Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

Change Management For Shared Services And BPO - Part 1
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Suresh_Oberoi]Suresh Oberoi

This article provides guidance on change management for organizations that are specifically undertaking or contemplating a shared service or business process management (BPO) initiative.

Change management is a critical part of any project which involves skillful judgment that will enable people to accept the new procedures, technologies, systems, structures and values.

To ensure successful organizational transformation, establishment of new policies, procedures and processes is not enough. Research shows that over 80 percent of projects fail when 'organization transition issues' aren't addressed. When people are not fully prepared, they deny or resist the change. Hence, it is vital to understand, plan and implement the practical steps in order to provide assistance to people through transition.

Effective change management and good communication bring down the risk and potential costs, while increasing the likelihood of successful transition and improving the connection between the services provider and the retained functions.

Normally in a shared services and BPO program there are two main things that change:

Through the best process, often in conjunction with employee and manager self service and automated reporting, there is a delivery of in-scope services from a shared services or BPO operation. Often this aspect is referred to as the transition to shared services.
Transition is defined as the program of work needed to finalize the design, to manage the procurement and for building and implementing the agreed multifunctional shared service or BPO.
There is a new centre of attraction for the 'retained organization' on value added activity in support of the frontline. This includes working with the business to replace the position of finance, HR, etc. and of making changes associated to organization structures and skills within the maintained functions. Usually, this aspect is referred as the transformation of the retained function

Transformation is stated as the activities required for aligning and improving the work of the retained HR and finance functions in each department. Moreover, it is also needed to provide a program office support to manipulate both the transition and transformation activities. http://www.itmatchonline.com/article/Change_Management_for_Shared_Services_and_BPO_Part_1.php

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Suresh_Oberoi http://EzineArticles.com/?Change-Management-For-Shared-Services-And-BPO---Part-1&id=763906


Posted By: Illusion Technologies
http://www.illusiontechnologies.com

The Growth Of Offshore Business Process Outsourcing
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Hunter]Kelly Hunter

In the fast-moving world of Information technology, Business Process Outsourcing, or BPO as it is known, has rapidly taken hold of the industry. It is heralded as the perfect answer to minimising costs, but is it all it’s cracked up to be? Sometimes contractors make costly mistakes, as you will gather below.

Services are contracted remotely, with practically no overheads in terms of employee insurance and benefits, let alone running costs of an office. The tasks most appropriate to outsourcing tend to be back office, such as billing and purchasing. Front office tasks would be customer care, marketing and technical support, which many companies prefer to take care of themselves.

The contracted personnel are often located in a different country from the contractor. This is known as offshore outsourcing, and can lead to time-difference problems and delays in communications, particularly between countries where the Internet infrastructure is not very reliable.

The most popular countries for offshore outsourcing are India (commanding a whopping 63% of the market), Eastern Europe, The Philippines and South Africa, with China a more recent runner in the race to supply the occident with low-cost labour. These countries are a natural choice, because of the strong presence of the English language and the extremely low wage costs, which are often about a tenth of what a worker from the same country as the contractor would charge. India, however, seems to be slowly loosening its stranglehold on the industry, having dropped seven percentile points since last year, although BPO there in general is expected to continue to grow. Transferring risks to the outsourced vendor is an attractive prospect, but the range services which can be thus provided is limited. Processes such as human resources, finance and administration are just too complex to be offered on this basis. The BPO market is expected to grow to $146 billion in 2008, although in a fragmented market of single bulk transactions, shared services and vertical processes and applications.

So what is the experience of this kind of contracting? Many companies experimenting with BPO report inflexibility of contracts, management problems and erratic performance. Certain tasks which are expensive to administrate at home are only tentatively being offered to outsourcers, because of doubts about the ability to cope with complex tasks and problems of control of the quality of the processes remotely.

The most likely candidates for offshore outsourcing are repetitive, transaction-intensive processes, although many businesses are unwilling to give up control of the processes because of strategic or security risks. Viable options here would be offshore insourcing or shared service centers. The fastest growing sector of the BPO market is set to be simple bulk transactions, predicted to expand to $58 billion in 2008. This segment includes the simplest tasks for vendors to master, such as credit card or stock trade processing.

Broad shared services will, at $57 billion, be the second most popular sector by 2008, meaning finance, administration and human resources. A smaller segment will be high-volume vertical processes, with a predicted volume of $6 billion by 2008. You can go to http://www.business-process-outsourcing-guide.com to find more information on business process outsourcing.

