The Outsourcing Blog: Horses for Sources

Eulogizing on the Eurozone with Principal Euan

2009-11-13T15:11:04-05:00

Attend any European analyst meeting and there’s one character guaranteed to be propping up the bar. Scratch that, there are normally about 50 analysts propping up the bar. But in the midst of the throng you will undoubtedly find the stolid Euan Davis of Forrester Research. I recall a conversation with Euan back in '95 when I told him “you should give this analyst lark a try” (If you want to know what he working on in those days, drop me a note…). Anyhow, the story began from there, with Euan rising through the ranks at IDC’s European operation, making...

The "new normal" in the outsourcing delivery business

2009-11-07T13:17:26-05:00

This truly has been a pivotal quarter for the outsourcing business. As we've discussed several times here, many services contract decisions have been delayed during the economic crisis while organizations worked out the best course of action to get through the downturn. In Q3 we've started to see definitive action, with many service providers meeting, and some even beating, Wall St. expectations. But while some providers are clearly delivering, others are struggling to compete in this "new normal". So what is this "new normal"? Operational service provision is commoditizing and leveling the playing field. Coming out of the recession, there...

Taking a walk on the Wacki side...

2009-11-04T09:00:44-05:00

If there’s one person who’s been a consistent figure closely tied to the development of Finance and Accounting sourcing over the last decade, it’s Paul Nowacki (or to those of us know him, simply “Wacki”), who today leads F&A transformation for leading sourcing strategy and implementation consultancy, Everest Group. Paul’s advised on several of the largest engagements in the business (in fact, I do think he’s worked on the largest) and taught me a lot about the space when I worked with him at Everest a few years’ back. Never afraid to speak his mind, Paul is always a popular...

Reminder: stop and smell the roses

2009-11-02T13:00:20-05:00

Sometimes life becomes a converged morass of email, reading, writing, number-crunching, slideware-designing, talking, selling, firefighting, and so on - and more so these days than ever. Noone has time anymore to have a quick chat about anything non-important, read an interesting article (or more than 140 characters), have a cup of coffee with a friend, take a walk, read a good book... My long-suffering wife keeps reminding me to take a deep breath, take a walk, and "smell the roses" - just thought I'd pass on her advice... An Autumnal Sunday afternoon in Boston's Public Gardens

Randomly shout into the darkness and hope someone's listening

2009-10-31T13:27:38-04:00

"None of you have any friends"... this little clip about that social networking tool we know and love just cracked me up -:)

Sitting on a shrinking business and afraid to change

2009-10-28T09:37:47-04:00

"Most of our managers are happy sitting on a shrinking business" bemoaned a senior executive the other day. Sound familiar? I hate to say this, but too many senior executives I talk to these days adopted this survival mechanism during the economic crisis, and are clearly struggling to change their mind-set now it's clear that armageddon has been averted. And the main reason seems to be that the last year has exhausted them, preventing fresh, bold decisions to be made. Hey - it's exhausted everyone. Smart business leaders are now trying to re-energize their staff, take that deep-set panic out...

So where next for the Galloping Hooves?

2009-10-24T11:53:30-04:00

"You are going to keep doing that blog aren't you?" seems to have been the most frequently-asked question I've had since I changed my day-job. And a few people have asked whether I can still credibly run this blog, now I work for one of the firms actually tasked with delivering the services we have been talking about for the best part of three years. Heaven forbid. As we have discussed at length, blogs and other social media have been a major game-changer with how we engage with issues, market dynamics - and each other. We live in a different...

Why you sometimes may need to fine-tune your innovation plans...

2009-10-24T08:19:29-04:00

Efstathiou uncut: all aboard with the sourcing skipper

2009-10-18T15:21:12-04:00

When I returned to these Western shores 6 years' ago, I was given the the unenviable task of working with the indomitable Andy Efstathiou. Now, analysts who have spent 20 years working in commercial banks are not to be messed with - and I quickly learned my lesson with Andy, who (literally) has an encyclopedic knowledge and perspective of everything that has gone wrong with the world. I recall Andy warning us years' ago that this was all going to go horribly wrong... and did anyone listen? Andy has since become a good friend over the years, and has always...

