Chris Niccolls

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About: 

Chris Niccolls is a New York-based operations, productivity and outsourcing expert. As an investment banking executive, he became a voice for Wall Street offshoring, developing centres in India, the Philippines, Fargo (USA) and Bristol (UK). Chris has worked in the world’s largest investment banking, legal and insurance firms, and has developed outsourcing advisory groups for New York and London banking firms. Chris writes extensively about outsourcing, project management, process improvement and automation. Follow Chris on twitter @chrisniccolls or read his articles at www.niccollsanddimes.com.

From this author

Jan 04, 2018    0

By now everyone knows about outsourcing, the big issue of the 20th century that revolutionized the 21st century. But outsourcing didn’t start in the 20th century. In the 18th and 19th century Europe developed Imperialism, setting up colonies around the world. These colonies provided the language skills and education systems that made offshoring possible. 

If you look at the map of outsourcing, it matches the map of European colonies from a century earlier. India was the...

Nov 04, 2017    0

Offshoring and outsourcing don’t exist in a vacuum. These are processes that take advantage of and are influenced by technology, politics and the larger economy. Look at the last big round of offshoring at the start of the century. It didn’t just “happen” without any reason. Very specific changes facilitated this age of outsourcing.

The three biggest changes...globalization, ubiquitous computers and cheap telecommunications…created an environment that...

Sep 30, 2017    0

To understand the future, it often helps to examine the past. The past may not have all our answers, but we often find useful models that can be repurposed in new ways. Turn back the clock one hundred years, and we will find just such a model for future outsourcing…the modern hospital.

Hospitals have been around for millennia. Early hospitals had few effective medicines. Instead, they were more like rest camps. Still, the best hospitals were relatively clean and they were...

Sep 08, 2017    0

Outsourcers fear the coming Robot Revolution. Specifically, they are concerned that robots and artificial intelligence (AI) will wipe out traditional outsourcing. The reality is that the technologies behind the Robot Revolution will create the greatest outsourcing opportunity of...

Aug 12, 2017    0

At the turn of the 21st century, outsourcing was going full blast, moving from obscurity to mainstream. It quickly improved corporate profits and promised long-term benefits through continuous improvement…at least that’s what was supposed to happen. Now, robots are arriving in the workplace. Is it a threat? Or is the “Robot Revolution” our second chance for a golden age of outsourcing?

The last wave of outsourcing was an eye opener for corporations. Everyone had heard about...

Mar 28, 2017    0

Wow! Isn’t it amazing how quickly things change? In the early 2000s, the very pinnacle of outsourcing was Walmart. Walmart didn’t outsource its own operations. Instead, it made history by working with offshore suppliers, introducing American consumers to low-cost Chinese goods. Consumers fell in love with the low prices, and Walmart grew to 14,000 stores, becoming the biggest corporation in America. Only later, Americans asked, “Why can’t I buy an American made...

Feb 18, 2017    0

Ever since the 2016 elections, America’s outsourced manufacturing has consistently been front-page news. Now news stories are shifting towards the larger world of foreign imports, rather than just outsourcing. That means new policies and taxes that will impact, well, just about everything! That means all consumer goods, cars, electronics and a lot more. But what about... cartoons? Yeah… what about the Saturday morning ghetto, Hanna-Barbera, The Simpsons, and the...

Jan 04, 2017    0

During the election, Donald Trump said that he would stop work from leaving America, and would tax offshored products at 35%. Weeks before Trump is sworn in as President of the United States, he is hard at work wheeling and dealing with American corporations. Will these deals tell us about the “Trump Plan” for outsourcing? Let's dive right in and see!

The Carrier deal has certainly received a lot of press, yet this deal has nothing to do with the official powers of...

Nov 02, 2016    0

For years, the outsourcing world has been buzzing about reshoring (or "backshoring"), taking the jobs we sent offshore years ago and bringing them back to the US and Europe. Low wages, cheap property, and favourable taxes made offshore manufacturing very attractive. But in recent years property values rose, staff turnover increased, and wages just keep heading up. Despite weakening economics, offshore still made sense. Until today!

By far, the greatest financial advantage...