The smallest, currently at about $5 billion, will be niche vertical applications, although this segment is expected to take a massive upturn once customers become comfortable with outsourcing in these areas, to achieve $24 billion in 2008. These applications include complex processes such as data reporting on the environment and the monitoring of chemical process, matters which require a very high level of specialization.

Kelly Hunter operates http://www.business-process-outsourcing-guide.com and writes about Business Process Outsourcing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Hunter http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Growth-Of-Offshore-Business-Process-Outsourcing&id=755504


Posted By: Illusion Technologies
http://www.illusiontechnologies.com

The Growth Of Offshore Business Process Outsourcing
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Hunter]Kelly Hunter

In the fast-moving world of Information technology, Business Process Outsourcing, or BPO as it is known, has rapidly taken hold of the industry. It is heralded as the perfect answer to minimising costs, but is it all it’s cracked up to be? Sometimes contractors make costly mistakes, as you will gather below.

Services are contracted remotely, with practically no overheads in terms of employee insurance and benefits, let alone running costs of an office. The tasks most appropriate to outsourcing tend to be back office, such as billing and purchasing. Front office tasks would be customer care, marketing and technical support, which many companies prefer to take care of themselves.

The contracted personnel are often located in a different country from the contractor. This is known as offshore outsourcing, and can lead to time-difference problems and delays in communications, particularly between countries where the Internet infrastructure is not very reliable.

The most popular countries for offshore outsourcing are India (commanding a whopping 63% of the market), Eastern Europe, The Philippines and South Africa, with China a more recent runner in the race to supply the occident with low-cost labour. These countries are a natural choice, because of the strong presence of the English language and the extremely low wage costs, which are often about a tenth of what a worker from the same country as the contractor would charge. India, however, seems to be slowly loosening its stranglehold on the industry, having dropped seven percentile points since last year, although BPO there in general is expected to continue to grow. Transferring risks to the outsourced vendor is an attractive prospect, but the range services which can be thus provided is limited. Processes such as human resources, finance and administration are just too complex to be offered on this basis. The BPO market is expected to grow to $146 billion in 2008, although in a fragmented market of single bulk transactions, shared services and vertical processes and applications.

So what is the experience of this kind of contracting? Many companies experimenting with BPO report inflexibility of contracts, management problems and erratic performance. Certain tasks which are expensive to administrate at home are only tentatively being offered to outsourcers, because of doubts about the ability to cope with complex tasks and problems of control of the quality of the processes remotely.

The most likely candidates for offshore outsourcing are repetitive, transaction-intensive processes, although many businesses are unwilling to give up control of the processes because of strategic or security risks. Viable options here would be offshore insourcing or shared service centers. The fastest growing sector of the BPO market is set to be simple bulk transactions, predicted to expand to $58 billion in 2008. This segment includes the simplest tasks for vendors to master, such as credit card or stock trade processing.

Broad shared services will, at $57 billion, be the second most popular sector by 2008, meaning finance, administration and human resources. A smaller segment will be high-volume vertical processes, with a predicted volume of $6 billion by 2008. You can go to http://www.business-process-outsourcing-guide.com to find more information on business process outsourcing.

The smallest, currently at about $5 billion, will be niche vertical applications, although this segment is expected to take a massive upturn once customers become comfortable with outsourcing in these areas, to achieve $24 billion in 2008. These applications include complex processes such as data reporting on the environment and the monitoring of chemical process, matters which require a very high level of specialization.

Kelly Hunter operates http://www.business-process-outsourcing-guide.com and writes about Business Process Outsourcing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Hunter http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Growth-Of-Offshore-Business-Process-Outsourcing&id=755504

Posted By: Illusion Technologies
http://www.illusiontechnologies.com

Knowledge Process Outsourcing: A Brand New Type of Outsourcing
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Olga_Makhnach]Olga Makhnach

The countries, which have established the greatest number of knowledge process outsourcing firms, are India, Philippines and China. These countries possess extensive knowledge banks and enough professionals in different fields for fulfilling the knowledge process needs of businesses in the USA. The work of knowledge process outsourcing firms requires profound analytical and highly specialized skills.

It is estimated, that knowledge process outsourcing is rather prospective and is going to grow in the next few years. Most probably, the area of information technology services, which is currently provided by knowledge process outsourcing firms will expand and include such services as intellectual property services, clinical research, legal research, business research, analytics and publishing.

