Once the ink is dry on a signed outsourcing contract, the real work begins for the customer and the service provider. Before the customer can start to realize any savings, efficiencies or service improvements, the parties must first complete the critical task of transitioning from the customer to the service…
A recent survey conducted by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association yielded some interesting findings, including: Social marketing budgets are anticipated to increase significantly over the next few years, possibly reaching 18% of total marketing budgets by 2015; and 72% of companies had outsourced some…
In part 1 of this discussion we described two front end challenges that, if not properly anticipated and addressed, can (and very often do) derail successful completion of enterprise projects. We’ll now turn to the downstream transactional considerations that can help position a project for success. The Right Contract Architecture…
Industry research firm Horses for Sources reported recently that 49% of the companies it surveyed were planning to outsource call center services for the first time, or expand the scope of their existing call center outsourcing, over the next year. With call center outsourcing on the rise, we wanted to…
It is one of those sayings that people just love to recite: “The best contracts are the ones that stay in the drawer.” In ten years of advising customers on their outsourcing agreements, I have heard this phrase uttered in just about every large negotiation that I have done (typically…
There is an inherent “right brain / left brain” tension in procuring outsourced services. The right side of the brain seeks innovative service delivery solutions and emphasizes relationship building with the supplier. The left brain seeks a high level of supplier accountability for performance, competitive pricing and favorable contractual terms.…
In last two decades, much of the attention of customers and advisors has focused on outsourcing under the managed services model. The outsourcing era began with infrastructure outsourcing, which evolved from time sharing and facilities management. This was followed by outsourcing of applications maintenance and support and, on a parallel…
Like most everything in life, the making of an outsourcing transaction is a process of taking amorphous ideas and concepts (fuzziness) to a point where there is sufficient clarity for all involved to move forward in a coordinated and desired manner (crispness). While true for all transactional components of an…
On June 22, Pillsbury hosted the first annual Federal Cloud Security Summit, organized by the Washington, DC, chapter of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA-DC). The keynote address was presented by Sonny Bhagowalia, former Deputy Associate Administrator with the GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies and current CIO of…
The press has recently given much attention to the growing difficulty of securing U.S. visas for offshore provider personnel and the impact on U.S. clients. In fact research firm CLSA Asia-Pacific released a report this past week downgrading its outlook for the Indian IT Services Sector citing “the visa issue…