The Outsourcing Revolution


Book Description

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is a $6 trillion global industry involving thousands of companies and millions of employees. Business process outsourcing (BPO) is one of the very few business tools available to managers with the power to fundamentally transform their organizations. Done on a global scale, BPO enables companies to simultaneously reengineer their existing operations, create a more flexible and adaptable organizational structure, and tap the best minds in the world to create an innovation explosion. For the first time ever, BPO's best-known expert and pioneer, Michael Corbett, who helped craft IBM's entry into the outsourcing business, details the opportunities presented by BPO as well as a plan for implementing and sustaining its benefits. The Outsourcing Revolution is written for executives and managers in organizations of any size who want to learn how BPO can improve their company's performance. More than a ""how-to"" book, it provides a comprehensive framework for decision making and action based on the real-life experiences of executives heading up successful initiatives for their companies today. Readers will learn how to: * Determine the value of BPO for any process. * Analyze risk, evaluate its potential impact, and use a range of techniques to reduce, eliminate, and manage that risk. * Identify, evaluate, and select the right partner or partners. * Turn contractor relationships into long-term, successful BPO relationships. * Transition people, processes, and technologies to the BPO state. * Identify, develop, and reward outsourcing managers. * Create new ways of doing business ahead of the competition. The Outsourcing Revolution features case studies detailing how specific companies planned, implemented, and are managing BPO. Results from surveys of more than 1,500 companies provide real data on what organizations around the world are doing and why, as well as what does and doesn't work.




Information Technology Outsourcing


Book Description

This new volume in the "Advances in Management Information Systems" series presents the latest cutting-edge knowledge in IT outsourcing. As part of the growing business trend to outsourcing various operations, IT outsourcing both determines the governance of a vital organizational function and influences the processes of exploitation and exploration in all other functions of an enterprise. In keeping with the mission of the "AMIS" series, the editors of this volume have framed the domain of research and practice broadly. "Information Technology Outsourcing" provides leading edge research on both the variety of decisions regarding the outsourcing of IS services and the management of the relationship with service suppliers.




Intelligent Enterprise


Book Description

In this penetrating study of how knowledge-based services and technology are revolutionizing the economy and every corporate strategy, James Brian Quinn argues that the successful companies of the 90's -- whether in manufacturing or services -- will derive their competitive edge not from ephemerally superior products but from a deep understanding of a few highly developed knowledge and service based "core competencies." Rarely will owning the largest raw materials resource, manufacturing plants, equipment bases, or integrated facilities provide a maintainable competitive edge for major companies. Such physical properties are too easily cloned or bypassed. From now on, Quinn documents, intelligent enterprises will derive sustainable advantage from knowledge and service based activities that leverage intellectual assets. They will increase value through technological sophistication, better knowledge bases, more creative customer responsiveness, and the unsurpassed management of human and intellectual capital that competitors cannot reproduce. Quinn analyzes the technological and economic forces that make such strategies essential. He shows in detail how to create and leverage knowledge and service based core competencies for maximum focus and effectiveness. Managers, Quinn asserts, must define each value-creating activity as a knowledge based service and determine whether or not they can perform that service -- be it research, design, inventory control, accounting, distribution, or advertising -- better than anyone else in the world. Using examples from companies such as Merck, Honda, Apple, Boeing, and Wal-Mart, Quinn describes how forward-looking companies can best perform needed analyses and implement strategies around selected core competencies. By eliminating or "outsourcing" less important functions to superior outside vendors, firms become more responsive, decentralized, and lean. They become the "intelligent enterprises" of the 1990s, leveraging human and capital resources much more than other firms. They may also take on radically new organizational forms, become "starburst," "inverted," "infinitely flat," or "spiders' web" configurations. By designing and benchmarking their knowledge and service based activities to be "best in world," managers can obliterate overhead costs, smash bureaucracies, motivate personnel, and create greater value for customers and shareholders alike.