Right now, knowledge process outsourcing firms specialize in the fields of content writing and rewriting, research and development, patent research, pharmaceutical technology, equity research, market research, data research, database management, finance modeling, design and development in various industries, animation, medical reports and services, distance education. Engineers, doctors, attorneys and many other professionals are becoming more and more popular.

Experts of the market research industry have already evaluated all the benefits produced by knowledge process outsourcing firms and have started to outsource the fields in which technology and [http://www.moveyourweb.net/solutions.html]IT solutions can seriously improve the research process. The researches are highly profitable as they are really cost effective. Even small companies can make use of them, not having to increase their budget spending. Therefore, knowledge process outsourcing is a really proven method of quickly boosting the productivity and cost savings in the field of market research.

Olga Makhnach, copywriter for MoveYourWeb [http://www.moveyourweb.net]Offshore Web Development Company

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Olga_Makhnach http://EzineArticles.com/?Knowledge-Process-Outsourcing:-A-Brand-New-Type-of-Outsourcing&id=509643


Posted By: Illusion Technologies
http://www.illusiontechnologies.com

The Growth Of Offshore Business Process Outsourcing
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Hunter]Kelly Hunter

In the fast-moving world of Information technology, Business Process Outsourcing, or BPO as it is known, has rapidly taken hold of the industry. It is heralded as the perfect answer to minimising costs, but is it all it’s cracked up to be? Sometimes contractors make costly mistakes, as you will gather below.

Services are contracted remotely, with practically no overheads in terms of employee insurance and benefits, let alone running costs of an office. The tasks most appropriate to outsourcing tend to be back office, such as billing and purchasing. Front office tasks would be customer care, marketing and technical support, which many companies prefer to take care of themselves.

The contracted personnel are often located in a different country from the contractor. This is known as offshore outsourcing, and can lead to time-difference problems and delays in communications, particularly between countries where the Internet infrastructure is not very reliable.

The most popular countries for offshore outsourcing are India (commanding a whopping 63% of the market), Eastern Europe, The Philippines and South Africa, with China a more recent runner in the race to supply the occident with low-cost labour. These countries are a natural choice, because of the strong presence of the English language and the extremely low wage costs, which are often about a tenth of what a worker from the same country as the contractor would charge. India, however, seems to be slowly loosening its stranglehold on the industry, having dropped seven percentile points since last year, although BPO there in general is expected to continue to grow. Transferring risks to the outsourced vendor is an attractive prospect, but the range services which can be thus provided is limited. Processes such as human resources, finance and administration are just too complex to be offered on this basis. The BPO market is expected to grow to $146 billion in 2008, although in a fragmented market of single bulk transactions, shared services and vertical processes and applications.

So what is the experience of this kind of contracting? Many companies experimenting with BPO report inflexibility of contracts, management problems and erratic performance. Certain tasks which are expensive to administrate at home are only tentatively being offered to outsourcers, because of doubts about the ability to cope with complex tasks and problems of control of the quality of the processes remotely.

The most likely candidates for offshore outsourcing are repetitive, transaction-intensive processes, although many businesses are unwilling to give up control of the processes because of strategic or security risks. Viable options here would be offshore insourcing or shared service centers. The fastest growing sector of the BPO market is set to be simple bulk transactions, predicted to expand to $58 billion in 2008. This segment includes the simplest tasks for vendors to master, such as credit card or stock trade processing.

Broad shared services will, at $57 billion, be the second most popular sector by 2008, meaning finance, administration and human resources. A smaller segment will be high-volume vertical processes, with a predicted volume of $6 billion by 2008. You can go to http://www.business-process-outsourcing-guide.com to find more information on business process outsourcing.

The smallest, currently at about $5 billion, will be niche vertical applications, although this segment is expected to take a massive upturn once customers become comfortable with outsourcing in these areas, to achieve $24 billion in 2008. These applications include complex processes such as data reporting on the environment and the monitoring of chemical process, matters which require a very high level of specialization.

Kelly Hunter operates http://www.business-process-outsourcing-guide.com and writes about Business Process Outsourcing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Hunter http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Growth-Of-Offshore-Business-Process-Outsourcing&id=755504

Leadership Determines Value of BPO's
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Harry_Gorden]Harry Gorden

Today’s CEO’s have come under intense scrutiny with the bad behavior of a few leading to Sarbanes Oxley legislation, new board accountabilities and harsher stock penalties to poor performance numbers. Investors/employees wonder if the bad boys the tip of the iceberg, the worst of a mediocre bunch, or indicators of fiscal and ethical renewal in the marketplace? Increasingly, corporate leaders are responding by focusing performance efforts on core competencies and a new receptiveness to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

“Leadership is performance. You have to be conscious of your behavior, because everybody else is.” Carly Fiorina

The many books and pundits on Leadership can be distilled down to three critical elements: Character, i.e. behaviors reflecting passionate good works serving internal and external needs; Communications, i.e. seeker of understanding/trust and enthusiastic relationship builder; Competence, i.e. demonstrates broad knowledge, insights and skills across functions of finance, operations and sales. These set the tone for internal corporate cultures to perform optimally. Business leadership is about creating a cause to grow for employee passions to achieve.

