The Outsourcing Blog..."Horses for Sources"

Will the EDS acquisition spark a BPO feeding frenzy?

So HP acquired EDS.  Wow.  Biggest services news since HP acquired Compaq a week before 9/11?  In my opinion it is, anyway.

We discussed here in January the issue of consolidation among large outsourcing suppliers, and the general view was one that we would be unlikely to see acquisition among services firms that were similar in nature:

Outsourcers like to acquire firms that bring something new to the table to enhance their outsourcing offerings - for example new technologies, or a niche expertise that gives them competitive advantage.  Too many large outsourcers are too similar... they overlap too much and a merger would often end up as an unprofitable exercise and result in a mass exodus of key talent.

So the HP / EDS merger goes against the grain.  We noted some specific areas where there are some strong complimentary offerings - namely in BPO areas - but the overwhelming motive for the merger is  one of scale and going-big to compete more effectively with IBM.  The increased BPO delivery capability also puts HP on a firmer footing against the other global BPOs, namely Accenture, ACS, Capgemini, Infosys, Wipro and TCS.  The newly-merged entity needs to examine how it builds out its business consulting and transformation expertise further if it wants to challenge the both IBM and Accenture's BPO market leadership.

This merger-event could change the game considerably, and we could see other BPO suppliers to re-evaluate their acquisition strategies to generate more global scale and increase their client-bases.  With the cost of client acquisition becoming increasingly prohibitive, the valuations of services firms decreasing in these market conditions, and the desire of many enterprises to move into more rapid outsourcing engagements, the leading vendors need additional scale and capacity.   So this begs the question whether we could see some similar-scale outsourcing services mergers in the near-term? 

Please vote on the toolbar to the left whom you think is likely to be acquired over the next year - you can have up to three choices.  I included major BPO suppliers with revenues under $9 billion and significant BPO client-bases.  I would also love to hear your views on how the HP/EDS merger will impact consolidation in the BPO industry.

Please cast your vote(s) on the toolbar to the left 

Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO)

I am in the throes of writing a series of research articles in this area and welcome any contributions from people in the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) industry.  If you are a user of KPO services, or an outsourcing vendor providing them, I would like to hear from you.

As companies tackle how to leverage third-party services for activities that require a certain level of customization, we are seeing new and established outsourcing service providers branching into KPO services in areas such as financial, legal, marketing, sales and accounting services.  While BPO typifies services that are relatively standardized, KPO represents those that require tailoring to the needs of the customer.  The benefits go beyond simple cost-savings and provide resources and skills that many firms simply do not have, or do not wish to employ inhouse full-time.  For example, most enterprises today cannot afford a full-time inhouse attorney, so use third-party legal services as and when they need them.  But why go to a top-end law firm when you can now get many legal services provided from offshore outsourcers, such as Infosys?

Bored? Look no further

Clearly you have far too much time on your hands if you're spending time here, so here are more places to go to fill those vacant hours.  This is especially for all you sourcing consultants who went out of your way to vote for yourselves as the "top place to go to get balanced advice on outsourcing" - c'mon chaps get real -:)

IBM vs. Tata: Who's More American? - Businessweek's Steve Hamm raises some incisive points, namely, TCS, India's largest tech-services company, collected 51% of its revenues in North America last quarter, while 65% of IBM's were overseas.   Builds upon some of the issues we discussed here last year;

Meet me in India!

I'm going on a tour of the sub-continent in June, stopping in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, where I will be speaking at the Nasscom BPO strategy summit.  Drop me an email if you want to meet up while I'm over.

HP/EDS redux

I know several of you are hounding me for my views here... we've put out a couple of pieces on this today at AMR - check out Bruce Richardson's blog where he raises the discussion. 

I have to confess this one came completely out of left-field while I was traveling, but does tally well with HP's focus on bundled BPO.  All-in-all, these are my key takeaways from this eventful day:

No-one saw this one coming, most of us were expecting one of the Indian providers merging with EDS.  This now raises the possibility of further mergers in services, even though this was looking unlikely until recently.  The incumbent Western providers need scale and depth to compete effectively with the lower-cost Indian firms, and we could see a response from one of the other top tier firms to swallow up one of the vulnerable services firms.