Business Process Outsourcing


Book Description

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is becoming the new revolutionas company's of all sizes are seeking to take advantage of thissource of competitive advantage. This book provides a step-by-step approach to understanding theapplication of Business Process Outsourcing, assessing the BPOopportunity in the company, and then managing the transition toBPO. It serves as a guide to implementing BPO and as a referencesource to solving the variety of issues that may arise during a BPOinitiative. Each chapter features a case study, insight from apractitioner, focus on how BPO affects people, and ethicalconsiderations. * Discusses both the how and why of business process outsourcingwith a straightforward "how to" approach. * Provides managers with the tools to analyse the BPO opportunitiesfor their own firms, as well as techniques and strategies formanaging a BPO initiative. * Empowers businesses of all sizes to take advantage of thisall-encompassing business revolution.







Outsourcing and Offshoring


Book Description

Outsourcing and offshoring are typically viewed as phenomena allowing competitive advantages for organizations, but some studies have not included the risks, benefits, and challenges of these types of strategies. As such, this book fills this gap by combining several studies from different perspectives. The chapters follow several approaches and applications that researchers explore in different contexts. This book adds to the body of knowledge in outsourcing and offshoring areas and shows how these strategies can stimulate organizations’ development in various countries and regions worldwide.




Strategic Outsourcing


Book Description

Outsourcing is a strategic decision. This guide e×plores outsourcing involving fundamental questions about a company's future, core competencies, costs, performance, and competitive advantage. It shows how to use outsourcing as a strategic tool to create a focused, robust organization.




Foreign Direct Investments


Book Description

""This book explores the importance of global stocks to economic structures and explores the effects that these holdings have on the financial status of nations. It also provides a systems approach to investment projects in a globalized and open society"--Provided by publisher"--




Downscoping


Book Description

Large, diversified firms face unique challenges as they compete worldwide, and corporate restructuring is one way multinationals strive for competitive advantage. Weighing the pros and cons of a variety of approaches to restructuring, Downscoping offers executives a clear, strategic path through the maze. The authors show that when a multinational conglomerate fails to compete effectively, too much diversification may be the culprit. Whether the result of weak corporate governance or poor corporate strategy, over-diversification can make managers, unfamiliar with some of the markets in which they compete, opt for safety over innovation. This risk-aversion and lack of long-range commitment to innovation lead inevitably to stagnation over the longer term. The answer is not downsizing--closing offices and laying off personnel--but downscoping: a strategic approach to restructuring. The options include incentive and compensation adjustments for executives, leveraged buy-outs and capital structure changes, focusing on core skills, diversifying internationally while focusing on businesses in which a firm has strong competencies, and buying and selling mature businesses where product development is not a great concern. Regardless of the approach, executives must exercise strategic leadership during and after restructuring, including providing strategic direction, exploiting core competencies, developing human capital, and sustaining the corporate culture. Based on systematic research rather than casual observation, Downscoping provides a strong description of restructuring alternatives and their resulting tradeoffs. Its specific guidelines for maintaining competitiveness will be essential reading for managers involved in corporate restructuring.




The Future of Outsourcing


Book Description

This book provides a new evolutionary perspective on outsourcing. The traditional prioritization of continuous outsourcing has resulted in increased hidden costs that have sabotaged business profits. As a result of undisciplined outsourcing, businesses have lost a defining characteristic of their success: decision control. In contrast, the ability to combine outsourcing with backsourcing is a winning strategy for business leaders across a broad range of industries. In this book, the author traces the essence of the outsourcing industry as it has evolved over the past two centuries. With compelling case studies from the pharmaceutical, aviation, insurance, and cookware industries, this book moves beyond theorizing. It highlights key insights from some of the leading outsourcing pioneers who helped to define the industry. The case studies demonstrate the evolution of outsourcing, from a past marked by a costly outsourcing approach to a future fueled by the diversification of sourcing for optimal business success. Through the provision of decision models and best practices, this book provides academics and practitioners with tangible steps to implement successful outsourcing and backsourcing strategies.