Future of Sourcing - GDPR http://futureofsourcing.com/tags/gdpr en Digital Challenges Around the Water Cooler: 5 Predictions for 2020 http://futureofsourcing.com/digital-challenges-around-the-water-cooler-5-predictions-for-2020 <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Digital%20Challenges%20for%202020.png"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Digital%20Challenges%20for%202020.png" title="5 Predictions for 2020" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1685-vDB0mbrRfnk"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/Digital%20Challenges%20for%202020.png?itok=xgnKZpRh" width="624" height="325" alt="5 Predictions for 2020" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-related-news field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Related news:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/buying-open-source-software-support-and-getting-the-best-deal">“Buying” Open Source: Software, Support and Getting the Best Deal</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>At the end of a dramatic year for technology providers big and small, Richard Grove from digital consultancy Caution Your Blast considers five issues, opportunities and developments that will dominate the start of this decade.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <h1>1. Data Decline</h1> <p><span style="font-size: 13.008px;">I believe the way we value data is going to change rapidly in 2020. Until very recently, &ldquo;data&rdquo; was generically viewed as a good thing for the modern business; grist to the mill of customer insight and business strategy. Accordingly, many companies&rsquo; approach to gathering data was to cast the widest net possible, with a shotgun approach to analysis.</span></p> <p>New regulations like GDPR have shown this can&rsquo;t continue. Data is no longer an unlimited source of useful insight. It&rsquo;s expensive to handle, and if handled incorrectly (or at least, non-compliantly), data can be a toxic burden for a company, which opens it up <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-privacy-france/france-fines-google-57-million-for-european-privacy-rule-breach-idUSKCN1PF208" target="_blank">to penalties like fines</a>.</p> <p>What will organizations do with all the data they hold? Firstly, understanding their services is critical &mdash; what is the minimum data they need to continually improve what they do? On top of that, they&rsquo;ll check that they&rsquo;re only keeping data they need to and not holding anything which breaks the rules.</p> <p>Then there&rsquo;ll be a wave of companies dumping data that serves no purpose. Unused data is just a cost, so the role of the data scientist will become more refined and central to the running of a successful business, as they&rsquo;re entrusted to generate ever more useful insights from a shrinking amount of raw material. That said, although data scientists will be working with a smaller amount of stored data, it will, by its very nature, be more relevant data. So, their work may even become a little easier!</p> <h1>2. The End of the Road for Contractors?</h1> <p>Tech talent is plentiful. We may see a tipping point in 2020 whereby specialist contractors can no longer dictate terms in an increasingly competitive market. The days of contractors on highly favorable terms becoming embedded into teams for five to 10 years are surely coming to a close.</p> <p>We should also factor in recent changes to taxation for contractors. In the U.K., post-April 2020, private-sector employers will be held responsible for determining whether IR35 legislation from HMRC applies to any contractor they hire &mdash; which would require them to treat the contractor as an employee for tax purposes.</p> <p>This news has gone down like the proverbial lead balloon. <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252474123/IR35-reforms-put-IT-contractors-at-risk-of-second-wave-of-loan-charge-like-tax-bills-experts-warn" target="_blank">Computer Weekly</a> went so far as to raise the alarm that, &ldquo;thousands of IT contractors are at risk of financial ruin as HMRC pursues them for tax it claims they owe on work they did up to two decades ago.&#39;&#39;</p> <p>What does this mean for businesses? It&rsquo;s surely a big shake up in how they manage their workforce from a regulatory and administrative point of view. But for business to take advantage, they must shake up how they find, recruit and retain the talent which may become available.&nbsp;</p> <h1>3. Me, Myself and AI</h1> <p>For small- and medium-sized firms in the UK, everyone&rsquo;s talking about AI, but no one is doing it (and if they are, they&rsquo;re doing it badly). So, I&rsquo;m not going to predict that we see a sweeping completion of the &ldquo;digital 2.0&rdquo; revolution people have been touting for years. Instead, and perhaps a little more modestly, I&rsquo;m going to say that most, if not all, companies will (or at least, should) finally deliver on their digital 1.0 projects!</p> <p>That is, ready themselves for more complex technological innovation by learning to walk before they run. As anyone who has been through the process of &ldquo;introducing AI&rdquo; to their business without having the relevant infrastructure in place first will know, you tend to accelerate the process of making errors instead of fixing them.</p> <p>The cost-saving potential of AI will prove too tempting for businesses to ignore. But beware. If you don&rsquo;t understand your users or services and lack a flexible infrastructure to integrate improvements, get ready for an uphill battle. There will be ever increasing cautionary tales out there from implementations gone wrong. That&rsquo;s why 2020 will be the year of preparation, not execution.</p> <h1>4. The Truth Hurts</h1> <p>Companies, suppliers and customers are more closely intertwined than ever before. Something that affects one has strong potential to impact the other. In this era of mis- and disinformation, big brands need to win the fight for truth.</p> <p>I think we&rsquo;ll see dedicated teams created by companies to ensure that the reputation of their brand doesn&rsquo;t suffer by being associated with the misuse of information, not only in the company itself, but also all along the supply chain.</p> <h1>5. Straight to (Open) Source&nbsp;</h1> <p>For decades, <a href="https://aiimpacts.org/trends-in-the-cost-of-computing/" target="_blank">the price of tech has been dropping rapidly</a>, and today you can access software for perhaps just 1% of the price 10 years ago. The days of companies shelling out millions on a 10-year contract with one of the big traditional providers are numbered, not to say gone.</p> <p>One of the biggest drivers behind this has been the rise of <a href="https://futureofsourcing.com/buying-open-source-software-support-and-getting-the-best-deal" target="_blank">open-source software solutions</a>. Hopefully this battle has been won, certainly in the tech circles as more and more companies are based on community-led, value-for-money services.&nbsp;</p> <p>For those who haven&rsquo;t made this change yet, the shift I&rsquo;d like to see coming in 2020 is one whereby more and more organizations start to access benefits, and for those who currently do, to increase their contributions back to the wider community.