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Category: Sourcing Best Practises
The undisputed facts about outsourcing, Part 7: Service-culture is the new differentiator
We asked a cross-section of buyers with significant influence over outsourcing decisions, to reveal the critical attributes they seek in a provider. At the same time, we asked providers what attributes they believe their clients deem critical. And - guess what - their are significant gaps between what clients want and what providers think they want.Read More
Listen to Cassandra when it comes to sourcing change management
Earlier this year, HfS Research leveraged its vast network of global enterprises to solicit the opinions of buyers and providers of outsourcing attempting to understand how they view the role and importants of change management for outsourcing engagements. The web based survey was completed by 237 respondents with 96 buyers and 141 service providers.Read More
The biggest political threat (yet) to the outsourcing industry
The Swiss, in their typically punctilious fashion, now have an "Anti-PowerPoint Party" with the self-stated goal of having the number of boring PowerPoint presentations on the planet to decrease and the average presentation to become more exciting and more interesting.Read More
Meet the sultan of strategic sourcing
While we were having some in-depth discussions with Microsoft's CPO, Tim McBride, it became apparent how important niche specialist BPOs, such as Alpar's firm Denali, are to the global sourcing mix for many organizations. So we thought we'd take a few minutes to have a discussion with Alpar about the future of the procurement function and the role of the CPO.Read More
The undisputed facts about outsourcing, Part 5: Decision-makers increasingly reliant on peer-networking and research than traditional channels
In the past, outsourcing was still a unique, foreign and scary activity, and it was always easier for buy-side executives to bring in consultants to make their decisions for them - especially as there were so few trusted data-points and information sources widely available in the industry to support decision-making. Executives didn't want to get fired for making bad decisions. However, today they know they'll get fired for the wrong decision regardless of who made it - whether it was theirs' or McKinsey'sRead More
ManpowerGroup – a whole lot more than a staffing company?
Manpower Group held its industry analyst and influencer day on June 9, 2011 at its headquarters in Milwaukee, WI. Read More
The CPO in 2011: The Toughest Job in the Global 1000
We talked with Microsoft Chief Procurement Officer, Tim McBride, about his procurement execution and BPO experience as part of a case study in a paper entitled "The CPO in 2011: The Toughest Job in the Global 1000".Read More
The undisputed facts about outsourcing, Part 4: Mid-market buyers are enjoying better outsourcing outcomes than enterprises
Outsourcing of IT and business process has always been a game for large enterprises, where well-executed large-scale employee transitions have resulted in profitable endeavors for both providers and buyers. But while the large buyers like saving the money, it’s actually mid-market sector ($1bn-$3bn revenues) which is getting a lot more out of the experienceRead More
The undisputed facts about outsourcing, Part 3: With outsourcing demand at unprecedented levels, can new buyers get across the finish-line?
HfS Research's "State of Outsourcing 2011" study of 1335 industry stakeholders, conducted with the Outsourcing Unit at the London School of Economics, points to a marked turnaround in outsourcing intentions as global economies reach a period of sustained (albeit limping) recovery. For many organizations today, clearly the short-term counter-recessionary measures have been executed through to fruition, leaving business function leaders under renewed pressure to seek out new operational strategies for driving out cost and improving global effectiveness.Read More
Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee… and everyone loves an iPad 2
If you participated in our State of Outsourcing 2011 survey, you may have been anxiously monitoring your inbox for a notification that you'd won the iPad 2. Well, the anticipation is over, and we can announce that the winner of the drawing is Stephen Kincanon, Vice President - Shared Services at Sara Lee Corporation. Congratulations, Stephen!Read More
