutely in locking them in and keeping the vultures at bay.  TM needs to convince Satyam’s key customers that it is big enough and experienced enough in the right sectors to continue to deliver great quality services,” commented, Alistair Maughan.

According to Phil Morris, those customers that decide to stick with Satyam either out of necessity or good faith will also need to do their part to keep things on track during the merger process. “Customers need to work to drive communications going forward and make sure they get Tech Mahindra and Satyam to sit down and talk about continuity of skill and service while changes are taking place.”

It is clear Tech Mahindra’s move is broadly welcomed by the industry but equally certain that there is still a long way to go. Learning from the past and making sure the M&A process is completed as smoothly as possible will be central to the success of the venture. The most important thing, however, has to be transparency. The lack of clarity that has almost been Satyam’s undoing will also make or break it in the future.

Phil Morris succinctly summed it up, “The company must display complete openness and transparency going forward; if they can’t do this, the problems they face now will continue to haunt them for a long time to come.”

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Beyond BRIC

by editor

Last week the London School Of Economics released their report entitled, ‘Beyond BRIC – Offshoring in non-BRIC countries: Egypt – a new growth market’.  sourcingfocus.com was excited by the prospect of a study that looked beyond BRIC, there has been much speculation that India is losing its iron grip on the outsourcing industry so it’s poignant that this report has been released.

Martyn Hart, Chairman of the National Outsourcing Association, commented on India’s situation, “India has long been the nation of choice for British and American organisations to offshore their IT and business process service provision. Tax breaks, a cost effective workforce and excellent currency exchange rates meant that in terms of cost cutting India was second to none.”

Mr Hart goes on to outline the reasons why India may be experiencing a drop in demand and why other destinations appear to be capitalising on a turbulent economy, “In recent years it hasn’t been such smooth sailing for India. 2008 saw the combination of inflation and currency appreciation have an impact on the Indian market, with the Rupee almost reaching a ten year high against the dollar.  Soaring demand for services also meant that there was a significant increase in local salaries. This saw the cost of offshoring to India rise, making other low cost destinations just as desirable to end-users.”

It would also be fair to assume that recent events, such as the Satyam debacle, have dented India’s reputation and in turn end user confidence.  So what does this mean for rising stars in the outsourcing industry?

Nicholas Nesbitt, CEO of the largest Kenyan call centre, Kencall, commented that it is not just for financial reasons that customers are considering other destinations, “India’s top workers are no longer looking for work with outsourcing suppliers, they are looking to be employed directly with the likes of Google and so on.  Kenya has a fantastic skills base which suppliers can still readily access.  This means that we can cherry pick the very best graduates to offer our clients.”

Protectionist attitudes are also acting as a catalyst for end users to look closer to home for service providers, or at least to vendors with cultural similarities.  The Beyond BRIC study identifies nearshoring as a strong trend, pointing out that reduced time zone differences and fewer travel costs appeal to potential outsourcers.  Mr Nesbitt believes that cultural similarities are a real driving force behind his business “All of our staff speak English 24 hrs a day.  They are educated in a British style system and are very much in tune with Western culture, from sports personalities to current affairs.”  Any company concerned with alienating their customers by engaging with a far flung supplier would surely be enticed by these cultural touch-points.

ITIDA, the Egyptian development agency, will certainly be happy with the report’s findings.  Indeed Egypt has been powering ahead in the outsourcing industry, picking up ‘Outsourcing Destination of the Year’ award at last years National Outsourcing Association’s industry awards.  However we see the Egyptian outsourcing market being rooted in ITO for the time being.  Yes, Egypt has a large skill base, good language capabilities and low costs.  However the cultural touch-points, which are becoming so synonymous with companies looking to new destinations, are simply not as good as competing destinations.

In conclusion this latest report, although heavily geared towards promoting Egypt, does effectively give an idea of why new destinations are starting to gain momentum in a changing market.  The BRIC countries will need to be wary of the shift in business strategy, as companies look to take advantages of offshoring whilst avoiding long distance offshoring deals.  We may find that this rise in competition will push all involved in the industry to up their service as well as create innovative solutions that not only win new business, but retain existing clients.  Outsourcing is now a truly global industry.

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Is 2.0 the way to go?  sourcingfocus.com explores the rising value of outsourcing

by editor

This week sees the launch of the long awaited Op2i report into the outsourcing industry. Op2i, a Business Improvement Firm Specialising in Outsourcing, has looked into a perceived shift from outsourcing 1.0 towards outsourcing 2.0. That despite the economic downturn, outsourcers are still looking to climb the value chain and end users still want this.

The first good news for vendors is that interest in outsouring appears to have risen, with 51 percent of report respondents seeing increased interest in the discipline. This finding mirrors a recent report from EquaTerra finding that nine percent planned to instigate new outsourcing deals this year.

But what of outsourcing 2.0? The report describes the concept as “moving from a pure transactional, tactical approach to a more strategic partnership approach”. This sounds expensive and a difficult sell in times of financial hardship. One would expect a jump in outsourcing interest to be driven by simple cost necessities rather than strategic needs at a time like this.

Richard Nicholas of Browne Jacobson LLP, a law firm to the outsourcing industry, disagrees, “We have seen considerable demand for “added value” services. A good example would be call centres that do more than process information but which build up a rapport and can cross sell services better than an in house function.”

The report mirrors this view with 41 percent saying outsourcing ‘positively helps in terms of productivity and efficiency’. When asked about the impact outsourcing has on the economy an astounding 83 percent also thought that outsourcing ‘helps the domestic economy compete with the emerging countries’ and ‘gives access to new skills and labour’ - a ringing endorsement indeed.

So the view of outsourcing as a value-adding device is clearly increasing. However, accounts of companies actually outsourcing more extensive functions and higher value processes was not highly prevalent.

“Marketing, media management, IT security and virtual PA functions are the least likely activities to be outsourced – all representing critical organisational knowledge, or brand identity activities, which are typically central core competencies of an organisation,” the report said.

So what is behind outsourcers seeking to climb the value chain and is it in end user’s interests to relinquish so much control to an outsourced provider? Howard Sarna, CEO of Oceans Connect, an outsourcing provider, sees the possibility for creating relationships that both drive down costs whilst adding value at the same time.

“We initially engaged with a retail client [of ours] in a traditional 1.0 relationship with basic call-handling. Over the last couple of years, we’ve been able to expand the relationship through re-engineering processes with Six Sigma experts to proactively identify and up-selling opportunities. The expanded relationship also allowed us to introduce email back-office with increasing automation for the client.”

The opportunities for creating these kinds of relationships are clearly increasing. And as outsourcers become more finely attuned to their individual disciplines, end users could be set to benefit. However, Mr Nicolas sounds a word of caution,

“I have acted for clients who have, despite being outsourced providers, become indispensable to the customer because they know much more about the customer’s needs than the customer.  Whilst of great benefit to the provider I’m not convinced that this is the healthiest position for the customer, since they no longer have a view of their overall needs.”

Indeed, the question of how far a company should go down the outsourcing 2.0 route is a valid one. The potential for losing core competencies and IP is great whilst the transfer process could also become difficult as a vendor becomes more valuable. This is obviously a good thing for the vendor but leaves questions open for the end user as to the direction they want to take their business.

“The tender, transition and exit process is a painful one for all concerned. By adopting a more co-operative approach the provider has a better chance of being retained longer,” commented Mr Nicholas.

In the wake of the report the onus is clearly on the end user to weigh up the benefits and risks involved with making outsourced vendors more integral parts of the business. The decision on whether to do so rests on which side tips the balance.

sourcingfocus.com readers can access the full report by visiting oP2i’s website and requesting a copy:  Outsourcing Survey Report 2008

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Northern Ireland:  A risky venture?

by editor

Over the past few weeks we have had a recurrence of deplorable violent activity in Northern Ireland.  A policeman and two soldiers have been murdered by the Real IRA and many are concerned that this will restart the ‘troubles’ Irish people have long fought to end. Public feeling against renewed violence was palpable as more than 2000 people took to the streets in Northern Ireland holding ‘No going back!’ placards and making a stand for peace.

However, despite the uproar from the general public, potential investors may be concerned that the near-shoring hub has trouble bubbling under the surface and this could deter organisations from taking advantage of the outsourcing opportunities Northern Ireland has to offer.  These opportunities have led to a significant surge in investment, something that Northern Ireland has been relishing over recent years.  As recently as the beginning of the month gem, a contact centre provider based in Belfast, announced a £19.5m expansion plan which will see another 900 seats made available for an ever increasing client list.  Geraldine Fusciardi, Sales and Marketing Director of gem, further promoted the image of Northern Ireland and commented, “We are extremely busy right now as businesses are looking to use contact centres with similar cultural touchpoints.”

This is all welcoming news, especially as the global economy is experiencing a period of financial instability.  The last thing Northern Ireland needed was an obstacle in its progress to becoming one of the most attractive destinations for near shore outsourcing.  The recent ‘Black Book of Outsourcing’ produced by Brown and Wilson had a section devoted to establishing the riskiest and safest locations to outsource to.  This outsourcing handbook had Belfast in the safest 25 destinations to outsource to.  This is certainly an acknowledgement of the benefit that peace has brought to the country and in turn highlights how Northern Ireland has become an attractive business area.  However the Black Book was published before the recent activity and as we all know, bad news has the potential to severely knock confidence in a location, you only have to look to India for an example of how quickly confidence can be rocked within the outsourcing world.

The Mumbai attacks and the resignation of the CEO of Satyam over a £1bn fraud may have contributed to Mumbai being placed in the 25 riskiest destinations to outsource to.  We have certainly heard mumblings of a slowing down in the Indian BPO market and many people are wondering whether emerging destinations such as South Africa and Eastern Europe are going to chip away at the Indian stronghold as a result of a confidence downturn.  Does Northern Ireland risk having its end users lose confidence and consider other destinations first?

Speaking to Sourcingfocus.com Bill Montgomery, Director for International Investment at Invest Northern Ireland, commented on the impact the recent events will have on Northern Irish businesses, ‘These are utterly terrible events that have occurred, however in relation to business we are not seeing any adverse effect.  Of course questions have been asked however there have been no investment cancellations or potential investment trips halted.  Mr Montgomery goes on to say that the events have been ‘isolated and targeted incidents that everyone is against’. 

Indeed it appears that it has been pretty much back to business as usual. After putting their U.S. tour on hold briefly, to deal with the events, Martin McGuiness and Peter Robinson met Barack Obama this week in Washington and will presumably continue to promote Northern Ireland as a foreign investment destination.

So concern of a possible reduction in business interest in Northern Ireland may be premature.  As Bill Montgomery highlighted, Northern Ireland has done extremely well and the proposition they offer is too strong to ignore.  Potential investors should, like with any investment, carry out a thorough risk analysis of the potential locations they are considering.  However, they should not be overly concerned about a sudden turn for the worse in Northern Irish violence.  The country is united against falling back into the awful times that characterised the late 60’s and continued for nearly 30 years.  The area has evolved and despite the awful actions of a few extremists, Northern Ireland looks set for continued growth continue to grow as the country continues offer one of the most competitive near-shore outsourcing models in the industry. 

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For whom the bell tolls

by editor

Much to the umbrage of those languishing at the foot of the rankings, the launch of Brown and Wilson’s ‘2009 Black Book of Outsourcing’ has put offshoring and the risks involved, perceived or otherwise, firmly back on the news agenda.

