Opinion Pieces
Should a business outsource its important reception function?by Glenn Jackson, Managing Director of Moneypenny
Throughout the UK, companies remain under pressure to reduce costs without compromising on good customer service. But is the decision to save money by outsourcing a company’s reception a step too far? Glenn Jackson, Managing Director of Moneypenny, the UK’s leading telephone answering service, looks at whether companies and their clients can benefit from outsourcing this critical function.
more Eight best-in-class behaviours of high performance BPO
by Anoop Sagoo, BPO cross operating group lead, Accenture
As the business process outsourcing (BPO) market matures, buyers are expecting outcomes from BPO beyond just cost reduction. Next generation BPO buyers are demanding services providers bring industry expertise and insight, analytics and innovation to their engagements; adjust nimbly to shifting business directions; and drive better business outcomes. Accenture considers relationships that are achieving these exceptional results to be high performing.
more Innovation and outsourcing; the Agile approach
by By Dominic Dryden, Partner, Olswang and Jill Pollock, Associate, Olswang's Technology & Sourcing Group.
Agile development is a software development methodology the basic principle of which is to develop a system through repeated cycles (iterative) and in smaller portions at a time (incremental), allowing developers to take advantage of what was learned during development of earlier parts or versions of the system when moving on to develop the next.
more Maintenance, repair & overhaul spares management – The business case for outsourcing
by Ian Ritchie, Managing Director, Brammer UK
The purchasing and management of spares for the daily operation, maintenance and repair of production equipment is often a complex, time- and resource-consuming issue, but remains critical to maintaining production continuity and avoiding downtime.
more Don’t Cloud the Business Issues
by Chris O’Malley, CEO, Nimsoft
The saying “Good fences make good neighbours” is very applicable to relationships with Cloud service providers. Clear demarcation of services, roles and responsibilities is vital to these relationships. The more that’s left to subjective opinion, conjecture and guesswork, the more likely it is that misunderstandings, mistakes and missed opportunities will result.
more The perils of harmonising terms and condition of employment following a TUPE transfer
by Tim Wright, Partner and Amina Adam, Senior Associate, of the Global Sourcing practice group at law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw
Enterprises that undertake serial M&A or outsourcing activity can find themselves with a diverse workforce with differences in pay and other terms and conditions of employment applying to different categories of employees across the business. This can lead to inefficiencies such as the cost of administering different benefit plans as well as dissatisfaction amongst groups of employees who consider themselves to be, rightly or wrongly, worse off than their colleagues. For this reason, we are often asked to help with developing and implementing plans designed to harmonise terms and conditions of employment across a client's business.
more Don’t Cloud the Business Issues
by Chris O’Malley, CEO, Nimsoft.
Chris O’Malley, CEO, Nimsoft outlines the considerations that should be made when considering a move to the Cloud.
more Integrated Services Model: Helping CIOs Achieve their Business Goals
by by Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive Vice President & Head, Global Delivery at MphasiS
The cost of the IT hardware and expertise involved in operating an in-house infrastructure, a full suite of applications and multiple business-critical processes is significant. Many companies have turned to outsourcing for cost saving, but every penny will be scrutinised for the value it provides and to ensure it is justified in terms of business need. The difficulty that many CIOs face is that these assessments are not simple to make. They may be in control of very sophisticated IT strategies, but be in a position where they do not have suitably innovative service providers to deliver on them. The reason for this is that many outsourcers built their businesses by being effective in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Infrastructure or applications – but not in all of them....
more iPads and the Modern Banker - do the Benefits Outweigh the Challenges?
by Tony Virdi, Vice President of Cognizant’s Banking and Financial Services Practice, UK and Ireland
Given the current economic climate, there is a greater need for banks to grow revenues and provide better customer service. iPads, and other similar tablets, have the potential to transform banks’ working practices to become more collaborative and dynamic. Typically tablet users have greater access to information with better graphics and analytics to support decision making that can be built into a business process workflow....
more How to Achieve Innovation in Outsourcing
by Sanjiv Gossain, Senior Vice-President and Head of UK and Ireland Operations, Cognizant
In this age of globalisation, outsourcing has become integral to the way large multinational enterprises run their businesses. As the industry matures and the range of outsourcing services extends to higher value activities, client firms raise the bar regarding their expectations, seeking the delivery of high impact innovation from their vendors. Innovation is indeed a buzzword at the moment with Chief Innovation Officers considered key hires in an increasingly challenging market and with an ever more conspicuous discourse around innovation. In view of the volatility driven by the economy, new disruptive technologies, increasing government regulations, and continued globalisation of markets, driving innovation and building agility into businesses have become the key attributes of success.
more Asset Discovery is Key to Understanding Business Risk
by Karen Conneely, Group Commercial Manager at Real Asset Management
Organisations know the value of Business Intelligence (BI) in monitoring sales performance, analysing the quality of manufacturing processes or customer service and tracking financial indicators. How many, however, are leveraging this technology to assess the corporate risk associated with the tough capital investment decisions now required across an organisation’s asset estate? With the economic outlook becoming more pessimistic by the moment, senior managers can be prone to rewriting investment strategies and business plans whilst under pressure to make rapid changes.
more G-Cloud: A Liberation of the Marketplace
by Jeremy Neal, Head of Online Services, IMGROUP
This week, the Cabinet Office has announced that the government’s G-Cloud online appstore, CloudStore, is now open. The CloudStore is an online database of over 1,700 information and communications services available to the UK public sector, representing a seismic shift in the way that the public sector purchases IT. This initiative is part of the Government’s aim to increase transparency and encourage competition in the cloud marketplace, as well as increasing the efficiency of the procurement process, equating to the significant opening up of a previously limited pool of suppliers, which should ensure greater value for both the public sector and the suppliers....
more 5 Tax-Compliance Questions You Should Include in any e-Invoicing Request for Proposal (RFP)
by Nigel Taylor, Head of e-Invoicing, GXS
e-Invoicing promises significant benefits. But, if you deal with suppliers or customers in countries that collect Value-Added Taxes (VAT) you must be certain that your e-invoicing solution enables you to easily comply with the varying country-specific e-invoicing regulations.
more Dispelling the Myths of the Consumerisation of IT
by Antonia Watson, Avanade, UK Senior Director Technical Infrastructure
You only have to look around a modern work environment today, or sit on a busy commuter train to see that we are witnessing a rapid shift in the way employees are using personal technology in the workplace.
more The 4Cs: Consumerisation. Cloud. Cyber. Collaboration.
by Andrzej Kawalec Global Chief Technology Officer, HP Enterprise Security Services
How 4C thinking is the future for IT professionals and provides opportunities for global CISOs.
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