On the BPO side, this is a great move, with the merger filling both companies’ BPO portfolio gaps, most notably in finance and accounting (F&A) and HR processes.  As we discussed a few weeks' ago, BPO market leaders Accenture and IBM have already been aggressively pushing their combined portfolios of finance and accounting and HR BPO services, with increasing emphasis on bundling these services with their application outsourcing services.   HP is looking to follow suit, with the likes of Cap Gemini, Infosys, Wipro and TCS avidly observing how they can broaden their global BPO and IT services depth, scale and industry specialization.  Now HP has deep HR delivery expertise to draw on, which elevates its bundling capability, in addition to EDS's $1 billion call center outsourcing and global IT services business.

Culturally, this is definitely an odd one to fathom, but Mark Hurd has the track record and financial discipline to make this merger a success.  He also got a good valuation for the firm, so now was probably a good time to strike.

Interesting times... maybe we'll have some more days like this in the coming months?

Ensure you have a solid platform before you seal the deal

Anyone from the UK will appreciate this...

Whom do you trust for balanced outsourcing advice?

I wrote a piece entitled "Blog-culture is ripping up the rule book for the outsourcing services and technology media industry" a few weeks' ago which raised a few eyebrows.  OK, it's a litttle biased and I was on my high-horse, but it did raise several questions on where people go to get balanced, insightful information on the outsourcing industry that they can rely on.  So, please choose your preferred three information outlets on the poll to the left side-bar.  And please be honest :)

For the results of this poll, please click on the continuation sheet.

Is it time to dump the term "outsourcing"?

Having worked on a large number of "O" initiatives with enterprises over the last few years, the term outsourcing has given me nothing but problems. The minute the "O" word is uttered, staff get defensive, passions get stirred, resistance occurs.  Often staff quickly brush up their CVs for a hasty exit before the axe falls.  Staff and management tend to associate outsourcing with job losses, and their firms using low-cost labor from service providers. 

But what else can you use when you are looking to move into a multi-year engagement with  third-party service provider, where you will use their staff, technology and processes and likely reduce your own inhouse overhead?  I have experienced companies trying to disguise the fact they are outsourcing by labeling their service initiative as "out-tasking", "co-sourcing", "right-sizing", or even "resource-optimizing" (oh, there is more...).   Peter Allen also chips in with his preferred term "services contracting".  However you want to spin it, your staff will view it as outsourcing, and the more you try and disguise the taboo term, the more suspicious your staff will be that you are simply trying to ship them out for lower-cost labor.   

Personally, I prefer the term "managed services", as staff are not always transitioned out of the organization, and management responsibility for running the contracted services is transitioned over to the third-party provider.  However, outsourcing has become ingrained in modern business vernacular, not dissimilar to information technology.  It describes the activity a company goes through when it engages a third-party to take on the management of specific IT or business services on a long-term basis.  However, I would stress that outsourcing these days describes the activity of evaluating and transitioning the processes and not normally the long-term management of them.  For example, if a company decides to engage ADP to take on its payroll services, it will say "we're outsourcing our payroll to ADP".  However, ask the same company how they run their payroll a couple of years later, and it will say "we use ADP for payroll".  It won't say "we outsource our payroll to ADP".

So all-in-all, if you are looking to outsource processes, be upfront with your staff and tell them you are looking at outsourcing opportunities.  Explain they are a key part of making this outsourcing initiative successful and you need them onboard to support the initiative.  It will be good for their career, and they will have the chance to take on new tasks that are more core the the business - for example vendor and service-level management and higher-level business activities that directly impact senior management decision-making.   The more upfront you are with what you are doing, the more your key staff will appreciate the honest communication, and the more likely they will be supportive and proactive in making it work.  If they still resist and try to derail the process, at least you know who the dissenters are and who may not be onboard the train once it has left the station.

If you have any preferred terms for outsourcing, I'd love to hear from you...

Retail therapy....replaid

For those of you who missed today's webcast on outsourcing and offshoring for the retail sector, you can access a replay here.

Why are you calling it outsourcing in the first place?

I've been enjoying some great comments from people these past months and thought it time to highlight the occasional contribution that got me thinking "good point!".  The recent post entitled "Is it time to dump the term outsourcing?" has - and still is - produced some superb discussion, in particular one comment from Robert Jakobson, a program manager and 15-year veteran with IBM, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, who puts forward a great argument on why some enterprises use the "O" term in the first place.  Enjoy.

Join the BPO and Offshoring Best Practices Forum

I am extending an invitation to HFS readers apply to join our new networking group on LinkedIn entitled the "BPO and Offshoring Best Practices Forum".  This is intended to be a forum for leading outsourcing executives to share their experiences, views, opinions, best practices and lessons learned in the world of business process outsourcing and offshoring.

Sign up now!

Are we reaching an inflection point of business globalization?