This year’s report, ominously titled ‘The Year of Outsourcing Dangerously’, takes the 50 best recognised offshoring locations and ranks them in the Safest and Riskiest 25. Taking into account ten factors that could conceivably affect offshoring operations, and therefore end-user’s businesses, the report aims to give those involved in outsourcing an idea of the threat each country poses to business continuity.

Some of the big winners in the report include Singapore coming in at number one in the ‘Safest’ category followed closely by Dublin, though of course coming complete with its higher European price ticket. The current bellwether of Africa, Egypt comes in at number ten but the rest of the continent is dismissed by Brown and Wilson in one sentence “The entire continent of Africa still poses serious dangers to business continuity and is recommended to be avoided.”

But what stall can today’s potential outsourcers really set in these rankings as cost pressures of the recession intensify?

Dinish Goel of TPI, commented, “That would really depend on what parameters and criteria have been used in arriving at the ranking. Further, generic rankings, while relevant, do not necessarily apply in the same rank order to a specific client situation.”

The report itself is extensive having surveyed 3010 end-user executives during the later half of the year, 448 of these were then included within the analysis and 125 offshore locations were selected to feature in the report based on employee counts. So while vendors and industry watchers may be surprised at some of the countries’ positions, the results reflect the views of a sizeable chunk of the end user marketplace.

Kit Burden, a Partner at the DLA Piper law firm, recommended a common sense approach in light of the report, “Some destinations are generally recognised as being relatively “safe” for example the nearshore options such as Czech Republic, Poland, Ireland and further afield options such as India and the Philippines, and insofar as the rankings reflect this, they are worthwhile to support the basic sourcing decision.”

But most advisors sourcingfocus.com spoke with were quick to add that the Black Book and other similar surveys can only take a potential outsourcer so far and need to be considered alongside other factors. 

“Most users of outsourcing tend to be more sophisticated nowadays in their offshoring decisions and consider many more factors when making their decisions,” said David Skinner, from the Global Sourcing arm of Morrison and Foerster. “Most advisors nowadays will give extensive insight and analysis on offshoring locations beyond what a report can divulge.”

Another reoccurring theme was that of perception over reality – whether civil unrest and terrorist attacks were actually causing problems for outsourcers. In one case sourcingfocus.com spoke with a Kenyan call centre that continued to operate without hitch during last year’s civil unrest around Nairobi; meanwhile global media outlets conveyed an entire country in turmoil. Likewise Mumbai languishes at number 42, surely suffering from last year’s terrorist attacks. sourcingfocus.com heard no reports of Mumbai’s attacks affecting outsourcing operations.

“There is a lot of scaremongering but the reality is that there are very few instances of impacts upon offshoring or outsourcing,” commented Kit Burden.

Nevertheless those that spoke to sourcingfocus.com were keen to convey the importance of spreading risk.

“It’s important that end-users look at the supplier, not just the location. Most of the big suppliers will have delivery locations worldwide now and will be able to handle any problems,” said David Skinner. Also adding, “A good thing about assessing risk in offshore locations is that it gets end-users asking the right questions of suppliers. It makes companies do things correctly.”

Prudence it seems will be a key theme in offshoring throughout 2009. But while the report predicts a shift in preference towards nearshoring, stating that offshore vendors without sufficient nearshore representation would face problems securing contracts, this was not echoed by experts.

“The cost pressures are simply too acute,” says Kit Burden. “So long as the destinations in view “pass muster” at a basic level, they will not be seen as being so risky as to justify foregoing the cost advantages otherwise on offer.”

Chris Tiernan, Managing Partner of Grosvenor Consultancy Services LLP, explained the choice ultimately does come down to cost but it’s not as simple as a direct comparison, “The issue is the balance of what might happen if risks materialise against the cost of taking steps to address them.” He also said that the costs involved should be assessed and worked out in the outsourcing contract. “Interestingly a deal with these contractual stipulations was signed just two weeks after the Mumbai incident, the client having been there while they were still clearing up after the incident,” he added.

This common sense approach was supported widely but Andy Gallagher, head of sourcing at Compass Management Consulting, recommended further due-diligence and contingency planning. “Contingency planning is an issue which many clients choose to brush away in the drive to minimise costs. The Satyam case in India was a dramatic reminder of the need for some contingency capability on the client side of outsourcing deals in order to minimise risk and keep systems running.”

David Skinner of Morrison and Foerster summed things up succinctly “Of course there are risks but these are often exaggerated by the media. Although, those dependent on just one location for their offshoring should have cause to be worried. The report should prompt all those who aren’t doing things correctly to assess their arrangements and put the necessary measures in place to protect themselves.”

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Online brand threat requires a new approach, says Ovum

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The web, one of the most powerful tools for both promoting and undermining a company’s valuable corporate assets - brand and reputation, has also changed the entire nature of protecting them.  In a new report, ‘Brand protection services’, global advisory and consulting firm Ovum says the task will become even more challenging as Web 2.0 technology spreads. It points out that policy makers have yet to balance the legitimate concerns of organisations with respect for freedom of speech and truthful debate and organisations have to be proactive in protecting their online reputations.

“The fundamental problem is that there is no quality control of content on the Internet.” says Graham Titterington, Principle Analyst and information security specialist at Ovum and author of the report. “The corporate mindset has been slow to adapt to the changing world. New techniques are needed to detect attacks and defend reputation in the online world, even when the remedy requires conventional legal action.”

The Internet is now a major channel for the sale of fake branded goods, which in some cases results in danger to the customer. Copyright and trademark infringement are commonplace. Businesses have suffered real damage as a result of false allegations spread on the Internet. The annual revenue of online counterfeiting fraudsters has been estimated at $110 bn (source MarkMonitor).

Another aspect of online counterfeiting is represented by the misuse of a web domain name. The attacker sets up a website with a similar name to that of a legitimate organisation with the deliberate intention of deceiving visitors. It extends to virtual services offered by fraudsters on the Web purporting to be the legitimate organisation. The issue will become more prominent as the Web becomes more interactive.

A niche group of service providers has grown up to monitor the Internet for these offences and initiate enforcement action both at the ISP level and in the physical world. “For example MarkMonitor is a niche vendor offering services in domain management, online trademark protection, online channel monitoring, and anti-phishing. Larger IT vendors also offer protection services, such as IBM’s COBRA alerting service.”

However, according to Ovum countering bad publicity needs a more subtle approach. Debate has to be matched by a positive involvement in online discussion forums. The wider issues of reputation abuse need to be tackled by a combination of prevention, detection and reaction. The first stage in protection is the registration of trademarks, domain names and intellectual property. Web monitoring can detect early stages in the development of an attack strategy. More detailed detection requires the co-operation of ISPs in identifying the use of specific IP addresses and their ownership. Reaction includes, forensic analysis, the issuing of legal notices and follow up action, and the closure of web sites and IP addresses that are engaging in illegal activity.

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Outsourcing booming in tough climate, says TPI

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Companies are responding to the effects of a tough economy by expanding their use of existing outsourcing agreements and awarding new contracts, according to the latest market data from TPI, the sourcing advisory firm.

TPI data reveals that 282 outsourcing contracts totaling over €39 billion have been signed so far this year – the strongest half year performance in 10 years. This represents an increase of 24 percent on the total value of contracts signed at this point last year. Demand for outsourcing is being driven by companies looking to cut expenditure and deliver variability in costs in the current economic climate. Corporate strategies that were growth-driven during more prosperous times are becoming profitability-driven in response to the economic challenges.

EMEA leads the way
Growth in the outsourcing market is taking place predominantly in Europe, Middle East and Africa region (EMEA). TPI data shows that the EMEA represents 61.5 percent of the outsourcing market to date in 2008 compared with 51 percent a year ago. So far this year. 126 contracts totaling €25.5 billion have been signed – up 58 percent on the value signed at this point last year.

Duncan Aitchison, partner and president, TPI EMEA comments, “European companies are expressing their concerns regarding the softening business climate by taking steps to reduce operating costs, and restructure the nature of their business-support functions to have a more variable cost profile. They are doing this to gain the benefits of near-term cost savings, but also to position themselves to respond more effectively when the economy strengthens and growth is once again at the top of the agenda.

“While I wouldn’t call today’s corporate attitude towards cost-reduction ‘desperate’, there is certainly a tone of urgency in play.”

Reflecting the increasing adoption of outsourcing by large European corporations, 10 of the 13 mega deals (contracts valued at €800 million or greater) signed so far this year were in EMEA. The average value of a contract in EMEA is growing in contrast to declining contract values in the US and Asia Pacific. This growth in contract values in EMEA is being fueled by this rise in mega deals.

What does the future hold?
TPI’s data shows unprecedented market momentum in terms of new outsourcing contract awards – the best sequential nine months in the history of outsourcing. To date in 2008, 237 new scope outsourcing contracts have been signed globally totaling €32.6 billion – an increase in total contract value of over 25 percent from 214 contracts totaling €26 billion a year ago.

Considering this strong start to the year, TPI estimates that global annualised revenue from outsourcing contracts will grow by around 10% to over €70 billion by the close of the year. This would surpass the €64 billion in 2007 and 2006.

“This surge in new scope outsourcing contracts indicates healthy market demand and underlines the fundamental momentum in demand for outsourcing,” explains Duncan Aitchison. “We could well see a record sum for the total value of outsourcing contracts signed in 2008. While third quarters are traditionally the softest for outsourcing contracts, we see little to disrupt the current momentum.”

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TCS hit hard by falling rupee

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Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has reported a massive drop in net income growth in the first quarter of its financial year: Q1 2008 net income was up just two percent, at $296 million, against Q1 2007’s figure of 55 percent growth. However, revenues were up 21 percent year on year at $1.5 billion, and margins remained steady.

The reason for the collapse in income growth was a sudden fall of the value of the rupee: the company had hedged that the currency’s value would continue to rise against the dollar as the downturn hit. Instead, the value of the rupee has fallen sharply in recent weeks, leading to related losses of some $18 million.

“We have been able to respond to the challenging macro environment and drive growth in the business under tough operating conditions and manage costs,” said S Ramadorai, TCS chief executive and managing director of TCS.

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HCL makes UK financial services acquisition

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The rise of India continues apace as global IT services provider HCL Technologies, part of the $4.9 billion giant HCL Enterprise, has announced the acquisition of the UK’s Liberata Financial Services (LFS) for an undisclosed sum.

The British BPO specialist provides end-to-end administrative and customer services for the life and pensions industry.

LFS’ parent company Liberata Ltd. will now focus anew on its public-sector business, where demand for its services is strong and growing, as pressures intensify to cut costs.

Fulfilling predictions from sourcingfocus.com and other industry commentators that the strength of Indian outsourcing would inevitably mean acquisitions in the UK and Europe during the downturn, HCL will acquire four delivery centres in the UK, together with 800 staff who come to HCL with both domain knowledge and technical expertise.

Acknowledging the significance of the deal, Ovum analyst Peter Clarke said: “The logic of the deal is clear. HCL Technologies has the capacity to take forward Liberata’s financial services platform, using it to develop its LP&I business.

“Liberata has done well to win business in this space but has constantly faced questions from clients about its ability to sustain its interest in the long term, given its relatively small scale in this highly competitive market.”

HCL’s insurance practice will be strengthened by LFS’s core capability to manage complex transactions, as well as a number of multiyear contracts with its customers which include blue-chip names.

Ranjit Narasimhan, president and CEO of HCL BPO, said: “This strategic acquisition of LFS enhances HCL’s ability to become an end-to-end provider of business process outsourcing services in the financial services space.