Why I joined Cognizant

2009-10-14T19:35:00-04:00

Folks - Having spent 14 years on the analyst and advisory side of the sourcing industry, it's a natural move for me to join a service provider - for both professional and personal reasons. Having considered several options (and some of them were truly awesome... you know you are), I decided to make the service provider move, and chose Cognizant. To keep this brief, and avoid a completely blatant sales-pitch, here were my reasons: They're in high-growth mode They have a truly dynamic culture and offer something unique to their clients, in terms of value and energy (customers rarely lie...)...

Business and friendship: it's all about professional respect

2009-10-11T14:02:12-04:00

You can't understate the importance of relationships in business - especially sourcing, where it's all about cultural fit and working relationships. In business, it's not always about liking people, it's about being able to trust - and work - with them. Sometimes, you will actually grow to like someone, in addition to trusting them and working well with them - and that is special; but let's face it, it's quite rare. In many cases, people you like are not always people you're going to work well with - and vice-versa. You may not have any affinity or liking for someone...

Consulting the Oracle: Tibor's talktrack (Part II)

2009-10-08T08:26:58-04:00

In the second-part of this two-part interview, Oracle's Tibor Beles discusses how service providers can be successful at platform-BPO offerings, how the broader BPO industry can improve, in addition to discussing the shifting dynamics with software licensing models. Tibor is also a blackbelt in martial arts (not the Six Sigma category), but spends more time hitting tennis balls these days with his teenage daughter. He also loves political thrillers, but he didn't elaborate whether that was through his day-job, or reading Le Carré novels -:) Phil Fersht (PF): Do you see platform-based BPO as a major threat to the BPO...

Consulting the Oracle: Tibor's talktrack (Part I)

2009-10-06T19:40:44-04:00

We've had a number of discussions with some of the SAP executives over the last few years regarding its highly-publicized BPO partner-program. Meanwhile, there's been a crack Oracle team quietly working on developing its own BPO strategy, led by its enigmatic commander Tibor Beles. After being been educated on the nuances of Hungarian beer in a Budapest bar recently, I decided it was time to drag Tibor away from his Karate sessions to talk about his team's progress... Phil Fersht (PF): Tibor, why does Oracle have a group dedicated to BPO? What's the game-plan here? Tibor Beles (TB): Our customers...

Insecurity is the modern corporate disease

2009-10-03T11:50:57-04:00

In 1597, Sir Francis Bacon coined the famous phrase "Knowledge is Power". While knowledge does create power to the beholder of that knowledge, it can rarely be harnessed effectively until is it shared with other entities. In today's business world, I'd broaden that phrase to "Sharing Knowledge Creates Value". Let me explain my thinking here. Too many employees today have a tendency to hoard their nuggets of knowledge, for fear of fear that giving them away will weaken their value and, ultimately, their job security. This can sometime be as rudimentary as documenting a business process, through to sharing knowledge...

Stop Press: meaningful use of Twitter discovered

2009-10-02T00:19:00-04:00

Just as I was about to close down my Twitter account, I discovered a perfect use for the tool:

Bittersweet

2009-09-30T16:38:23-04:00

As many of you close to me already know, after 14 years in the analyst and management consulting community, I am going to take a little break and make a few changes. I'd like to thank publicly AMR Research for a wonderful couple of years, where I got to spar with some great people, service more clients that I care to remember, and have a lot of fun bantering with so many of you who frequent the Horses. I'd especially like to mention some great analysts with whom I'd had the pleasure of working: Dana Stiffler, John Hagerty, Simon Jacobson,...

Xerox copies Dell's example and acquires ACS, but again, where's the fit?

2009-09-28T08:54:20-04:00

Is there a recurring theme here? US-based giants with faltering commodity business models from yesteryear, making very late plays to get into the IT-BPO services business? While I could see some synergies between Dell and Perot, this one's even tougher to fathom, unless Xerox has further plans to marry ACS with a stellar IT services acquisition. ACS was one of the early darlings of BPO, and was right at the top of the competitive tree in the early 2000's whenever a large Finance & Accounting, HR or call center deal was up for grabs. It would always give Accenture and...

