Horses for Sources recently published the output of a study which showed that buyers of outsourced services are saving money, but aren’t seeing a whole lot more. The report stated that over 95% of current buyers of outsourced services view their outsourcing engagements as effective at reducing their operating costs.…
In part one of this post, we examined the challenge of discussing IT demand in terms meaningful to our internal customers. That accomplished, the CIO’s organization must next fulfill that demand by acquiring, integrating and delivering the appropriate service(s), whether sourced internally or from the marketplace. Imagine for a moment…
For most enterprise customers, telecommunications regulation is a fact of life, requiring buyers to do what they can during negotiations to mitigate changes in state and federal law that could result in substantial cost increases during the term of the contract. Now, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering sweeping…
Typically, Suppliers ask for cost of living adjustments (COLAs) in IT outsourcing agreements to adjust prices periodically for inflation. We believe that the general assumption that a COLA is appropriate to “balance risk” in a three to five year IT deal should be challenged. The Supplier community is highly sophisticated…
On April 13, 2011, the Indian Central Government issued final regulations implementing parts of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, dealing with protection of personal information. Pillsbury does not provide legal advice on Indian law, but we have been in contact with the Indian legal community and service providers. Here…
A recent survey conducted by Accenture and the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network found that 2/3rds of respondents believe conversations with customers and providers about IT performance focus too much on SLAs, and not enough on business outcomes. No news here…after all, the industry has only been talking about managing…
A recent morning paper reported that telecoms giant Orange, who are outsourcing their call center services to IBM in the Philippines, told their night-shift call center employees in Darlington that if they want to keep their jobs they would need to move to Manila. Orange reportedly offered these employees a…
Over at CIO Update, John Hughes has recently written some advice for CIOs (Somewhere Between Abdication and Control Freak) that, coincidentally, is quite relevant for those charged with managing suppliers delivering services on an outsourced basis. The premise is that an optimal solution for leadership exists somewhere between completely abdicating…
Three recent reports, relating to each of the US, the UK and the EMEA region, revealed that the private sector has increased its spending on outsourced services during 2010 and the first quarter of 2011. A report by Gartner on US businesses’ IT spending indicates that 3.1% more was spent…
Cloud-based services give new meaning to the IT holy grail of “cheaper, better, faster” in the right circumstances. You might not even have to settle for just two. But it is important not to let the Cloud fog your thinking when it comes to configuring mission-critical IT-enabled services: adequate failover…