Congratulations to Tony “Governator” Filippone, HfS’ new Head of Research

“On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity…”

… and what better way to announce an exciting promotion than this quote from capitalism’s founding father, Adam Smith that, well, pretty much sums up how the outsourcing industry needs to evolve beyond its labor arbitrage model.  Yes, at HfS we sure this is what Mr Smith was really referring to when envisioning the wealth of nations over two centuries ago.

People keep asking me what makes HfS different from other analyst firms.  Rather that take you through reams of cheesy PowerPoint to demonstrate our unique ways of developing and actioning data and insight, let’s cut to the chase:  what makes us different is our people.  Essentially, we have a mix of personalities at HfS who come from practitioner, consultative, service provider and analyst firm backgrounds.  We don’t just hire kids and stick them in ivory towers, or professional ivory tower-types who just like sitting in their….er ivory towers.  We focus on the practical, as well as the insightful:

• If you’re a buyer and you want help with your governance, we think you’d prefer to speak to an analyst advisor who has done just that as a buyer, who constantly talks to many other buyers to explore best practices;
• If you’re a provider and you want help with your messaging or positioning, we think you’d prefer to talk to an expert who has done just that for a provider and hobnobs with many other providers to explore best practices;
• If you just want to get into your own ivory tower and pontificate with other ivory tower-dwellers, well, we can do that too (if you like) and have the ppt primed and ready for your scholarly satisfaction.

Our core mantra at HfS has always been to tackle the issues and complexities of global sourcing through the eyes of the buyer.  One analyst who has spent nine years of his life doing just that, leading BPO governance for the $62 Billion healthcare payor, WellPoint, is our Governator himself, Tony Filippone.

Tony "The Governator" Filippone, concealing a baseball bat, is HfS' new Executive VP for Research (click for bio)

No single person in 2011 has written to – or talked with –  more buyers about their governance challenges, and we are delighted to reveal to the world today his elevation to Executive Vice President of HfS’ research team.  Tony’s role, is to ensure all our research is communicated to the buyer (and not the puffy stuff only advisors and providers pretend to understand).  He is also tasked with pulling our ongoing data on industry trends and dynamics from our 63,000 network and making it meaningful and actionable to the world.  And his ultimate religious quest is how to figure out, with the rest of the industry, how the hell we can all move on from the labor arbitrage model… so without further ado, I’ll hand you over to Tony, who tweets (click to read on):

@The_Whole_Outsourcing_Industry: Labor arbitrage built your house of cards.  #Bubble  What’s next?

Posted in : Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Captives and Shared Services Strategies, Healthcare and Outsourcing, horses-for-sources-company-news, IT Outsourcing / IT Services, Outsourcing Advisors, Outsourcing Heros, Sourcing Best Practises, sourcing-change