I can't help feeling we are entering into a critical phase of business globalization, due to a convergence of factors.   We have seen these global dynamics in play for the last 30 years, but we are now in an economy where today's CEOs are aware they need the tools at their disposal to become truly integrated global enterprises.

I was privileged to have a preview of IBM's new study of 1100 CEOs this week at its analyst event in New York, and, while the findings are under embargo until next Tuesday's public release, I can say they reinforced one thing for me:  the vast majority of today's CEOs recognize the need for change, and are more prepared than ever to be bold and adopt measures that can drive rapid change through their organization.   So why is now different from that of 5 years' ago, or 25 years' ago?

Bada Din comes late this year for Indian outsourcers: the Indian STPI tax holiday is extended

The Indian Government has clearly been reading this blog and bowed to our pressure to extend the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) tax holiday.  The Indian finance minister has now proposed to extend the  STPI tax holiday to expire on March 31 2010, a year later than the originally stipulated March 31 2009 date. 

This is a shot in the arm for the Indian offshore services sector, and the shares of Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Cognizant, WNS, Patni, Satyam, EXL Service, Genpact et al. are all expected to jump by up to 10% as a result.  The additional year should give the Indian outsourcing industry the time it needs to stabilize its current issues with Rupee appreciation and wage inflation.

Thanks to all you for you great contributions on this issue.

Long-term contract renewals: the real litmus test

Following hot on the heels of our recently debated issues regarding the future health of the HR Outsourcing industry, I was delighted to see Convergys renewed its multi-scope HRO engagement with Avaya today for a further five years.   I have some personal experience of this engagement from its transition a few years' ago, when Avaya moved onto a global hub-and-spoke model underpinned by SAP's HR platform, that included a complex global payroll roll-out.  Convergys is also in the midst of global transitions with both DuPont and Johnson & Johnson (both signed after Avaya), and the successful - and lengthy - Avaya renewal spells good news to these more recent adopters of HRO seeking reasurance that their firm chose the right HR deployment model.

In my view, you can only truly judge the success of an outsourcing business when the initial wave of adopters renew for long periods.  We have discussed many of the issues this industry faces, but the ultimate proof is in the pudding, and so far, we are seeing the early adopters choose to remain in an HRO delivery environment.  These are the companies which have worked through the early complexities and found their status quo with their service providers.  I'd like to congratulate both Convergys and Avaya's HR leadership for their renewed relationship and finding a successful balance.

HROWorld 2008: An industry re-inventing itself

Braving the annual industry HRO schmooze fest this year, I realized I was emulating Roger Federer’s extraordinary Wimbledon run by making it to my fifth-consecutive show.  Only an elite few have made all six – at least I can’t claim that honor -:)

From the moment I stepped into Naomi Bloom’s Brazen Hussies event on Tuesday night and was ordered to eat a heavily-garlicked vol-au-vent with the instruction “we’ve all had one, and so should you”, I knew something interesting was in the air this year.

For starters, all the industry big-guns were there; the leading HRO providers with all had their head honchos; the sourcing advisors; both SAP's and Oracle's BPO teams espousing the virtues of outsourcing on their ERP platforms; every staffing, benefits, talent management, data-something-or-other firm you’d never heard of; and even a few mercenary analysts dotted around the place.  We even had a new double-act to entertain us – the Elliot and Richard show, moderated by the vivacious and cabalistic Jay Whitehead.  This was one networking event when you just had to be there.

So, in true HROWorld tradition, I slammed myself with 20 back-to-back meetings over the two days, supplemented with a constant supply of stale coffee and a constant stream of sales literature I will cherish for a long time (ahem). 

My overall impression of the state of HRO is one of re-engineering to get this right.  This was the resounding message I got from several discussions with the market-makers in this industry. OK, we’ve had a few non-starters recently, but let’s emphasize these were projects that were cancelled before any implementation work had taken place, and in several cases, the contract had just never quite made it to fruition.  This doesn’t imply that HRO is failing; it implies that some businesses have made strategic decisions that now isn’t the right time to undergo open-heart HR surgery on themselves.  And do you blame some of these firms, when the bottom has fallen out of their industry and they might just have some other urgent priorities to rectify?

I wrote a year ago that the industry crystallized around the Convergys/J&J deal, and I was right.  What I liked about this show was the serious discussion on what works in HRO versus what doesn’t.  There was a refreshing honesty from almost everyone regarding the steps suppliers and buyers need to take to make this work…and so much less hype.  In fact we had so little hype, we could have used some.  Most of the suppliers are seriously focusing on what they are good at, and crafting HRO solutions based on their core strengths.  The need for standards and common service levels was discussed at length, with several ongoing initiatives in the industry currently focused on the joint-development of common HR standards and technologies that enable a more robust, repeatable HR delivery model. 