Forget Platform BPO, it's really about the Business Services Cloud (Part II)

2009-09-27T12:07:51-04:00

We inspired a lot of offline debate when we discussed the challenges facing BPO providers delivering so-called "Platform BPO" solutions. Bottom-line, if BPO service providers are competing for commodity services engagements which are underpinned by software platforms that are widely deployed by several other service providers, they face a major challenge of differentiating themselves to win new clients and avoid a price-war for new business. At the enterprise level, selecting a BPO provider to process transactional business services for a major Oracle or SAP-based engagement is dependent on the providers' global scale, brand and competency. For these large-scale transactional BPO...

Swine Flu can impact your service levels

2009-09-24T08:21:01-04:00

If you wake up looking like this... Don't go to work!

Scale the peaks of FAO... in Tampa

2009-09-22T10:43:54-04:00

As a wise man once told me, "there's nothing quite like visiting Tampa in late October". Many years on, his prophecy is coming true, with the second annual North American "FAO Summit", being held in the Saddlebrook resort, 20-22nd October. Anyhow, come and meet a compeling line-up of speakers, panelists, hobnobbers and politicians that include several outsourcing PMOs (for some strange reason they managed to attract several from beverage producers...), former senator John Sununu (one of the five panel members responsible for the oversight of TARP funds), a bunch of advisors, service providers and some crazed blogger. As usual, a...

The Dell finally tolls - but is this the right fit?

2009-09-21T08:17:38-04:00

So Dell finally made its major play into the IT services enterprise arena announcing a $3.9bn deal for the Texas-based Perot Systems. Unlike the HP/EDS mega-merger of last year, there is a lot less overlap between the merging entities, however, you have to assume this is more of a play by Dell to transform its commodity hardware business by refocusing its future strategy on services-led engagements. However, while there isn't much overlap, there also isn't a lot of synergy. Why should Perot customers want to buy Dell equipment all of a sudden? Most CIOs today are looking to move away...

The art of blog: credibility is in the eye of the beholder

2009-09-18T19:21:13-04:00

Mark Stelzner roused some passions last week with a great blog post discussing how some traditional media are highlighting the need to regulate bloggers with possible "conflicts of interest". For example, Workforce Magazine's online article discusses the impact of controversial HR bloggers, such as Cheezhead's Joel Cheesman. At the heart of the debate are the issues surrounding which industry entities are more credible for regaling information to the marketplace. My take is that everyone has potential conflicts of interest, and blogging has leveled the playing field across industry entities (journalists, consultants, analysts / marketeers, vendors and buyers). While, in the...

Stephanie Moore's Law

2009-09-15T20:38:11-04:00

One of the most prominent industry analysts in sourcing over the last decade-plus has been Stephanie Moore. Steph started out at Gartner, before spending time at Giga, and most recently Forrester Research, where she built an industry-wide reputation as an outspoken and respected figurehead of the IT services and outsourcing world. Earlier this year, Steph made her first venture over to the service provider side, and when she's not busy entertaining her three kids, sailing around the Westport beaches, or regaling stories of her junior golf open triumph (she swears they had color-TV back then...), Steph assumes the role of...

Derail the Healthcare gravy-train: introduce competitive multi-sourcing

2009-09-11T11:52:05-04:00

Being a relatively recent immigrant to US society, it's fascinating to observe the political games corporations and politicians play to reach their desired outcomes. What I find a little absurd is how easy it is to decipher the real political motives behind all the rhetoric; especially those ridiculous commercials sponsored by insurance companies trying to protect their monopolistic positions and keep their gravy-train chugging along. Working in the sourcing industry forces you to cut quickly through complex issues to find sensible solutions, and healthcare doesn't seem a whole lot different - despite the sheer scale of the issues and requirements....

Forget Platform BPO, it's really about the Business Services Cloud (Part I)

2009-09-09T11:07:25-04:00

The recession has upped the ante for today's BPO providers: the move to providing business services in a cloud-like model is accelerating, and the real challenge for today's service providers lies in answering the following questions: 1) Do we want to play in the BPO space? 2) How do we play in this market? What's our angle? 3) How can we compete? What's our differentiation? The challenge today is whether a provider is adding value beyond low-cost processing services. If you are only really providing an arbitrage solution, someone is going to come along and offer it for even less...