Peter Allen:<\/strong> After spending the past eight years serving as an Advisor to buy-side executives around the topic of shared services and outsourcing, I\u2019ve found that the ecosystem looks very different from provider-side.<\/p>\nOn a personal level, I\u2019d start by saying that I am finding the challenges and opportunities as a service provider to be much more dynamic and creative than I appreciated from my prior tenure in the provider community (over 10 years ago). The energy around Clients and investment models, which are at the heart of any strategy to deliver the benefits of leverage, are quite progressive. The notion of business being defined at the level of a \u201cdeal\u201d has, thankfully, been replaced by industry-oriented and client-driven strategies. Investments are being made in a much more targeted manner \u2013 on both sides of the relationships.<\/p>\n
In fact, one of the biggest surprises for me has been around one of the more profound complaints that I commonly heard as an Advisor. Over the past several years, especially as the rise of wage-based sourcing took flight, Clients lamented the fact that the Outsourcing industry seemed geared around maintaining legacy business models at a lower labor-based price point. That was a real issue for many companies, but the realities of the recession left them with little recourse but to contract as a means of stemming the bleeding.<\/p>\n
More commonly today, the propositions are being constructed around creating \u201cnew world\u201d business models. That\u2019s really encouraging to me \u2013 the promise of the industry is based around this premise, but I think we can look back on the past decade as one that was overly drawn into the gravitational pull of wage-based contracting.<\/p>\n
Phil Fersht: Being such a respected market observer for so long, what do you see as the main opportunities and threats for the traditional incumbent providers in the face of tough Indian competition?<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\nPeter Allen:<\/strong>\u00a0 There\u2019s a real paradox at play here, with technology at the center of the risks and opportunities for the outsourcing services industry.\u00a0 I see a handful of substantial disruptive technologies converging to shape the form of our industry in ways that likely wouldn\u2019t be possible on a discrete basis. These include virtualization of computing\/storage\/communications, off-premise hosting of business services (e.g., Cloud-based, SaaS), enterprise data management, cyber security, and holistic service integration.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Peter Allen and his eldest daughter, Emily, enjoying a Patriots game last December<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Any one or two of these, alone, might be seen as merely tools for selective adoption, such as we saw around workflow and imaging technologies. But, taken together, I sense that the business models for outsourced services are poised to change in very significant ways. Many of the characteristics of the old ways of contracting for outsourced services are being left behind. The test will be in the forms of contracting that these services embody.<\/p>\n
As for what these new model imply for the service provider community \u2013 I think that those companies that built their business around wage-based services have run out of runway with their legacy business models and now have the opportunity, and expectation, to turn domain familiarity into technology-enabled business services. That\u2019s a steep hill, but I wouldn\u2019t sell the India-based leaders short in this regard.<\/p>\n
Conversely, the traditional technology-oriented providers must decide between commodity-oriented portfolios of components versus vertically-integrated business services. The path of least resistance might not be the path of greatest reward.<\/p>\n
Both classes of providers have real decisions and investments to make in order to win in the market that is emerging. Indecision is not an option.<\/p>\n
In Part II of this interview, Peter discusses the future of Cloud Computing and its role in future outsourcing models, and also shares his views on where his old stomping ground, the advisor business, needs to go. Stay tuned…<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many of you will recall some great dialogue in the past with one of the true thought-leaders in global sourcing:\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,81,88],"tags":[235],"organization":[],"ppma_author":[19],"class_list":["post-1692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cloud-computing","category-it-outsourcing-it-services","category-outsourcing-heros","tag-computer-sciences-corporation"],"yoast_head":"\n
President Peter prognosticates... Part I - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n