Reports

The detailed introduction of Business Support Services industry in Czech Republic, prepared by CZECHINVEST, an official Czech investment and business development agency.

In most large organizations today, when technology
doesn’t work, the end-user’s performance suffers, and the
organization is increasingly at risk. In nearly three-quarters of
large organizations (> $1 billion in revenue) that participated
in the Unisys End-User Services Research Study, 90% of the
end-users use at least one digital device that is supported
by the IT function. When the technology doesn’t work, or
the end-user doesn’t know how to use it, performance levels
are significantly impacted, as many client-facing functions
(sales, customer service, field repair, marketing, accounts
receivable, etc.) now depend heavily on technology.

Supply Chain Digest today released a major report on the global supply chain. The report, titled The 10 Keys to Global Logistics Excellence, provides a detail overview of key challenges and opportunities facing companies as they expand their initiatives for global sourcing and global market development.

Offshoring is not what it used to be. From the 1970s, when manufacturing jobs were being relocated to low-labor-cost countries, throuth the early 1990s, when IT applications work first migrated to India, offshoring -literally-meant moving jobs elsewhere with all the dislocation and distress that it entailed.

Supply constraints, rising wages and the buyer´s strategy of de-risking offshore operations through global diversification are changing the competitive landscape of the world´s outsoucing market.

A new collection of MGI research, published by Harvard Business School Press, is now available in bookstores and booksellers on-line. This MGI series is designed to offer important ideas and an informed outlook on critical economic issues arising from the integration of global markets.

An examination of service offshoring—the movement of service jobs overseas—forecasts higher than average job losses in twenty-eight U.S. metropolitan areas between 2004 and 2015. Information technology jobs, and the metropolitan areas where they are concentrated, will be hardest hit.

Sourcing the world's most innovative providers of business and technology services starts with our executive annual listing of the top 100 — prepared in conjunction with neoIT — that identifies leaders in 11 service-delivery areas spanning business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, engineering and customer care.

This white paper provides a business case for considering Vietnam as an offshore outsourcing destination, and offers specific examples from the IT and software industries including a US software testing firm with a facility in Vietnam.

Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) have unique IT needs, stemming from low IT budgets and small project sizes in Application Development and Maintenance (ADM) outsourcing, lack of scale in operations, and reliance on business power users of IT in Infrastructure Outsourcing (IO).

Multi-vendor strategy, or multi-sourcing as it is commonly called, is a strategy that fosters competition and increased specialization. Companies which signed up the largest global services deals have succesfully engaged multiple vendors to reduce costs and risks, and increase operational efficiency.

Most companies outsource at least some of their IT work, especially application development and maintenance functions - to India, the U.S., and elsewhere. But it's not all about the money. A new Aberdeen survey has found that companies are banking on the outsourcing of some of their application-related work to help boost the skills of their internal IT professionals and let them plunge their hands into more strategic initiatives.

In June 2004, the first Offshore City Competitiveness Report was released, which ranked 27 Indian Cities based on their attractiveness for offshoring. The services globalization landscape has seen a major change since then. Companies have moved beyond India to explore a multitude of other cities.

Recent months have offered plenty of fresh evidence that the world is falling apart. Conflict in the Middle East, a nuclear stalemate between Iran and the West, perilously high oil prices, and the collapse of the Doha round of global trade talks all suggest a world that has gone off the rails. In this volatile environment, isolation has a powerful appeal.

Globalisation, defined as an increasingly integrated world economy, has the potential to generate the largest structural upheaval in economies since the industrial revolution. As in the past, this process is being underpinned by both technological change and by a shift in policies in many countries towards a more open, market based, system of economic governance...

Offshoring is now a widespread business practice in the software industry and it has become “business as usual”. Offshoring is now accepted as a normal business practice across the globe, particularly in the US, says SandHill Group, creator of high-impact research reports for the IT industry.

The UK is experiencing a boom in demand for business-related IT skills, early findings from the latest Computer Weekly/SSL Survey of Appointments Data and Trends have revealed.

The number of job adverts for MIS and IT managers increased by close to 30% in the first quarter of 2006. Demand for business systems analysts and project managers also rose by more than 20%, according to the survey of recruitment advertising on the internet and in the press conducted by research firm SSL.

Software's Offshoring Leaders confirms that more software companies are sending work offshore than ever before. This new study from the Sand Hill Group updates the first ever study of offshoring activity by software companies conducted in 2003. More than 50 software executives shared their offshoring experiences  both good and bad - and related first-hand insight on best practices.

 Capgemini hostes IDC Outsourcing Forum East, where almost 300 executives shared BPO best practices. The audience participated in a survey to identify best practices, as well as gauge levels of interest and satisfaction of outsourcing engagements in the market.

• Service companies can't measure and reduce variance as easily as manufacturers can. Service tasks vary, depending on the person performing the service, differences in customer behavior, and the business environment.
• Services can be measured and their variance controlled by following three principles: benchmark internally, measure the drivers of cost, and make metrics accurate enough to identify all relevant costs.
• A cost tree is an invaluable tool for spotting activities and locations in which variance destroys margins.
• Implementing a measurement system is a tricky but important first step to reducing variance and improving the productivity of services.