“This acquisition will equip HCL with a ready capability across the value chain by providing access to an existing revenue stream of policy management, actuarial and analytics catapulting HCL to become a leading service provider in the UK market for the life and pensions industry.”

It may also, of course, give HCL some leverage with a UK parent business that has embedded connections with many local authorities – as well as the obvious long-term revenue streams from within the more stable end of the financial services market.

For Liberata Ltd, the deal offers some relief from the private sector uncertainties of the Western money markets, while also allowing it to focus on public-sector deals where both local and central government make promising medium-term customers.

Robert Gogel, CEO of LFS’ parent Liberata Ltd, confirmed this view, saying: “We are pleased to have found an appropriate buyer for this business, thereby assuring its long-term future development. We have made significant investments in people, platform and service line development which has allowed our clients to benefit from high levels of service excellence.”

Of Liberata’s plans for a stronger focus on the public sector, Ovum analyst Peter Clarke said: “Liberata has clearly convinced its private equity parent General Atlantic that this is sound logic.

“Its recent wins at the Local Government Association [the body representing all local authorities in the UK], where Liberata now runs the LGA’s whole back office, and at Rushcliffe and Charnwood District Councils, where it won preferred supplier status for a revenues and benefits shared services contract against old rivals Capita, clearly strengthen this argument.

“Liberata recently demonstrated its long-term intentions in the public sector by becoming a Gold Partner with SOLACE, the Society of Local Government Chief Executives.

“If the FSA approves [the HCL] deal, it looks like a win for all concerned and sends some important signals to the market.”

Although LFS’ new owner HCL has built a thirty-year business from private-sector areas such as retail, telecoms, and media – along with financial services, of course – the public sector might be a logical next step for it too as it seeks to build a long-term outsourcing base in the UK.

But for now, there is money to be made in the downturn for ambitious Indian outsourcers.

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UK telecoms outsourcing on the rise

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Analyst house Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC)‘s latest figures for the UK telecom industry show outsourcing expenditure surpassing that of project services for the first time: outsourcing accounted for £860 million and project services £841 million in 2007. This trend was driven in particular by EDS’s applications deal with Vodafone that saw the Texan firm jump from fourth to first largest IT outsourcer to the UK telecom market.

The UK telecom sector has historically been slow to outsource IT compared to other sectors such as financial services. However, Vodafone’s landmark applications management deal with EDS and IBM in November 2006 set the tone for change. The BT group was already actively outsourcing IT, but 2007 saw a step up in pace. It outsourced infrastructure management to Computacenter in March 07, F&A processes to Xansa in August 07 and HR processes to Accenture in September 07. Other examples include T-Mobile’s infrastructure management deal with T-Systems in November 07 and THUS’s application management deal with Nortel in May 07.

This growing appetite for outsourcing results from the saturated UK telecom market. Operators can no longer rely on ‘greenfield’ customers, and must fight for the existing market. This requires operators to drop prices to remain competitive, and cut costs to protect their profit margins. An emergent trend in the UK telecoms market in order to achieve this is BPO, and BT is a company that has taken the concept to heart. It was amongst the first telecom operators off the mark in implementing BPO on a large scale, the deal with Accenture mentioned above being an expansion upon an initial deal signed in 2005, and the later deal with Xansa shows that it has the appetite for more. Other telecom operators are likely to follow suit in the hunt for further efficiencies.

Another key trend is the growing acceptance of offshore IT. Where until recent years UK telecom operators were reluctant to outsource at all, they are now keen to make use of the reduced labor costs available offshore. This is helping offshore specialists like Xansa (now owned by Steria), TCS and Wipro to thrive.

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NASSCOM reduces Indian growth forecasts

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Indian IT outsourcing body NASSCOM has reduced its forecast cumulative growth rate for the Indian IT BPO sector for 2008-09 to 21-24%, a significant fall-off from the 28% growth reported in its year-end results for 2007-08, released this week.

The reduced growth, while still stellar by US and UK standards, is the first evidence of the credit crunch and soaring energy and food bills impacting on the West’s outsourcing partners in the East.

While the local economy in India remains strong and largely immune from the economic woes of the past twelve months, NASSCOM clearly sees the beginnings of an impact of reduced customer circumstances and decision-making on order books.

It’s a significant issue for the Indian services market: NASSCOM president Som Mittal said that the estimated slowdown in the growth of IT-BPO spending would translate to revenues of $62-64 billion, with $50-billion of that coming from the export sector. Any real downturn in spending there over the next 18 months to two years would hit India hard.

The report comes at a time when many in the broader outsourcing sector are bullish about prospects of increased spending, while NASSCOM’s own summary of the situation sees steady, if reduced growth. Its domestic market remains strong, with full-year growth rates for 2007-08 reported as being 26%, with revenues of $11.6 billion.

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Atos wins biometric passport contract: Ovum comment

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French IT services company Atos Origin recently announced that it has been appointed by France’s National Secure Credentials Agency to manage the development and rollout of the biometric passport system in France.

The new passport, which is the result of a European Union directive, is expected to improve personal security and reduce fraud. The introduction of a biometric passport is part of France’s modernisation strategy and secure identity programme, and will see Atos working with identity systems supplier Sagem Securite.

The value of the contract was not disclosed, but it is clearly an ambitious programme and an important win for Atos. Under the deal, Atos and Sagem Securite will deploy nearly 5,000 data acquisition and processing systems in 2,000 French town halls and 350 prefectures and sub-prefectures before June 2009, making it possible to include fingerprints on passports.

Cynics might say that being French helped Atos and Sagem win this contract, which has clear national security implications. However, both companies have a good track record in the area of security and identity globally.

It is not a surprise to see Atos winning a biometrics contract: the company has extensive expertise and relationships in this field through its UK public sector business. It undertook a biometric technology trial for the UK Passport Service and defined an implementation strategy, framework and business case for the rollout of a citizen multi-application smartcard in Scotland.

It also has strong relationships with GCHQ and the Border and Immigration Agency and, as IT partner for the Olympic Games, has security-specific offerings high on its agenda.

Despite these existing relationships with key UK public sector security and identity organisations, it missed out on the e-Borders contract and has failed to win a framework contract as part of the procurement for the national ID card scheme (CSC, EDS, Fujitsu, IBM and Thales were the successful suppliers here).

So it is likely that Atos is hoping that this flagship project in France will prove a useful reference site as it looks to grow its security and identity business across Europe. Biometrics will increasingly become important to many European governments as a way to monitor the flux of populations. If Atos can deliver this project successfully, to time and to expectations, then it could put itself in a strong position to meet future demand for these capabilities.

Atos’ next major opportunity to demonstrate its security and biometric credentials could be the Olympic Games. As the official IT partner to the International Olympic Committee since 2002, Atos plays a key role in the supply of IT systems and services during the Olympic Games. With the threat of terrorism ever present, a large part of the IT requirements will be focused on security, and in particular identity management.

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Data risks an afterthought when outsourcing IT says ISF

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Despite awareness of the information security risks associated with outsourcing projects and well publicised cases of data loss or theft, many companies still ignore the potential problems until it is too late. That is the warning highlighted by the Information Security Forum (ISF) – an independent organisation with some 300 major business and public sector Members from around the world.

“The potential to cut significant costs and increase speed to market clearly make outsourcing and offshoring an attractive proposition,” says Simone Seth, author of a new report published by the ISF. “But without the right level of security expertise from the outset to fully identify information risk, there will always be important gaps in the business case.  If the necessary controls are not budgeted or put in place to mitigate the risks, it can have serious consequences and even threaten the long term success of the outsourcing project.”

The ISF’s research shows that information risk management is often integrated as an afterthought, and information security professionals become involved too late in the lifecycle. This can often be explained by a lack of awareness at the highest levels and a failure to understand the importance of information risk management through all stages of an outsourcing project.

“Failure to involve information risk managers at the start of a project and through its lifecycle increases the enterprise’s exposure to risk; whether it’s data theft, information leakage or disputes that may arise from questions of ownership of intellectual property,” says Simone Seth.

Information mangers need to identify all outsourced processes, operations and technology and agree business criticality levels through all four steps that comprise an outsourcing lifecycle: Prepare, Implement, Operate and Review.  Information risk managers are also able to add contractual clauses that relate to information security regulatory requirements and offer additional protection from a legal standpoint. It is also important to understand regional compliance requirements and regulations as well as the wording of contractual terms to prevent future disputes over the ownership of intellectual property and the transfer of data.

Typical risks at implementation and operational stages that can occur if the right controls are not effective, include fraud, data theft or hacking that can lead to data loss and confidentiality breaches.

The ISF is a not-for-profit international association of some 300 leading international organisations, which fund and co-operate in the development of practical, business driven solutions to information security and risk management problems.

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Recruitment process outsourcing: an upside of the downturn?

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Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is growing rapidly and has the potential to be a multibillion dollar market, taking advantage of the trend towards single process deals in human resources outsourcing. This is according to the latest report by independent market analysis firm Datamonitor. The report Opportunities for Recruitment Process Outsourcing in a Changing HRO Market estimates the global RPO market in 2007 was worth $720 million and forecasts it will grow by 22% in 2008 to $880 million, and surpass the $1 billion level in 2009.

According to the report, demand is predominantly from Fortune 1,000 companies in the US, but the market is growing rapidly in the UK and continental Europe and is beginning to gain traction in the Asia Pacific region.

However, the predictions come at a time when many businesses are facing the prospect of redundancies, as the ‘perfect storm’ of the combined credit crunch and soaring food and energy costs are hitting many sectors hard – in some cases, very suddenly.

While RPO vendors claim to reduce costs by up to 40% in some cases, it is the lure of recruiting a higher quality workforce that has been driving growth, says Datamonitor. Nevertheless, the growth forecasts themselves are extrapolated from 2007 data and presumably do not factor in the effects of a precipitous decline in the Western economy.

Although the strategic importance of recruitment means quality will remain of utmost importance, says the analyst firm, it is likely in an economic downturn that it is those who can deliver on both quality and price that will succeed.

“Despite the expectation that outsourcing will thrive as companies search for ways to cut costs, increased unemployment will result in lower business volumes which will be reflected in the variable price nature of RPO contracts. But, this will be mitigated by the increasing demand for RPO from new clients,” says Patrick O’Brien, IT and BPO analyst at Datamonitor and author of the report. “For RPO to continue its rapid growth in the near term, vendors may have to go to market by pricing more aggressively as recruitment will need to be seen as a primary function for easy cost reduction among company processes.”

RPO vendors are split over the use of offshore provision. Many players have little experience or understanding of how to derive the fullest benefits from RPO, while others see it as unworkable in recruitment services which require constant contact with both the client organization and, using the client’s brand, with candidates.

Approximately half of RPO vendors have some offshore workforce, mainly carrying out tasks around name generation, sourcing, early screening of resumes and other administrative duties. A few have moved tasks which involve contact with the candidate offshore as per customer demand.

“While there is a lot of resistance from vendors, the increasing competitiveness of the market and the growing focus on cost cutting in the economic downturn will push vendors into examining ways in which to begin to increase the use of offshore delivery,” says O’Brien.

The first half of 2008 has seen a wave of acquisitions as vendors attempt to build out their recruitment expertise, technology capabilities and geographic footprint. A number of competing vendors still need to broaden their capabilities, and many of the larger vendors are looking to expand further overseas.

Some companies have put forward global request for proposals (RFPs), but these have subsequently been split into regions and handed to different vendors. The one-vendor global deal has not arrived yet, but a number of vendors believe that a breakthrough will occur in the next 12 months. The key reason for the break-up of global RFPs has been the fact that vendors do not have the capabilities to deliver on an international basis. Many have taken heed and are busy investing in international expansion, acquiring companies, building a global set of processes and forming partnerships with vendors in other regions. 

