Our ancestors in India always told us that it was a sin to cross the oceans (and many in India do not cross oceans even today). There was something about globalisation that they just did not like and I have not been able to figure out what it is.
Peter Dickinson is a partner at international law firm Mayer Brown and co-leads their global Technology Transactions practice; he's also a hugely respected thought leader and a regular contributor to Outsource, offering insight on a broad range of legal and technological issues. A perfect fit, in other words, for our Life Lessons series: take it away, Peter...
Outsource got together with Alex at October's SIG Summit in California to hear his thoughts on how his organisation is reacting to current changes in the market landscape; the pros and cons of decentralisation; the importance of "China for China"; and why the automation revolution offers huge opportunities - and challenges...
Outsource: So, Alex, what are you guys up to at the moment?
The IT and tech sectors have long suffered from an epidemic of high turnover rates, shared by businesses that are great at acquiring, but terrible at retaining, these professionals. Prior research has found that factors such as low job satisfaction, poor organisational commitment and an abundance of alternative jobs on offer globally have contributed to an above-average rate of the movement of talent within these spheres.
Open data – that is, publically available data that is free for all to use – is set to have a monumental impact on societies in the next five years. Whether it’s information regarding public transport, city policy or city infrastructures, open data enables public sector bodies, businesses and citizens to make more informed decisions about the things that really matter in their society.
Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the global supply chain hasn’t really changed all that much. Products are made from raw materials in factories, shipped off somewhere else (either by land or sea), stored in a warehouse, and then distributed to retailers. Beyond a few small differences, this is more or less the way most people have acquired their stuff for nearly two hundred years.
Earlier today, I had the great pleasure of hosting the seventh episode of Outsource Talks, our webinar series – for those of you not yet familiar with this especially marvellous project - that brings the time-honoured talkshow model to the international sourcing, outsourcing and business transformation community.
The formation of a good sourcing agreement relies on clear thinking and agreement between the parties on what is to be done, why and how. The market and technology are changing so rapidly that the next agreement is likely to bear little resemblance to the last. How to make sure we ask the right questions and not just the obvious of the suppliers and ourselves?
Your mess for less
In days of old, when suppliers were big, profitable and mostly American, the questions to be asked to define what a customer wanted of a new service addressed aspects such as:
Recently, Genfour conducted a survey amongst UK and US business leaders on their views about robotics and automation.
Faced with a seemingly endless cycle of disruptive technology and increasingly inflexible budgets, IT executives have their work cut out when it comes to making decisions about how to improve operations and meet demanding business needs without driving costs up. Today's heavy-handed drive for cost savings necessitates that IT services are demonstrably aligned with business priorities.
We often hear stories of business relationships that appeared strong suddenly turning sour. These relationships may even have existed for some time. So what is going on? It is likely acts of opportunism.
More and more facilities and IT organisations are outsourcing their services. They may have a lot to gain; for example, outsourcing these services can lead to leaner organisations less bogged down by technical pursuits. Unfortunately, outsourcing does not always improve efficiency, and when done badly can have a negative effect on services. The following are two examples that help explain how IT and facilities organisations handle outsourcing, and what this can mean…
Outsourcing services gone wrong
Maybe Daniel Decatur Emmett will forgive me for “borrowing” some lyrics from his iconic 1850s American folk song, ‘Dixie’. I do this to encourage British business to look further afield for IT outsourcing services, as encouraged by Brexit. The USA and its domestic or onshoring companies represent a great but seldom considered alternative.
Outsource: Joe, thank you very much for joining Outsource today. We always begin interviews by asking for a little bit of an introduction to yourself and your organisation for our readers – so, over to you…
Joe Musacchio: I am the CEO of PeopleTicker. PeopleTicker is a rate and benchmarking tool, we cover salary and contingent labour benchmarking. We basically help companies that want to know how much somebody costs, for projects, individuals, recruitment, sourcing, and procurement.
Throughout the last ten years of my career as part of Capgemini’s BPO unit I have seen digital innovation transform our personal lives exponentially in terms of smartphones, streaming services and access to real-time information updates. The natural consequence is that we now expect the same level of responsiveness, quality and dynamic interaction in our professional lives as we’ve become accustomed to outside of work. This has resulted in a plethora of changes in terms of what is expected from outsourced services
