Institutions and Success: a Tribute to Douglass North

Posted: 01/12/2018 - 01:09

This month’s Academic of Outsourcing tribute goes to Douglass C. North for his work on “new institutional economics.” North – a professor, economist, philosopher and economic historian – was the co-recipient (with Robert Fogel) of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences “for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change.” 

The Changing Face of the Corporate Leader

Posted: 01/04/2018 - 05:31

We’ve come a long way since the 1955 issue of Fortune which described the ‘successful American executive’ as someone who spent almost no time on politics, drank moderately, and only attended cultural events ‘because they must’. With a businessman in the White House and heads of Fortune 500 companies regularly appearing in the media as trendsetters, opinion formers and pundits, discretion is no longer the better part of valour.

Cultural Counterparts: The Advantage of Nearshoring

Posted: 01/04/2018 - 02:05

When a business is choosing which company to outsource with, location can often be overlooked in favour of the most appropriate specialist for the project. However, location – and especially proximity - should be a critical part of the decision process. For example, if your company is based in Europe, it will be more difficult to outsource from a provider based in Asia, due to a mixture of time, travel, language, and perhaps cultural differences.

How to Avoid the Latest Outsourcing Dangers In 2018!

Posted: 01/04/2018 - 01:14

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. 

Is RPA the Right Tool For You?

Posted: 12/30/2017 - 09:25

Technology is meant to make our lives easier, and there are countless options in the world geared towards decreasing the time and effort spent on boring tasks. You might have heard about RPA recently and are wondering why you might want to implement RPA for your company. Even so, you might also be wondering what makes RPA a unique choice for companies looking for ways to increase their efficiency and decrease costs?

Why an RPA Center of Excellence Might be Right for You

Posted: 12/30/2017 - 04:09

Centers of Excellence (CoE) within Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are similar in many ways to other centers of excellence you may be running across your business. Essentially, a CoE is a centralized capability that enables you to perform all functions necessary for implementation and the ongoing operation of an RPA set of initiatives.

Where Will Outsourcing Head to in 2018?

Posted: 12/29/2017 - 22:16

This time last year I wrote in these pages about the year ahead for outsourcing. The key trend I focused on was an increase in partnership with clients and suppliers getting much closer—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 ‘customer journey.’ Think for a moment about the classic customer journey.

Ronald Dworkin: Trust and Treating Each Other as Equals

Posted: 12/22/2017 - 05:08

This month’s column features big thinker Ronald Dworkin. I like Dworkin because he tackles and integrates major ideas in ethics, morality, equality, justice and the “unity of value.” One of his most famous of many books is entitled Justice for Hedgehogs

Don’t let the humorous book title fool you; there’s no question that Dworkin is a heavyweight. Dworkin is a Professor of Philosophy and the Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University and Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London. 

Will RSO Change the World in 2018?

Posted: 12/22/2017 - 04:55

In 2017, organisations started to get serious about automation. Research from the wider automation industry has revealed a lot about how businesses are developing and controlling their automation programmes. I was recently at the RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) in BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) show in London; here’s a snapshot of the top automation concerns amongst the event attendees I spoke to: 

IT Managed Services: Mitigating Risk and Maintaining Leverage

Posted: 12/15/2017 - 23:19

The managed services market has been an interesting one to watch from a consultant’s point of view. There was a heavy trend towards outsourcing many key areas within IT, only for the pendulum to begin swinging to the other end of the spectrum where clients are now pulling some (or all) of those same services back in-house. Nevertheless, your organization is likely to use some level of managed services within the IT organization given constraints on budget, resources or expertise.

The Value Of Unproductivity

Posted: 12/14/2017 - 06:07

In ‘The Fog’ ("Mad Men" Season 5, Episode 3), SCDP’s creative director, Don Draper, delivers a memorable line for today’s procurement managers and professionals. After being endlessly nagged over the waste of office supplies, alcohol and time by the company's CFO, Lane Price, Draper levels this profound declaration: 

"You came here because we do this better than you. And part of that is letting our creatives be unproductive until they are." 

LATAM Shared Services Digital Summit

This digital summit will connect online over 140 individuals in global shared services who have, or are looking to set up, a shared services center in Latin America. 

Across 2 days, these half-day sessions will host case study presentations and panel discussions specifically tailored to the region.

The main themes of the event are:

Recruiting and developing talent in LATAM

Locations and their benefits and disadvantages

EOS18

Across Europe and the globe, companies are flush with opportunities to transform their businesses, from digitalization and automation to cloud platforms, the IoT and everything in between.

We know all of this affects how the industry looks and acts and how business gets done, but we also know core topics such as management, contracts, negotiations, governance and creating value are still as important as ever.

OWS18

It is happening fast. Old ways give to new business models, processes and
philosophies; collaboration is imperative; innovation is not optional; the workplace is modernized. Technology, like RPA, cognitive, AI and blockchain, are at the forefront of this disruption, but it’s not just tech. Geopolitics have stormed to center stage, turning globalization on its head. The ‘gig economy’ is changing the labor force.  

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