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Shared services gaining momentum in Europe’s public sector

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The adoption of shared services programmes among European governments is going to accelerate over the next few years, according to new research by Ovum, a global advisory and consulting firm.

“While the market is still in its early days, certain forward-looking governments in Europe are tackling the issue head-on as a means to both cut costs and improve public service delivery to their citizens,” says John O’Brien, senior analyst at Ovum.

According to the consultancy, European governments are under real pressure to perform. “For many governments there is a growing need to respond to new socio-economic challenges,” says O’Brien. “These include finding solutions to the impact of an ageing population, increased international competition and now a more difficult economic environment.”

Opposition is starting to recede among the more forward-looking Western European governments of Germany, France, the Netherlands and the Nordic markets of Sweden, Norway and Finland. Ovum believes these governments will present greater potential opportunities for suppliers of shared services over the next few years as investments are made in governmental modernisation and transformation programmes.

But considerable barriers remain, which could restrict progress. Some European governments for example still remain resistant to change, and most have yet to develop coherent strategies for shared services adoption. Consequently, there is much to be done to raise awareness over the next few years. This will provide suppliers with an early opportunity to consult, educate and advise government organisations on future shared services investments.

Software and IT suppliers with prior experience in implementing successful programmes will be at an advantage to help shape the opportunity. However, the cultural challenges will also present opportunities for consulting suppliers that can offer the softer skills to help shape the right environment for shared services. These include:
· local knowledge and local customer relationships
· knowledge of the target market and its drivers
· an understanding of the customer’s specific pain points

O’Brien concludes that “before shared services can really take off in the European public sector, governments must establish the right environment and remove long-standing organisational blockers. Departments that have traditionally worked in silos will need to change their working practices and begin sharing information and resources.”

A copy of the report is available to subscribers here: The future of shared services in the European public sector.

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Black Book rewrites the industry for 2008

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The annual Black Book of Outsourcing has rewritten the outsourcing industry yet again. The new edition finds the magnetic pull of the US attracting people back towards it, and black marks against the name of offshore providers that forget customer service in the quest for revenues and elitist attitudes.

The Brown-Wilson Group survey of global outsourced service users assesses industry developments (from a solidly US perspective, it must be said) and provides a useful annual snapshot of outsourcing trends as seen from across the Atlantic divide.

Outsourcing models are still evolving and maturing, and change is the constant. Among the 2008 edition’s findings are that so-called ‘reverse outsourcing’ will continue to grow.

With more than 50 percent of many Indian outsourcing firms’ revenue flowing from North American clients, says the report, the apparent movement towards the US as a location is based on “simple supply and demand economics”.

As wages continue to rise in India and the US dollar’s value decreases against the rupee, it becomes expensive for Indian companies to maintain operations solely in India. Not only do US centres provide closer proximity to clients, the facilities also enable Indian outsourcing firms to draw from local talent pools – something that is often overlooked by highly vocal US doom mongers who equate outsourcing with US job losses.

That said, some of the statistics unveiled in the 2008 report confirm that Indian outsourcing providers remain the motive force at work in the centre of the outsourcing industry. The successful Indian companies are striving for an optimal mix of onshore and offshore operations to please clients and drive more business towards them.

Satyam, TCS and Wipro, three successful Indian outsourcing providers with growing North American operations, are among this year’s top honoured suppliers overall, says the report. Also highly placed in several categories are Genpact, Tata, and Cognizant – players that are doing well in the UK and wider European markets as well, as often discussed on sourcingfocus.com.

Indian providers continue to dominate the BPO market, with the 2008 BPO vendor top 10 (in descending order) being: Genpact; Satyam BPO; Wipro; Logica; IBM Global; 24/7 Customer; MphasiS; TechMahindra; and WNS Global. By comparison, the finance and accounting outsourcing top 10 for 2008 is (in descending order) is: Hewlett Packard; Capgemini; Wipro; Accenture; Xchanging; Genpact; BNY Mellon; Infosys BPO; WNS; Steria.

In the category of ‘Best Managed Vendor’, five Indian providers were lodged high in the top 20 listing. However, one of the Indian market’s prime movers, Infosys, tumbled out of the 2008 top 50, with clients reportedly describing “a noticeable shift from customer service to corporate revenue generation, and a corporate culture that has become disappointingly elitist”. If true, the message is clear: remember the principles that made your company successful: US and European clients are perfectly capable of finding remote, revenue-focused and elitist providers much closer to home.

Indicative of the growing re-appreciation of US-centric firms, says the report, is that top honours in this year’s survey went to number one full-service provider overall Hewlett Packard; and then to Perot Systems (2); Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC, 3); Unisys (4), and EDS (5). That top five also forms the top five best managed providers. (Obviously, the survey took place before the industry-shaking merger of HP and EDS, recently approved by the US authorities.)

Generally speaking, the other big approval winners were those vendors that placed a strong focus on verticalisation: outsourcers that adapted to their clients’ specific industry demands, rather than applying what the report describes as a “cookie-cutter domain approach”.

Unsurprisingly, the news was not all good for some firms in this year’s Black Book. Receiving the most fervent customer disapproval in the US market have been those outsourcing firms that have placed the majority of their company’s workforce offshore without maintaining adequately supported US-based ventures. Five major offshore firms’ overall client approval ratings cost them Top 50 positions from last year (Infosys, Hexaware, EXL Service, ICICI Firstsource and Sutherland).

US companies were not immune from criticism: IBM Global, a former Black Book champion, also tumbled in the ratings as users expressed a palpable shift of customer service conduits to centres outside North America, contributing to their frustration and discontent.

Among other trends reported in this year’s edition, is that outsourcing is “no longer the refuge of the financially weak or technically deficient enterprise, nor is it a stick to threaten US workers”. Rather, it has become an accepted strategic tool – albeit in a tougher market to navigate successfully. Customers are more sophisticated, and are demanding more flexible contracts, performance penalties, and benchmarking audits – particularly as the economy weakens.

Clients are also placing high value on collective user satisfaction data as a predictor of a supplier’s future performance. That hurts future deals for suppliers whose relationships are not their first priority. Again, the message is clear: in an industry where outsourcing partners are sought to complement the organisation’s skills base and core business, relationship building is the key to making the partnership work.

For the second year running, China – which has seen a tremendous increase in outsourcing investment – scored very low levels of satisfaction overall. Latin America and Central and Eastern European suppliers, meanwhile, saw the highest growth in terms of their outsourcing industry with parallel upsurges in client satisfaction scores. Many new vendors from these regions displaced Indian, Philippine, Chinese and Canadian outsourcing suppliers this year on a competitive KPI (key performance indicator) index.

This year’s edition also confirms findings that are already familiar to sourcingfocus.com readers: namely, that UK and European customers still view the US as the third most popular destination for offshore outsourcing after India and China. Western Europe tends to prefer regional vendors, while the US is leaning towards western hemisphere providers as likely considered alternatives to China and India next year – the phenomenon of nearshoring, says the report.

Other findings in the report include:

• The Top 10 full service outsourcing advisors for 2008 are In descending order): TPI; Gartner; Hackett Group; Everest Group; Pricewaterhouse Coopers; Booz & Company; 7 Avasant (formerly Stradling); PA Consulting; EquaTerra; AT Kearney.

• The Top 10 boutique outsourcing advisors are (in descending order): Pace Harmon; The W Group; NelsonHall; Hitachi; Vantage Partners; Alsbridge; Global Equations; Ineum Management Consulting; Archstone Consulting; ScottMadden.

• The top 10 document process outsourcing (DPO) vendors for 2008 are: Océ Business Services; Pitney Bowes; RR Donnelley; Innodata; Isogen; Williams Lea; Integreon; Xerox Corporation; Datrose; Merrill Corporation; Lanier.

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Downturn: not a money-spinner for debt collectors, finds report

by editor

Research sponsored by Firstsource, the global business process outsourcing company, indicates that the credit crunch has not yet had a major impact on the consumer debt management industry.  More than a quarter of respondents (26 percent) said they had not been affected by the declining economic environment, and over half (53 percent) reported that they had monitored only minimal impact.

The poll covered nearly 1,000 consumer debt managers of companies in the financial services, telecommunications, retail, and utility industries.

However, although debt managers say they have not yet been significantly affected by the credit crunch, the research showed signs that consumers are starting to take longer to pay their bills, and that write-offs of consumer debt are increasing. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said that some consumers are delaying payment of bills by up to three months, and twenty-two percent of debt managers reported that they had increased their write-offs of customer debt in the last 12 months.

In response to the uncertain economic outlook, debt managers expect to outsource more work to specialist collections and recovery agencies to increase their collections levels, reduce defaults, and lower their costs.  Sixty eight percent of debt managers said they planned to increase their use of outsourcing within the next year; 27 percent said they would outsource more within the UK, 18 percent reported they would collect more from offshore, and 23 percent expect to outsource more both within the UK and offshore.

Matthew Vallance, Firstsource’s president, said: “Although most consumer debt managers report that they haven’t been rocked by the credit crisis, the trend amongst consumers is towards later payments which will consequently affect cash flow. Therefore debt managers are looking to specialist consumer debt collections and recoveries outsourcers in the UK and offshore that have the expertise and resources to collect more debt, in faster time frames and at lower cost than is possible in-house.”

Debt managers said that the main benefits of an offshore strategy are further cost reduction, the ability to recover more debt, and increased access to talent.

Most of the collections work that has been outsourced to date is debt collection (35 percent of respondents), tracing (identifying and prioritising debtors to contact, 25 percent) and legal collections (24 percent).

The majority of outsourced collections relates to early stage work (debt that is one to 60 days old, 42 percent of respondents), followed by recoveries (six months, 26 percent), late stage (90 to 180 days, 21 per cent), then mid stage (60 to 90 days, 10 percent).

Respondents said that there were many areas where they could see obvious rooms for improvement in their collections strategies. The main failings relate to poor use of technology. Over half of debt managers said greater use of online payment systems would improve their collections levels. Many managers also felt that they should make more use of interactive messaging and interactive voice recognition systems.

Better analysis of customers’ debt levels and internal training were two other key areas identified for improvement.

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Latin America – Growing in Popularity as a Global Sourcing Location

by editor

The use of global delivery models is now common practice within the business process outsourcing (BPO) market and Latin America is becoming an increasingly popular destination for IT services and BPO vendors who are looking to provide low-cost services to clients, reveals a new report by independent market analysis firm Datamonitor. 

The report, titled “Global Delivery Locations for BPO – Focus on Latin America”, looks at the factors driving this trend, discusses the main players currently active in the market and analyses possible strategies for including Latin America in a coherent global sourcing model. It also investigates the key BPO delivery locations within this region and the main business factors that will help companies choose the destination that best suits their needs.
 
“The last two years have seen a marked increase in the number of outsourcing vendors utilising Latin America as a low-cost delivery location”, says Ed Thomas, associate analyst for BPO at Datamonitor and author of the report. “Key examples include major players such as IBM, EDS, Tata Consultancy Services and ACS, all of which have significantly increased their presence in the region since 2006, while providers such as Infosys and Cognizant have opened centers in Latin America for the first time.”
 
Latin America has a competitive advantage due to proximity and linguistics
 
Due to its geographical proximity, Latin America can be used as a nearshore location to serve customers in the US. This enables client and vendor to maintain a close relationship, including more face-to-face meetings, and also means that problems can be solved in real-time, without the delays that inevitably occur when work from the US is offshored to more distant locations such as India or China.
 