There was universal recognition that HRO works when solutions are crafted from the bottom-up, with services added incrementally and HR leaders having more time to develop successful governance practices, as opposed to some of these massive end-to-end “big-bang” deployments, that have often resulted in a misalignment of expectations and delivery.  This isn’t failure or disaster; it’s a 9 year-old industry testing the boundaries of what works - and what doesn’t.  I’ve been at pains recently to point-out that 97% of HRO deals have succeeded – and by succeeded, I emphasize that they are plugging away to get this right.

Let’s be brutally honest here, this is business process outsourcing – and this is a tough complex business, where things can only go wrong.  You really cannot judge the “success” of any major outsourcing engagement until it’s at least 3 years’ along and transition has been completed.  The day of the billion-dollar mega-HRO deal may be over for now, but take some time to look at the plethora of these “bottom-up” engagements taking place, where companies like ADP and Ceridian are racking up their HRO clientele at double-digit growth rates; look at Hewitt’s re-focused strategy on centering its core benefits outsourcing business as the kernel of its HRO delivery model; and look at Accenture's and IBM’s continuing efforts to optimize their global HRO engagement models, with HR service-delivery centers employing thousands of service personnel across several global locations. The seeds of this industry have been sewn, and we’ve had our reality check.  Now it’s time to move on and watch some great companies make this thing work.

Quest for an Organic Approach to Offshore Outsourcing

One of the toughest challenges for businesses today is trying to retrofit offshore operations once they have evaluated what work to send offshore or outsource.  They can spend months - or even years - strategizing how to do this effectively.   I am honored to welcome Uttiya Dasgupta discuss his theories on developing a phased approach to implementing an offshore outsourcing initiative.  Uttiya is one of the industry's first genuine offshoring pioneers, having set up and managed IBM's first offshore dedicated center in Bangalore in the 1980's, in addition to helping Texas Instuments and Samsung establish their offshore operations.  He now heads up his own outsourcing consulting firm Omnispan.  Over to you Uttiya:

Is the sub-prime lending crisis placing outsourcing engagements on the backburner, or providing an impetus to proceed faster?

UBS has shelved their planned HRO engagement with ACS and IBM as a result of its issues with the sub-prime lending crisis, the economy and their internal business uncertainty.  Like the recent Starbucks cancellation of their HRO engagement, plans have been waylaid to progress into a major HRO implementation due to changes in the business, as opposed to any operational issues.

What concerns me is the level of short-term-ism that some companies are currently adopting, with their looking only at the next quarter, as opposed to the longer-term picture.  I do believe this crisis will provide the outsourcing industry with a mixed-bag of opportunities, with some firms viewing the bigger picture and moving more aggressively into outsourcing initiatives, and others, like UBS, deferring decisions over long-term initiatives such as HRO, as they monitor the current economic situation and figure out their survival tactics.  Surely this is a perfect time to embrace changes to your business that will drive lower operating costs and new ways of doing things?  I'd be interested in your views....

F&A BPO: 107 contracts in 2007... more to follow?

As speculated during our March recap, the F&A BPO market is bounding on.  I can now  confirm (and you heard it here first) there were 107 multi-process F&A BPO contracts signed in 2007 - that's 20% growth over 2006.  In addition, the average contract value stabilized at the $33m level.  I'll be delving more into this market in my research in the coming weeks.  Strong performances from Accenture, IBM, Genpact, HP, InfosysBPO and Vengroff Williams were the prime catalysts for the record year.  The outlook for this year is even stronger.

I have always been a believer in a robust business model for F&A BPO - it balances the benefits of offshore resources with financial workflow solutions, and - in theory - allows finance executives to focus more time on delivering their leadership information they need to base business decisions - and less time overseeing tactical process issues.  However, like any solution involving the transition of labour and processes, the success of F&A BPO depends heavily on the buyer's patience and ability to get the best out of their vendor, and their willingness to re-tool themselves to operate in an outsourced environment. 

In any case, it's going to be a fascinating period ahead for this market with the economic situation. Some companies will aggressively pursue outsourcing strategies, spurred on by the cost-savings, while others will adopt a short-term mindset of "getting through the next quarter", and the upheaval of a multi-year outsourcing engagement will be low on the priority list.