By Heather Littlejohns
Companies seeking to locate new outsourced or shared services centers to offshore or near shore locations typically focus their exploration on factors such as price, local government support and incentives, cultural affinity with the target market, unemployment rates, labor pool, language skills, etc. But are companies really taking the necessary time to explore, assess and discuss their own points of differentiation as they are perceived by the local population?
US and Europe to Lose Millions of Business Services Jobs as Part of “Natural Evolution” of Globalization
April 4th, 2012By Jon Tonti
Of the 8.2 million business services jobs held domestically at the beginning of 2002 in some 4,700 companies based in North America and Europe only 4.5 million will remain in their domestic markets by 2016 according to a study by The Hackett Group, a management consulting firm. The same study finds that the amount of business services work moving offshore will “level off significantly” during the next few years due to changes in the conditions of offshore drivers.
Customers Make Clear that Outsourcing is About Adding Value
April 4th, 2012
By Robert L. Scheier
As the global economy improves, customers are looking to outsourcers to not only save money, but to drive growth, improve quality and drive innovation.
Those were among the key themes from two days prowling the corridors and break-outs at the Sourcing Interest Group (SIG) spring summit. Speaker after speaker, whether the topic was procurement, category management or macroeconomic trends, described how their employers are trying to use outsourcers not “just” to save money but to make a more strategic contribution.
By Luke Bujarski
The next-generation of outsourcers could soon be relocating to a place most of us only hear about after the news of some high-profile tax scandal hits the morning papers. With only 55,000 inhabitants, it doesn’t take long to realize that the Cayman Islands will never be Latin America’s BPO workhorse. Yet, this has not stopped real estate group Cayman City Enterprise from working with the local authority to build out a 50-acre business park catering to, among other niche industries, outsourced services firms.
India’s Outsourcing Giants Continue to Grow Amid Uncertainty
March 13th, 2012
By Clayton Browne
India has been the dominant player in offshore outsourcing since its infancy in the 1980s and today represents around half of the total international IT outsourcing and BPO industry. Indian outsourcing companies employ more than 2.2 million people and expect to earn more than $50 billion in total revenue in 2012.
Trowbridge tells conference: Agility is "good news, bad news."
By Dan Berthiaume
Attending the 16th annual North American Shared Services & Outsourcing Week hosted by SSON in Orlando last week was an opportunity to catch up on trends and innovations in shared services and BPO. It was also a reminder that outsourcing is a truly global phenomenon and a key driver of international commerce. The exhibit floor included representatives of groups promoting outsourcing in emerging BPO delivery destinations such as Lithuania and Costa Rica, as well as several established Indian providers, and a poolside cocktail reception was hosted by Scottish Development International.
Patent Processing Signals New Opportunities for Central America
March 8th, 2012
Marlett: From Managua to Wall Street.
By Luke Bujarski
Nicaragua might be among the poorest of countries in the western hemisphere, but that hasn’t stopped MDB Capital Group from ramping up an ambitious patents processing operation there. In fact, widespread underemployment is one secret to the success behind PatentVest, the knowledge process outsourcing subsidiary of MDB Capital Group, on the ground in Managua since 2007.
Mexico Increasingly Competitive
March 8th, 2012Source: Smart Planet
U.S. companies looking to outsource IT services and business processes are increasingly eyeing Latin America, and Mexico in particular.
It’s “near shore” versus offshore in action.
Closer to home than India or China, often with a deeper cultural affinity (especially among Southwestern states), Mexico has become an increasingly competitive option in the past five years.
“Mexico has made important advances,” said Javier Allard, president of the Mexican IT industry trade group AMITI. “We don’t want to compete with India, China or the Philippines. There are many niches.”
Neoris, a Mexico-based company that provides IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) services in Mexico, Argentina and elsewhere around the globe, is one of the companies seeing gains, as demand for near shore outsourcing from U.S. companies grows.
Neoris handles the e-commerce portal for a major home improvement retail chain; manages “enterprise resource planning,” or ERP, for an auto parts manufacturer and oversees …
BPO Brief: Expect Aggressive Growth in the Dominican Republic
February 29th, 2012By Luke Bujarski
Martinez: More than just a job.
The contact center industry in the Dominican Republic is poised to double in size from 10,000 to 20,000 bilingual agents by 2017. This is the message passed on by Eddy Martinez, president of the export and foreign investment agency CEI-RD, as well as key industry insiders during detailed discussions with Nearshore Americas. However, concerns about the availability of high-tech talent suggests that the DR still has some way to go before moving into higher-end software and application development services.
Clients Breaking New Ground with Shared Services Innovations
February 27th, 2012
By Dan Berthiaume
Shared services, or the combining of similar outsourced functions, provide BPO customers the opportunity to create savings and spur improvements in specific areas of the company. However, end users are now going further and are applying shared services across different sectors of the company and using them to get a better analysis of the future, improve their management of human resources, among other solutions.