Operating in Latin America gives clients access to a major pool of native Spanish and Portuguese speakers. Particularly in the case of customer-facing BPO functions, this offers the potential to provide better and more efficient services to the Hispanic community in the US, as well as opening up the Spanish and Portuguese markets in Southern Europe. Providing local language services also improves the quality of services offered to end users, increasing customer retention.
 
Many vendors are using Latin America as part of a multi-shore delivery model
 
Thomas points out that, in the past, IT services vendors tended to pick one offshore location, usually India, and deliver a range of services from there. “Now, more and more companies are adopting a multi-shoring strategy, whereby they set up centers in a number of countries in different geographic regions. This not only allows them to provide services from closer to the customer, but also reduces the risks associated with housing all their operations in one location.”
 
Many vendors have expressed to Datamonitor a fear of ‘putting all their eggs in one basket’, mindful of the chaos that could be caused should India’s economy crash or wage inflation in the country hit new peaks. In this context, Latin America is an attractive alternative location for vendors with an existing presence in India.
 
Skill shortages and concerns over stability will hinder the region’s growth
 
One of the main drivers behind the rise of India to its position as the pre-eminent global sourcing location was its vast reserve of skilled labor. Similarly, up-and-coming locations such as China and Russia offer large untapped labor pools, enabling vendors to scale up a delivery center quickly.
 
Customers may find that Latin American countries are unable to deliver the kind of scale available in these other, more populous regions. This is partly due to simple population size, but it is also the case that regions like India and Russia churn out more technical graduates than their counterparts in Latin America.
 
Latin American countries can circumvent this potential problem by offering highly skilled services in niche areas. Also, the region’s positioning as primarily a nearshore location necessitates a different operating model from the one utilised in India, for example, in which scale is of lesser importance.
 
Thomas notes that Latin America also still has some perception challenges to overcome in its development as a sourcing location. “Concerns about stability (both economic and political) and security continue to hang over many Latin American countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. This may cause vendors to think twice before setting up there.”
 
The recent activity in Latin America is set to continue
 
All of the vendors Datamonitor spoke to indicated that they expected the recent expansion of Latin America’s IT services and BPO sector to continue for the foreseeable future, with more vendors moving into the market.
 
The investment by international IT services and BPO providers has tended to focus around certain countries (most notably Mexico, Brazil and Argentina) and certain locations within those countries (including Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara in Mexico, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Buenos Aires in Argentina). There are many other cities within those tier one countries which could be tapped, and also many other countries within Latin America which are still to be utilised to their full potential.
 
The second tier Latin American countries identified by Thomas in the report (including Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama and Uruguay) in some cases still represent relatively unknown quantities for many within the IT services and BPO industry. These locations each have their own unique set of strengths and weaknesses, but are all viable sourcing locations, many of which have yet to be fully exploited.
 

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37 percent of people willing to relocate globally for better careers, says Manpower Inc

by editor

A survey released this week of nearly 28,000 employers across 27 countries and territories, revealed that 31 percent of employers worldwide are concerned about the impact on the labour market from talent leaving their country to work abroad. A parallel Relocating for Work survey, also conducted by US-based Manpower research, revealed that 37 percent of individuals would be willing to relocate anywhere in the world for a better career, having interesting implications for outsourcing companies.

Jeffrey A. Joerres, Chairman and CEO of Manpower Inc, commented: “As the talent shortage becomes more severe, employers are naturally concerned about losing employees, not just to competitors within their own markets, but to those based overseas too. Individuals are now increasingly willing and able to find employment far from their homes. More people are living and working away from their home countries than at any other point in history: about three percent of the world’s population. Talent goes where talent is needed and we are truly becoming a global, borderless workforce”.

The survey found that 78 percent of individuals would be willing to relocate within their national borders or abroad for work and 41 percent of those would be willing to relocate permanently. Respondents from the Philippines (96 percent), Ireland (93 percent), Brazil (93 percent), Portugal (92 percent), Colombia (92 percent), Mexico and Central America (92 percent) and Peru (90 percent) were the most likely to consider relocating for employment opportunities in the future.

Respondents under 30 years old were more receptive to moving for work than their older colleagues. In terms of gender differences, men were more inclined to move for longer periods of time (four to six years or longer) while women preferred assignments varying from one to three years and less than six months. The majority of people (82 percent) would relocate to increase their pay and 74 percent would move for career advancement. 47 percent would move across borders for the opportunity to learn another language and, interestingly, this was the strongest reason for women (50 percent) to relocate for work.

The most popular destinations that people would want to relocate across borders for work are the US, the UK and Spain. This preference changed somewhat based upon the region in which respondents live. The US was the preferred destination in the Americas while China topped the list in Asia Pacific. The UK was preferred by those in the EMEA region. The parallel Manpower Borderless Workforce survey indicates that employers are currently sourcing the largest number of foreign professionals from China, the US, India, the UK and Germany.

The Top 10 Preferred Destinations for Work                
1. United States                  
2. United Kingdom                    
3. India
4. Canada                      
5. Australia                    
6. United Arab Emirates              
7. France                      
8. Italy                        
9. Germany                      
10. Argentina                    

Top 10 Source Countries for Foreign Talent
1. China
2. United States
3. Spain
4. United Kingdom
5. Germany
6. Japan
7. Spain    
8. France              
9. Canada
10. Poland

Employers expressed concern about the potential negative impact on the labour market from talent leaving their country to work abroad. These concerns are most prevalent in: Peru (82 percent), Argentina (66 percent), South Africa (65 percent), Taiwan (64 percent), India (57 percent) and New Zealand (52 percent). The exodus of talent is least concerning to employers in China (1 percent), Ireland (7 percent), Switzerland (12 percent), Japan (12 percent), the Netherlands (13 percent) and the U.S. (14 percent).

Only 15 percent of employers worldwide think government and businesses are doing enough to slow the outward migration of talent and attract these people back to their country. The top 10 countries reporting concerns are: Germany, Peru, Italy, Belgium, Austria, United Kingdom, Argentina, Canada, Mexico and South Africa. Employers in Costa Rica (35 percent), China (35 percent), Hong Kong (35 percent) and Ireland (33 percent) were the more optimistic regarding government and business response to the issue.

“In most countries, the consensus is that business and governments are not doing enough to slow outward migration, or to attract individuals back to their home country. While it’s true that many governments and businesses alike need to do more to keep their most talented workers, they must also consider how they can strengthen their collective employer ‘brands’ to attract more talented workers from overseas to fill their talent shortages,” commented Joerres.

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Collapsed NHS deal could see Fujitsu haemorrhaging jobs and money

by editor

The fallout from Fujitsu severing ties with the NHS National Programme for IT (NpfIT) continues, with the rumoured potential loss of some seven hundred jobs at Fujitsu. 1,000 Fujitsu employees work within the NHS programme.

Also at stake are £340 million in revenues. The company has until the end of this month to pay back the NHS £67 million of the £143 million it received in advance payments.

Fujitsu walked away from talks earlier this month, prompting the NHS to terminate the 10-year, £846 million deal as the South’s technology service provider. Contract renegotiation terms had proved unacceptable to the Japanese company, which pressed the NHS for a return to the original deal.

Trade union Unite, which has been a highly vocal critic of several troubled outsourcing deals this year, has urged the Government to take action to prevent a haemorrhage of skilled workers from the programme.

“Government must act to ensure that the knowledge and skills gained in working for Fujitsu are retained, whoever the provider or providers are in the future, and ensure that the skilled staff can help the project continue to a successful conclusion in the interests of patients, the NHS and the health of the nation,” said Unite national officer for IT workers, Peter Skyte.

Last week the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sat at Westminster to hear of central Whitehall mismanagement and local NHS tensions – a story that calls into question the viability of a central IT scheme imposed on local Trusts that have differing needs, skills and funding challenges.

Fujitsu executives told MPs that constant local modifications coupled with the withholding of funds forced the outsourcer’s hand. The changing terms of the contract would have been unaffordable, claimed Peter Hutchinson, UK public services group director at Fujitsu Services, who said there had been over 600 such alterations.

“We withdrew from the re-set negotiations. We were still perfectly willing and able to deliver to the original contract,” he said. “There was a limit beyond which we could not go,” he added, referring to the company’s employees, investors and pensioners.

In turn, the termination of the deal has left the NHS with a “gaping hole”, said the PAC chairman Edward Leigh. NHS COO Gordon Hextall said that BT was in the running to take over the eight former Fujitsu sites in the South of England.

• All hospitals in England and Wales were supposed to have had patient record systems installed by the end of 2006, but only 34 out of 169 have received their systems so far and, of these, 21 are reportedly outdated.

• See this week’s Editor’s Blog for more on public sector IT in crisis.

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‘Made in Green’ initiative aims to eliminate child labour

by editor

The abuse and exploitation of child workers in the textiles and clothing industry could be virtually eliminated if a voluntary international textile testing certification process was adopted in the UK and across Europe, says one of the world’s leading textile testing laboratories.

Manchester, UK, based Shirley Technologies (STL) is a member of the ‘Made in Green’ Group which tests and audits textiles and production processes for dangerous substances, and evidence of human rights abuse in the production chain.

Those products passing the tests and audit are awarded a ‘Made in Green’ (http://www.madeingreen.com) label, which can be stitched into clothing or textiles and indicates the product has been produced in respect of social responsibility, ecological and environmental guidelines.

Discussing recent news coverage about clothing chains such as Primark, most notably in the recent BBC Panorama programme about it, STL’s Phil Whitaker sais: “The programme was interesting in that it showed up the problems in auditing and tracking supplier chains in the textile industry. The advantage of ‘Made in Green’ is that it tests the product range, audits the processing in the factory, audits the environmental impact and ensures compliance with social responsibility guidelines all at once,” said Phil Whitaker of STL.

“Obviously, we are not party to all the detail, but we would offer the cautious observations that the social responsibility audit carried out in the factory shown in Monday night’s programme appeared not to have ‘cross referenced’ to production processes and products. Obviously, handsewn items are going to be labour intensive and time consuming and so it seems to follow that in order to hand sew sequins or any other similar accessory on hundreds of thousands of garments in a very short time it would take a small army of people to complete on schedule.”

The ‘Made in Green’ testing and audit process involves three elements: Oeko-Tex 100 certification which guarantees products do not contain substances harmful to health, Oeko-Tex 1000 which confirms current environmental legislation compliance, and CCRS-AITEX, which ensures compliance with corporate social responsibility guidelines including child labour.

However STL recently asked 2,000 UK shoppers did they recognise Oeko-Tex labelling (which can also be a stand-alone certification), and only six percent said they knew what it was.

Despite the worthy, voluntary initiative, the inclusion of textile labels within the manufacturing process is surely open to abuse at the manufacturing or offshore distribution end of the process – the very link in the chain where the problem originates. Given the vast global business in fake designer clothing and accessories – found on every street corner wherever there are tourists with money to spend – it would surely be routine to fake such a voluntary accreditation process, given that it is so poorly recognised and understood.

The real issue is one of simple economics: any Western superstore-style retailer able to sell in bulk apparently quality, pret-a-porter-inspired goods for the cost of a sandwich and a coffee must be sourcing the materials at next-to-zero prices from large offshore workforces. There is, after all, no such thing as a free (in any sense) shirt.

As labour costs rise on the back of high net worth industries in China, India, and elsewhere, labour arbitrage advantages become harder and harder to find at the lower-end manufacturing part of the market. In countries and regions where labour laws are decades behind those of the West – partly suppressed by European and American purchasing power – abuses within the workforce are the inevitable concomitant of low high street prices. Ethics come with a higher price tag – and it is one we must now bear.