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/gdpr" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">GDPR</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/data" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Data</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/artificial-intelligence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Artificial Intelligence</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/open-source" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Open Source</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Digital Challenges Around the Water Cooler: 5 Predictions for 2020 - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/digital-challenges-around-the-water-cooler-5-predictions-for-2020"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Thu, 30 Jan 2020 17:00:00 +0000 Richard Grove 1685 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/digital-challenges-around-the-water-cooler-5-predictions-for-2020#comments Where Will Outsourcing Head to in 2018? http://futureofsourcing.com/where-will-outsourcing-head-to-in-2018 <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/future%20of%202018.jpg"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/future%20of%202018.jpg" title="Where Will Outsourcing Head to in 2018?" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1062-vDB0mbrRfnk"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/future%20of%202018.jpg?itok=-zBUFVEl" width="624" height="325" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><a href="http://outsourcemag.com/node/837">This time last year I wrote in these pages</a> about the year ahead for outsourcing. The key trend I focused on was an increase in partnership with clients and suppliers getting much closer&mdash;and that seems to have taken place throughout 2017. One major driver for this has been the change in how consumers become aware of a product and then convert into customers...what marketing professionals call the &lsquo;customer journey.&rsquo; Think for a moment about the classic customer journey. A potential customer would see some advertising or some type of marketing campaign, search for additional information, compare products, eventually make a purchase and possibly follow up with a call or email to the customer service team if they have a problem.&nbsp;</p> <p>Now this experience is much more complex&mdash;the way that customers learn about products and access information has completely changed. A consumer might learn about your products by seeing information on a social network, reading a review site, viewing an online recommendation by a previous customer, receiving an email or any number of other ways. This has also dramatically changed the way that customers purchase products too, with many brands offering online or in-app purchase options.&nbsp;</p> <p>This dramatic change in consumer behavior has affected outsourcing relationships because it has quickly changed many aspects of business, including how:&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>Brands need to promote their products</li> <li>Brands need to offer an omni-channel experience, so customers can locate information and make purchases in many different ways on different channels</li> <li>All these dramatic supply chain changes affect CRM systems, ERP, stock control and how internal corporate departments like customer service and marketing can function&nbsp;</li> </ul> <p>The rapidly changing nature of how companies are structured has led to a need for deep expertise. Brands that are trying to blend their marketing and customer service function have found that it&rsquo;s a much easier proposition to do this with a partner that has very deep knowledge of how an omni-channel sales, marketing and service environment can work. This leads to a much closer sense of partnership between the client brand and the suppliers delivering IT, customer service or marketing services. These suppliers have started behaving much more like partners because that&rsquo;s truly what they are in this modern environment.&nbsp;</p> <p>I think this trend will continue. We are still in the early days of truly exploiting an omni-channel business environment and most companies are still figuring out the implications for their IT systems, public messaging and customer service processes.&nbsp;</p> <p>When I think forward to 2018, my natural first step is to see what the suppliers and bloggers are saying, but to be frank, I was a little disappointed in my most recent scan of the 2018 outsourcing trend articles. I identified three trends that are predicted frequently:&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>A renewed skills shortage driving more outsourcing</li> <li>Suppliers focusing more on specific expertise rather than offering an all-around service</li> <li>The price vs. quality debate strongly supporting quality as more important than price&nbsp;</li> </ul> <p>I believe these trends could have been published in any end of year prediction list for the past decade so it&rsquo;s a surprise to see many business journals just focusing on the same old topics. I believe that in addition to the continuation of the partnership trend I predicted last year, there will be a couple of strong trends&mdash;especially in Europe.&nbsp;</p> <p>1. GDPR: The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be enforced beginning May 25, 2018. This completely changes how companies across Europe can store and work with data. It is the biggest shake-up in how companies can use data since the 1990s and essentially puts power in the hands of the customer. If you cannot tell your customer in clear and simple terms why you want to capture and use their data then you are no longer allowed to capture it - and fines in the millions will hit those who ignore the new rules. Many companies that are scared of the legislation will turn to their partners for assurance that their systems are compliant.&nbsp;</p> <p>2. Data Analysis and Security: Yet even with the GDPR rules and compliance, there will be a renewed focus on capturing more data on customers, analysing it in much more detail, and creating personal experiences or generating business decisions from this information. This leads to a need for increased security, which, from the perspective of data capture, is covered by a new GDPR-compliant approach. But it more generally needs an entirely new approach to security because this information will sit at the heart of your future business. Once again, this is such a dramatic change in practice and procedures that many will focus on working with trusted partners to get this right.&nbsp;</p> <p>To some extent, these trends are self-reinforcing. There is a great desire for companies to understand their customers better, which requires more data, more insight and better data analysis. However, this also requires GDPR compliance, and by working with expert suppliers in a close partnership all these business benefits can be safely delivered.&nbsp;</p> <p>I believe that 2018 will be an exciting year for those in the outsourcing community. Partnerships will be deeper and the expertise that the supplier community has in data analysis, and the management and security of data will be sought out more than ever before.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/trends" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Trends</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/gdpr" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">GDPR</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/data-analysis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Data Analysis</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/information-technology-it" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Information Technology (IT)</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/transformation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Transformation</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Where Will Outsourcing Head to in 2018? - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/where-will-outsourcing-head-to-in-2018"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Fri, 29 Dec 2017 15:16:49 +0000 Mark Hillary 1062 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/where-will-outsourcing-head-to-in-2018#comments