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Offshoring fuels high net worth individuals in Asia as Western economy slows

by editor

Driven by market capitalisation growth in emerging economies, the wealth of the world’s high net worth individuals (HNWIs) increased 9.4 percent to US$40.7 trillion in 2007, according to the 12th annual World Wealth Report, released today by Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) and Capgemini.

India led the world in HNWI population growth at 22.7 percent, driven by market capitalisation growth of 118 percent and real GDP growth of 7.9 percent. Although India’s real GDP growth decelerated from 9.4 percent in 2006, current levels are considered more stable and sustainable. India’s two largest exchanges – the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange – ranked among the world’s top 12 exchanges by end of 2007, boosted by initial public offering markets and heightened international interest.

China experienced the second largest expansion of their HNWI population, advancing 20.3 percent – an increase fueled by market capitalisation growth of 291 percent and real GDP growth of 11.4 percent. Significant price increases and strong IPO activity propelled the Shanghai Exchange to become the sixth largest exchange in the world in terms of market capitalisation.

But while market capitalisation and real GDP growth rates were higher in China than India, the HNWI population of India grew faster in 2007. The Report suggests that as market capitalisation and real GDP in China were spread over a larger population, there were smaller per capita gains in China. In 2006, India had a larger market capitalisation growth than gross national income, significantly impacting HNWI population growth in India.  In addition, China is currently experiencing explosive growth in its “mass affluent” population, which has yet to break the HNWI threshold of US$1 million.

Brazil enjoyed the third-highest HNWI growth rate in 2007, with a 19.1 percent increase, spurred by a wave of robust market capitalisation growth of 93 percent and real GDP growth of 5.1 percent. Net private capital flows to Latin America doubled in 2007, contributing to the Brazilian Stock Exchange’s fourth place ranking among the world’s largest IPO markets and 7.2 percent market share gain. This, according to the Report, lent support to the establishment and global integration of the Brazilian financial system.

Russia was home to one of the world’s 10 fastest-growing HNWI populations, despite growth deceleration from 15.5 percent in 2006 to 14.4 percent in 2007. Solid gains of 37.6 percent in market capitalisation and 7.4 percent in real GDP represented the growing international interest in the country as a global player, suggesting that the ongoing development of Russia’s external relationships will likely improve the economy’s fundamentals. 

Green investing has become widely popular across the globe in recent years, offering investors lucrative returns and an opportunity to become actively involved in social responsibility. An array of vehicles through which to back green initiatives drove robust growth in green sectors in 2007, such as mutual funds, ETFs and other pooled products, or alternative investments. The total investment in clean technology, for example, increased to US$117 billion in 2007, up 41 percent from 2005, with notable strength in wind and solar.

The Middle East and Europe were the most environmentally attuned HNWI and Ultra-HNWI populations, with participation ranging from around 17 percent to 21 percent in 2007. In comparison, only 5 percent of HNWIs and 7 percent of Ultra-HNWIs in North America allocated part of their portfolio holdings to green investing.  North America was also the only region in which social responsibility was the primary driver of HNWIs’ green investing. Among HNWIs worldwide, approximately half pointed to financial returns as the primary reason for their allocation to green investing.

Impressive growth of emerging economies was boosted by thriving exports and heightened domestic demand. The largest regional growth of the HNWI population occurred in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, with increases of 15.6 percent, 14.3 percent, and 12.2 percent, respectively. Gains in commodity exports, paired with growing international acceptance of emerging financial centres as significant global players, contributed to the growth rates of emerging economies.

The BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) continued to play pivotal roles in the global economy in 2007, driven by impressive economic gains and robust market capitalisation growth.

“This year’s Report found that the number of high net worth individuals, and the amount of wealth they control, continued to increase in 2007, with the greatest wealth being created in the emerging markets of India, China, and Brazil,” said Nick Tucker.  “While trends indicate opportunities exist for wealth management firms to tap into new growth markets, success will go to those that recognise their existing service, delivery and technology strategies must be adapted and tailored to meet the particular needs of these growth markets.”

With a significant portion of HNWI wealth invested in stock markets, market capitalisation performance is an important determinant of HNWI wealth generation. While traditional United States, European, and Asian stock market indexes experienced moderate growth, many emerging markets extended winning streaks of robust gains. Various Dow Jones Market Indexes, for example, had moderate returns in 2007, averaging 6.8 percent, far below the 17.3 percent average in 2006, and compared to 2006, market gains in 2007 failed to have as positive an impact on HNWI wealth generation.

Most major European and Asian indexes were contained to low single-digit growth; the world’s worst performer, the Nikkei 225, contracted 11.1 percent, while Europe’s best performer, the German DAX, was the only major traditional index to outpace its 2006 performance and sustain double-digit growth.

Fueled mostly by organic price increases, the Shanghai and the Shenzhen Stock Exchanges grew at 303 percent and 244 percent, respectively.  India’s Bombay Exchange and National Stock Exchange had respective growth rates of 122 percent and 115 percent.

“The divide between market capitalisation growth in mature and emerging economies was significantly more pronounced in 2007 than in previous years,” said Chris Gant, Head of Wealth Management, Capgemini Financial Services UK. “Despite slowdowns in the growth of traditional stock exchanges and significant market volatility, several emerging market exchanges experienced robust gains in 2007, further accelerating global wealth.”

Emerging markets made significant contributions to record-level worldwide IPO activity in 2007. More than 1,300 IPOs raised about US$300 billion during the year—and emerging markets captured 7 of the top 10 issues. The BRIC nations exhibited particular strength in the area, accounting for 39 percent of global IPO volume in 2007, up from 32 percent in 2006.

Net private capital flows to emerging markets also increased in 2007. China attracted the largest absolute amount of private capital in 2007 at a country level, drawing in about US$55 billion. Emerging Europe was the most popular regional destination, attracting US$276 billion. Emerging Asia experienced a 20 percent drop in private capital flows, reflecting, in part, that equity flows helped policymakers accumulate foreign exchange reserves, which reached roughly US$1 trillion in China alone. Private capital flows to Latin America, however, more than doubled to US$106 billion in 2007.

Overall, hedge funds performed well in 2007 with average gains reaching 12.6 percent, down only slightly from 2006.  Hedge fund returns outperformed traditional stock indexes in 2007, boosted by 20.3 percent average gains in emerging markets. In recent years, an increasing proportion of hedge fund assets have come from institutional investors, versus wealthy clients, shifting the main driver of the industry’s growth.

Fueled largely by the growth of capital-intensive sectors, venture capitalist fundraising and investing in 2007 reached their highest levels since 2001.  New opportunities in life sciences and clean technologies expanded market opportunities and the renewable energy sector hosted a record IPO issuance last year led by the US$6.5 billion IPO of a Spanish utilities group and the US$1.2 billion IPO of a Brazilian sugar and ethanol producer. Total investment in clean technology increased 35 percent, boosted by numerous clean technology benchmark indexes gaining more than 50 percent for the year.

Effects from the downturn in the United States economy weighed on other mature economies – as evident by slowed GDP growth and weak equity market performances in parts of Europe and Asia – and were fueled by three main factors: a cooling housing market, tightened credit availability, and greater volatility and price declines in equity markets. This chain of events impacted both consumers and institutions, impeding their ability to maintain liquidity and operate businesses.

In line with housing market downturns, REIT indexes incurred significant losses globally – in marked contrast to robust gains in 2006. Worldwide equity market performances proved the divergence between mature and emerging markets – the MSCI Global Indexes recorded 0.1 percent and 3.2 percent contractions in Europe and the United States, respectively, in the second half of the year, versus gains of 10.4 percent and 6.3 percent in the first half. The Emerging Market MSCI Global Indexes excelled – led by Latin America in the beginning of the year and the BRIC nations in the second half.  Equity market losses in mature economies reverberated throughout international credit markets in the second half of 2007.  The economic slowdown in the United States drove a severe depreciation of the U.S. dollar against most major currencies worldwide – the dollar fell 10.5 percent, 15.8 percent, and 17 percent, respectively, relative to the euro, the Canadian dollar, and the Brazilian real.

Since the close of 2007, economic indicators in the United States have deteriorated further; notably: slowing consumer spending, cooling housing markets and softening labor market conditions. A flurry of developments in international credit and equity markets, all stemming from the United States’ economic slowdown, shaped the opening months of 2008. Early on, greater downside risks to growth in the United States, along with the far-reaching implications of tightening international credit markets, weighed heavily on equity markets around the globe.  By mid-January, losses incurred in virtually all geographic markets exceeded 10 percent.[3] However, mature markets have stabilised somewhat, bringing average 2008 losses down to roughly 4 percent, and emerging markets have actually reclaimed and exceeded incurred losses, generating an average net gain by mid-April.[4]

The diverging macroeconomic environments at either end of 2007 helped define HNWIs’ asset allocation strategies. Building on the optimism of 2006, the early months of 2007 showed HNWIs betting heavily on riskier asset classes. But as the year wore on, and financial market turmoil and economic uncertainty intensified, HNWIs began to retrench, shifting their investments to safer, less volatile asset classes.

The Report found that cash/deposits and fixed income securities accounted for 44 percent of HNWI financial assets, up 9 percentage points from 2006.  Fixed income securities saw a 6 percentage point increase in asset allocation, accounting for 27 percent of holdings, up from 21 percent in 2006.

Globally, HNWIs continued to decrease their holdings in North America and showed greater interest in domestic market investments, preferring more familiar ground amid heightened levels of economic uncertainty.

Despite heightened uncertainty regarding the near-term global outlook, still-strong fundamentals in emerging markets are likely to sustain high levels of growth. The balance between emerging market strength and mature market recovery will likely persist through 2008, with the short-term outlook subject to variability given that aspects of potential risk may still be unknown.

By and large, the global economy has two distinctive obstacles to overcome: inhibitors to growth in mature markets and high risks of inflation in emerging markets. How well these challenges are met will shape global HNWI growth prospects going forward. Given 2007 performances and taking into consideration recent developments in world markets, the Report suggests that global HNWI wealth will grow to US$59.1 trillion by 2012, advancing at a rate of 7.7 percent per year.

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Uk business failing to protect data assets

by editor

The security division of value-added distributor Bell Micro today announced findings from a new independent research report which suggests that UK businesses are still failing to address the protection of data assets on the network from staff abuse, misuse or direct theft.

Nearly half (47%) of the respondents questioned at InfoSecurity Europe 2008 believed their companies were yet to implement real-time systems that would inform IT departments if security levels were breached.

This latest research follows similar reports in recent weeks suggesting that more than one third of IT directors say that their organisations have suffered either data loss or data theft internally – not to mention, of course, the latest in a spate of public sector security lapses, from confidential documents being left on commuter trains to laptop thefts from the Home Office and Ministry of Defence.

Most respondents in IT based roles (74%) recognise, and work to protect, against the danger of rogue connections such as customer or contractor laptops, and yet almost half (43%) were failing to enforce a policy of encrypting data on portable devices - such as personal laptops, PDAs and removable media. Worse still, 62% of respondents indicated that IT departments would be unable to detect if an employee copied data off a server onto a PC, laptop, USB stick or a disk.

This is further clear evidence of the unexpected knock-on effects of increased mobility and teleworking: consumer devices, together with business laptops, Blackberrys, mobiles and PDAs are increasingly falling into a grey area of unsupported devices, or computers that serve functions both in the office, at home, and on the journey in between.

This is the logical extension of the famous incident of the IT CEO who left his laptop unattended while speaking at a security conference – when it went missing, he realised that he had essentially allowed the entire company to be stolen by a passing stranger.

Despite the latest report, It’s clear that policy, governance and good management are the only viable solutions here, rather than more technology. However, the problem for CIOs, especially those dealing with networks of outsourcing partners, is balancing the increased productivity and flexibility offered by teleworking, homeshoring and homeworking (which some studies put as high as 20-25%) with the increased security risk and potential for data or equipment loss and theft.

“What these findings show is that there is still a paramount need to increase attention to data management and protection in an organisation,” said Steve Browell, general manager of the Security Division at Bell Micro. “How data is encrypted, moved and stored must move up the business agenda, otherwise we are just leaving the gates wide open for the horse to bolt. The tools are already available but vendors, distributors and resellers alike must come together to deliver better education to customers and create a total service that can deliver true data loss prevention.”

While security remains a key investment for UK businesses, this latest research suggests that critical network security services are either yet to be broadly adopted or have been purchased but incorrectly implemented.

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IBM and HP ‘going green’: Ovum comments

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IBM announced enterprise additions to its Project Big Green this week, a week after HP announced its Sustainability Laboratory. Both vendors have a history of interest in this area, but HP has achieved a higher profile for its efforts.

The HP announcement included long-term datacentre issues while IBM concentrated on new product releases to help in this area. However, there were large areas of agreement and overlap in the two presentations, and both said that energy use has become a high-level concern for enterprises, which will grow in importance.

Both see an immediate opportunity for savings in energy use with a strong financial investment case through monitoring and intelligent control systems. IBM talks of the payback period from investments in this area being less than two years. Both back these claims with case studies, although at this early stage these are thin on the ground at present. The environmental payback period may be longer where this involves hardware replacement.

• Both initiatives contrast with recent research published on sourcingfocus.com, which suggested that many clients – in fact, a majority of organisations – are not able to make their datacentre usage more efficient or environmentally friendly as they lack either the skills or the will to tackle the issue, to deactivate so-called ghost servers, or even to make use of the energy efficiency controls on servers within the datacentre.

• The issue is a pressing one, as IT systems usage worldwide now matches the carbon footprint of the global airline industry – each contributing roughly two percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The datacentre energy problem
The demands on information processing systems are growing exponentially. For example IBM expects server usage to grow six-fold and the volume of stored data to grow 70-fold over the decade, and these figures are consistent with Ovum’s research.

Technology is delivering efficiency improvements, but these tend to be linear in nature. Consequently energy use by datacentres is still rising rapidly. In the longer term we need changes in business processes, data retention practice and law, and a change in expectations. In particular the desire for richer presentation media is placing exponential demands on datacentres, such as replacing pictures with movies.

We need to question how much processing we do, and how much data we hold, and for how long. The present tendency to hold everything that it is technologically possible to hold will have to be challenged. We need systems that can store a single copy of a document and not replicate it multiple times across the organisation, without this placing complexity on users. If a practice is worth doing we will need to justify it by identifying balancing savings outside the realm of the datacentre.

HP’s long-term vision
HP has demonstrated its commitment to long-term improvement in this area by designating sustainable computing as one of the five areas that HP Labs will focus on, and by including a project in its initial agenda to develop optical computing. This is an important element in its long-term objective of cutting datacentre energy use by 75%.

The replacement of copper by fibre optic cable carrying laser signals will deliver major energy savings in data centre communications, and eventually in the processor chip. It will allow much greater density of processing within a single chip. HP has set itself a target of five years for delivering on this vision, which we regard as being at the optimistic end of the spectrum.

The medium term: monitoring and intelligent control
HP claims it has achieved a 40% energy saving at a new datacentre it has recently built in Bangalore by deploying its smart cooling technology. IBM claims similar savings in the short term by deploying its current technology including its new monitoring systems. Tivoli monitoring software has been extended from processor monitoring to include all aspects of the data centre facility. It monitors kilowatts of power consumption, and not just processor utilisation. It provides connections into several important business activities to make it an attractive proposition for business:

• Green business services: for example detecting ‘brownout’ situations and invoking business continuity services.

• Intelligent chargeback: bringing business accountability into the picture

• Optimising asset usage

• Energy-aware provisioning, so that servers can be selected for each workload based on their ability to meet required service levels and minimise cost.

HP has shown a commendable attention to lifetime issues in its green IT agenda. This is continuing in the current announcement. It points out that the energy required to smelt bauxite into aluminium to make a server is equivalent to the energy the server will use in two years of its life. It is now embarking on a project to build up a database of lifecycle energy consumption to create a comprehensive database from which lifecycle issues can be more accurately evaluated. It promises to put the results in the public domain, and is appealing for partners to help populate this.

The immediate future
IBM is using this platform to attract attention to technical advances in some areas of its IT infrastructure products, such as improved storage products and its partnership with VMware to deliver virtualisation to its customers. Virtualisation can reduce hardware requirements by a factor of six, cutting hardware and operating costs in half. Energy costs can be reduced by between 10% and 40%. Of course this also plays to IBM’s strengths in providing suitable servers for virtualised environments.

• Despite these very welcome initiatives by two large vendors, the onus rests equally on education, management and enforcement of green initiatives within customer companies to minimise the environmental impact of their data systems and assets. This would be a key area of differentiation between the newly merged HP/EDS and their main rival, IBM: not just greener products, services and policies, but a down-the-line education programme to ensure all the facilities are both understood and used.

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SUPINFO extends Telecity deal

by editor

TelecityGroup, the pan European provider of network independent data centres and value added services, today announces that the International Institute of Information Technology, also called “SUPINFO”, France’s leading international ICT school, has extended its relationship with the company by taking additional hosting space and value added services to cater for the rapid growth of its server housing, network and storage requirements.

Founded in 1965, the Ecole Supérieure d’Informatique, recently renamed as the International Institute of Information Technology and more commonly known as SUPINFO, is an international school that has become the leading higher education establishment in France for the tuition of Information and Communication Technologies. Today, the school has more than 5,000 students at 41 sites across the world, including 28 in France.

With a seven-fold increase in the number of students in the last five years, and an ever-expanding number of commercial services on offer, SUPINFO’s in-house solution could no longer meet the hosting and bandwidth requirements of its critical server infrastructure, nor provide the appropriate level of physical security required.

Already a TelecityGroup customer, SUPINFO is now expanded its partnership by outsourcing the entire hosting of its IT systems to the TelecityGroup facility in Aubervilliers, Paris. TelecityGroup’s IP-Transit services will assure SUPINFO resilient, scaleable connectivity.

François Fanuel, Systems and Networks Director at SUPINFO, explains: “SUPNIFO has hosted some of its IT systems’ infrastructure with TelecityGroup for a number of years and our experience has been very positive. The staff are highly professional and attentive to our requirements day and night and the technical standards of its data centre infrastructure are excellent. We particularly appreciate its strict cabling standards – quite a departure from what you find in most other data centre companies - and the access to connectivity and peering points.”

“By hosting our entire IT systems’ infrastructure with TelecityGroup, we have cut our Internet connection costs in half while multiplying available bandwidth by an order of magnitude.”

Stephane Duproz, TelecityGroup France Managing Director comments: “I am very pleased that we have extended our agreement with SUPINFO. That such a well-informed organisation should continue to show confidence in our people and services is a clear demonstration of our strengths in this sector, and the level of support we can offer.”

TelecityGroup has recently announced it will build its third data centre in Paris. The data centre is to be launched in phases from the second half of 2009 through to the second quarter of 2011 providing over 3000 square metres of net customer space. Overall data centre power will be approximately 14 megawatts (MW) and total customer power will be approximately 5 MW, with the ability to support high power density requirements of up to 20 kilowatts per rack. Subject to final planning permission for the site, which is expected towards the end of 2008, the Group will invest a total of €48 million in the project,

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Credit crunch drives financial services outsourcing demand, says MCA

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A new report from the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) based on a survey of British Bankers’ Association (BBA) members, has found that the credit crunch will drive a new wave of outsourcing and offshoring in financial services. However, only 54 per cent of respondents felt that their organisation understood how to get good value from outsourcing and only 24 per cent thought they adequately understood the offshoring industry.

Countering some of the negative publicity typically associated with outsourcing and offshoring, the MCA report also found that the majority of respondents (89 per cent) do not think that many jobs in their organisations have been lost as a result of either outsourcing or offshoring and almost two thirds (58 per cent) also think that outsourcing has made the organisation more competitive.

The survey, conducted across over 70 organisations in the financial services sectors, also found that over 90 per cent of financial services’ organisations had outsourced and almost a third had offshored some part of the business and 41 per cent planned to expand their involvement in outsourcing in the near future.

Fiona Czerniawska, author of the report and Director of the MCA Think Tank, commented: “While innovation and creativity is exciting, the credit crunch has also created something of a wake-up call to the financial services sector. Many institutions which have so far ignored the benefits of outsourcing are being forced to revisit it because of financial constraints and liquidity problems. Often they have failed to integrate and are still lumbering under a weight of legacy systems and processes and carrying both unnecessary variable cost and balance sheet assets.”

Apart from a small number of banks that outsource ‘religiously’ and have succeeded in building common platforms for functions like IT and finance, the report found that insurance and investment are ahead of retail banking in their use of outsourcing, with many banks still yet to achieve the standardisation and economies of scale that their size would suggest.

Another source of difference across the financial services sector is the extent to which different functions within the organisation have been outsourced. The survey suggests that finance and HR outsourcing are not growing any faster than IT outsourcing despite the marketing activity by outsourcing suppliers.

Lesley McLeod, Communications Director at the BBA, said: “Outsourcing is an accepted part of financial services today but this report demonstrates there are still important lessons to be learned in terms of getting the best possible value from such an arrangement. We need to ensure the buying side is more informed and better at building more collaborative relationships.”

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‘Megadeals’ fall off as companies look to multisourcing, says Gartner

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As companies continue to move to using multiple providers for their outsourcing services, the number of reported “megadeals” (those worth over $1bn) awarded to a single service provider has declined, according to a new report by Gartner. In 2007, 10 outsourcing megadeals were awarded, a decline from 12 in 2006.

“The decline in reported outsourcing contracts can be partially explained by the fact that outsourcing is now ‘business as usual’ for many enterprises,” said Kurt Potter, research director at Gartner. “There is more outsourcing activity, but fewer deals on average are reported and this creates the false impression that outsourcing is decreasing.”

In terms of megadeal total contact value (TCV), the total for the 10 megadeals in 2007 was $12 billion, the lowest level reported during the last eight years, with the closest level being that of $20.3 billion in 2001. Average contract value (ACV) of megadeals also continued to decrease, from an average of $2.6 billion in 2006 to $1.2 billion in 2007.

“While further TCV erosion may be driven by the irreversible trends of global delivery and IT services industrialisation as many leading-edge organisations move into their second and third generations of IT outsourcing, they may be looking at deal expansion to include wider application or business initiatives,” said Mr. Potter. “Although these opportunities are likely to evolve from a single-provider to a multiple-provider engagement, in some cases, historical ties between provider and recipient may retain the potential for megadeals.”

Of the TCV of all outsourcing deals reported in 2007, Gartner said megadeals represented 39.4 percent of the contract value and represented only 6.8 percent of the number of total contracts in 2007, down from 7.4 percent in 2006. Although deals with less than $50 million in TCV continued to increase and reached 39.5 percent of the total number of contracts, they only represented 3.3 percent of TCV for 2007.

“Many providers are pursuing smaller contract strategies as a consequence of the new market realities, new competition and natural market pressures toward commoditisation, which reduces per-unit pricing. These strategies are often in the form of pursuit of smaller contracts from larger clients, or larger contracts from smaller companies,” said Mr. Potter. “Many clients want to test providers’ contracting practices, capabilities and cultures before moving favored providers into larger contracts, or organisations are using smaller doses of outsourcing to delay larger outsourcing adventures. Many providers are forced to pursue larger contracts to meet growth expectations. Despite this pressure, providers should continue to evaluate different or at least accommodate go-to-market and product portfolio strategies for smaller clients.”

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Indian businesses taking the lead, says BT Global Services

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British companies are falling behind their developing economy competitors when it comes to taking calculated risks, according to a new study from BT Global Services.  Ninety per cent of Indian companies view risk as a means of increasing competitive advantage, compared to just 44 per cent in the UK, who tend to shy away from risks.

The research, conducted by Datamonitor on behalf of BT Global Services, reveals an interesting gap between developing economies and the UK when it comes to making profitable business decisions based on their calculation of the risk involved.

The key to the difference in attitudes seems to be the role of risk in enabling business development.  Eighty-five per cent of Indian companies see risk management as a tool to foster innovation and creativity, whereas only 34 per cent of UK companies share that sentiment.  The research suggests that a more proactive attitude towards risk is leading to a fuller understanding of opportunities for originality and resourcefulness in India and other developing economies.

This commitment to treating risk management as core to business growth has also resulted in the overwhelming majority of Indian companies (90 per cent) appointing a manager with overall responsibility for risk.  By contrast, only 14 per cent of businesses in the UK have taken a similar step.  Where Indian firms have appointed a “risk supremo”, 94 per cent have elevated the role to board level, compared with just 63 per cent in the UK.

John Dovey, president UK corporates, BT Global Services, said: “There are some well-established FTSE100 companies working in complex environments who have to manage huge levels of risk on a daily basis. But in general, UK companies tend to see the kind of risks associated with aggressive economic growth as something to avoid, while competitors in India have had to see them as something to manage.

“By taking a pragmatic view of managing risk, Indian companies are better able to seek considerable growth by taking on and offering their customers aggressive, innovative commercial propositions.”

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IT industry body publishes guidelines for UK companies outsourcing their data

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Regulators are becoming ever-more aggressive in penalising companies which do not comply with data security and data protection requirements, imposing fines on them and publicising data breaches. Intellect, the UK technology trade association, believes that companies which fail to take data issues seriously will be subject to increased scrutiny and will compromise the trust that staff and clients place in them.

Intellect is publishing a checklist for avoiding the common data security and protection issues encountered in outsourcing projects. If followed by IT outsourcers and their customers, the guidelines will greatly diminish their chances of losing or compromising data, breaching regulations and facing fines.

The guidelines provide a clear overview of the types of issues outsourcing projects might encounter, when the best time to address them is and which party is legally obliged or best placed to deal with them. For each of the seven stages of a project Intellect provides a checklist of data security and protection related actions that must be taken, ranging from determining the volume of data that will flow between outsourcer and customer, to procedures for destroying retained data at the end of a project.

David Evans, senior data protection practice manager at the Information Commissioner’s Office, comments: “Outsourcing IT operations often involves the transfer of personal data to a third party, either in the UK or overseas. For an organisation to retain the trust of its staff and clients it is important that their outsourcing complies with the Data Protection Act. This means ensuring that personal information is stored and processed securely, that is accurate and up to date and accessed only by those with justifiable reason.“

The data protection laws of the EU require careful consideration in the context of outsourcing, especially where personal data is transferred outside of the EU. The guidelines have been written with this in mind and also include information on non-European countries that have data protection laws, including the United States, Canada, Russia, Dubai, Korea and Australia.

John Higgins, director general of Intellect comments: “The money that outsourcers and their customers pay in data breach fines would be better spent improving data security processes, so these breaches don’t occur in the first place. Consumer data is a highly valuable commodity and should be treated as such. Companies recognise their responsibility towards consumers’ data but don’t always understand the best way to achieve this. We believe our guidance can help address the situation.“

Outsourcing and offshoring are an integral part of business in the 21st century. But they do mean that companies have to be more vigilant than ever in assuring the security of the data their customers trust them with. If followed by both outsourcers and their customers, our guidance will help ensure consumers’ details remain secure.“

The guidelines state that vendors and customers must work together more closely to anticipate and address data security and protection issues, which may affect the success of their project. The lead-time that anticipation provides can be critical to developing efficient solutions.

The guidelines are available to download free of charge from http://www.intellectuk.org/dataguidelines.

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Offshoring creates UK jobs, not loses them says policy centre

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The growing trend for British firms to send jobs overseas has helped boost employment in the UK, creating thousands of jobs, according to new research. 

Economists at the Globalisation and Economic Policy Centre (GEP) at the University of Nottingham say their research contradicts common perceptions that British firms are exporting jobs overseas to India and China simply to cut costs, leaving many here unemployed. It may also suggest that its use as an easy electioneering tool both here and in the US may be misconceived.

GEP economists analysed data from more than 66,000 UK firms over a ten-year period from 1996 to 2005. The results of the study – the largest ever carried out into offshoring – showed that far from increasing unemployment in the UK, the policy had resulted in the creation of 100,000 extra jobs and an increase of £10 billion in turnover. 

According to the study, firms that offshore part of their production process or service provision overseas become more efficient. This boosts productivity and turnover and as a result these firms grow and end up employing more people at home.

GEP Centre Director, Professor David Greenaway said: “People fear their jobs are being exported to countries like India and China where labour is cheaper, but the picture is far more complex than that and much more positive.”

That said, the perception that offshoring equals unemployment and poorer service is deeply entrenched in the UK consumer psyche, brought on by poor experience of public-facing offshore services, together with rising domestic unemployment and an increasing gap between the better off and the most poorly paid workers. That perception is also embedded in many sectors of the workforce, particularly in manufacturing.

sourcingfocus.com’s own offshore survey in April found that the vast majority of consumers would prefer to receive UK-based provision, even if it meant paying more for goods and services. In some sectors and regions of the population, only single-digit percentages of people described themselves as happy with offshoring.

Professor Greenaway confirmed that there are losers from offshoring, most notably in the levels of staff ‘churn’ “Offshoring does lead to increased job turnover and a change in the skills mix in a firm. The winners are those who have the skills required by firms that are offshoring and growing; the losers are those who cannot adapt.

“The lesson for policymakers is that offshoring is to be embraced, not feared, but we need to continually invest in upgrading the skills of British workers
to increase their adaptability and help smooth the transition from one job to another.”

However, that adaptability is required at all levels of the organisation. As sourcingfocus.com has found at all of this year’s outsourcing conferences, often senior managers, such as CIOs, find themselves without the requisite skills to manage a chain of offshore partners located in other parts of the world; some leave and join outsourcing companies as a result.

Of course, communities that have built up around the provision of labour power within the UK, particularly those centred around manufacturing facilities, are usually the hardest hit, and it is a much greater challenge to provide those workers with new skills. Few may care about the newly efficient organisation that has uprooted itself overseas – although some companies do so in order to survive.

That said, the research also exploded another offshoring myth. Report co-author, Dr Richard Kneller said: “The common perception of offshoring is that its largely low paid call centre jobs being exported to lower wage economies like China and India, but that’s not the case. 

“If you think of manufacturing and the production of parts, then it is skilled work. If you look at car manufacturing, Ford may make engines at Dagenham but gear boxes in Spain; if you think of Airbus – Britain makes the wings and engines, France the bodies. Most offshoring is actually to similarly developed European nations and the US, where the language skills are better.”
At the core of this is essentially the offshoring of risk: a risk shared is a risk reduced, and many analysts now portray the 21st century company as a globally distributed network of suppliers united around a brand name. This does not just apply to major engineering projects, but also to consumer and business technology, among countless other areas; Apple is one company that is now a carefully managed network of suppliers and IP owners, united by a powerful brand message.

Britain is a major beneficiary of offshoring, said Kneller. “In the services sector Britain has a reputation for areas like finance and creative media, and overseas firms will offshore work in this area to UK firms.”

Arguably, this is the logical conclusion of the 1980s Tory project of turning the UK into a skilled finance and services centre at the expense of the manufacturing sector. How long that vision may play out is now a moot point, as low-cost, high-skill countries such as India will inevitably begin to eat into the centre of the UK economy over the next five years.

The GEP research findings are to be presented at a major conference on offshoring to be held at the University of Nottingham later this month, which is expected to attract some of the world’s leading economists and experts on the subject as well as senior figures from the policymaking community.

• Intellect has just launched an online survey into the future of offshoring. See today’s separate story to take part in the survey.

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Global sourcing on the rise, says PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Global sourcing in the retail and consumer sector is thriving, but many companies are not particularly clear on their cost savings nor are they confident of product safety and other risks, according to a survey launched today by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Cost is the main driver of global sourcing decisions, yet 21% of respondents do not know what savings to expect. Furthermore, the survey of nearly 60 retail and consumer goods’ companies found that one-quarter of respondents did not know what their actual savings were - both largely due to lack of organised measurement techniques.

Companies from Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the UK and the US took part in the survey, 44% of whom source more than £250 million of product globally each year and 27% source more than £500 billion globally. The survey showed that China is still the number one destination for global sourcing for 83% of respondents. India followed with 58% but Mexico, Brazil, Malaysia, Canada, Chile, Italy and Bangladesh were also cited.

According to the respondents overseas sourcing has become so widely embraced that the cost savings generated no longer necessarily provide a competitive advantage. As executives watch competitors reduce costs through overseas sourcing they have no choice but to follow suit because “everyone else is doing it too.”

“Given rising oil costs, currency fluctuations, inflation in China and quality concerns companies need to consider whether or not it is cost effective to source raw materials or finished products from overseas sourcing locations,” says Lino Casalino, PwC Canada’s retail and consumer advisory leader.

“The survey results show that while some companies have a robust process for reviewing and monitoring the benefits and savings arising from their global sourcing efforts, other companies are either not aware of the potential benefits or do not have the systems in place to track them.”

Another key theme emerging from the companies surveyed is that the practice of global sourcing is dynamic and growing. In fact, both historic growth rates and projected growth rates are double-digit figures - almost half of survey respondents have seen a growth rate of more than 10% in the past five years and four in ten project growth rates of more than 10% in the next five years.

The survey also picked up that product quality is the single greatest risk to global sourcing, cited by 68% of the survey sample. However, less than half said they were very confident of managing the risks associated with product safety, despite the potentially damaging repercussions of a product failure or product recall. A quarter of respondents source over 75% of their product globally and with such a high percentage lacking confidence, more active steps are needed to manage product quality risk.

Sustainability concerns have clearly gained ground in the retail and consumer goods sector, illustrated by the fact that 41% of respondents feel climate change is one of the most significant risks to their supply chain. However, almost one-third of respondents were ‘not very confident’ or ‘not confident at all’ about their organisations’ ability to properly manage carbon footprint risks.

“Global sourcing in the retail and consumer sector will experience robust growth in the future. What is clear from the survey is that while they are moving in that direction - the majority of survey respondents are not yet taking advantage of all the potential benefits of their global sourcing operations,” says Casalino. “Companies must adapt their organisation structure and processes to maximise cost savings and minimise associated risks, while identifying new ways to differentiate themselves through global sourcing - through cost, quality, brand or environmental approaches.”

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