Past efforts to address performance have focused on developing internal teams. Many writers have written what leadership is and how to make teams work but the reality of performance says teams can only make a difference in making positive changes in the critical numbers of cost, growth or earnings when leadership sets a culture of collective cause rather than past internal survival of the fittest that creates dysfunctional teams. Beleaguered leaders have turned to BPO’s in recognition of partnering with those entities that perform non core functions better than they can on their own. Creating value in non core functions through cooperation outperforms internal team efforts. Real growth will come from innovation that BPO’s are focused on and accountable to create. Business development is a process, not a project, that is lead by the CEO, leaving the details in non core functions to BPO’s that are accountable to measurable results.

Creating internal teams to address issues of technology, sourcing, transportation, etc have consistently failed at cost containment and growth/client support due to dysfunctional teams competing with internal interests such as egos, turf battles, lack of expectations, lack of leadership, politics, stuck in old processes/resistance to change, lack of empowerment, lack of accountability, lack of resources, lack of or competing visions, et al, etc. Key elements of successful teams are: Selfless individuals (impossible when politically nominated/placed by vested interest departments); Enlarging mindset (like an army without a general, a football team without a quarterback, building a house without a general contractor); Empowerment ( if management not willing to truly run with teams outcome or accept responsibility of no outcome, teams unable to win). CEO driven cultures that thrive on embracing change for client deliverables, consistently lead in real market growth and profits. Growth cultures drive business development, not career or personal interests of the old economy command and control approach.

Boards and C-Level leaders are increasingly recognizing the value of partnering with companies who can bring cost savings leverage, leading edge technology and support to non core functions that allow a keener focus on what they strategically do best, with greater spend savings, leveraging latest technology from partners w/seamless visibility, measurable deliverable values and dedicated support teams for real time solution development. It’s all about creating innovation, increasing speed/nimbleness and business development resulting in a powerful halo effect from success that echoes within the organization and as a market leader. Command and control hierarchies are designed to face the CEO, with unfortunately their ass to customer! Corporate leadership must deliver innovation by creating core competencies that face their customers like their non core partners already have. They also put team leaders in place with senior sponsorship and the most to lose to insure success and avoid compromise!

“Fortune and love favor the bold” – Ovid

Transportation management is an excellent illustration of such opportunities. A fractionalized provider market, without single source asset integrity, one dimensional technologies and customer service support that lacks empowerment or cross modal interface can only be leveraged by transportation management BPO’s. The transportation industry has evolved from asset based, to brokerage, to third parties, to today’s value driven, spend leveraged, with real time technologies in dashboard driven accessibility and dedicated support teams that understand their uniqueness and customer driven objectives. Companies that turn to leading BPO’s in this field save at least 10% on their transportation spend with additional savings in inventory management, customer service, receivables and overhead costs. Unfortunately CEO’s that rely on internal departments to manage this non core function miss real savings, missing customer values with distracted resources when run by internally/externally vested interested parties. Transport function managers are usually focused on sub optimizing goals, compromised further by providers delivering the most lunches, event tickets, and advertising specialties.

Gone are the days of relying on internal teams to define much less solving problems in non core areas. Inefficient command and control management hierarchies using market bids for sourcing at best gain only the best of a mediocre bunch. Today’s business leaders understand the need and value of partnering with BPO’s whether transportation management, human resource or technology providers who can deliver real time, leading edge solutions that share in accountability for measurable deliverable performance results. Boards, shareholders and employees are demanding of their leadership more than a mastery of buzzwords, industry jargon and cronyism.

There is growing intolerance of breaches of ethics, poor moral behavior, performance shortfalls or quality missteps. The market ultimately decides with their purchasing and too many companies have lost their footing with insecure managers, tawdry behaviors, questionable accounting practices, enhanced executive bonuses and rigged contracts for political and/or financial gain and the like.

Unfortunately the case has been made that traditional teams are unable to objectively address the BPO selection process given vested interests noted above. Leadership must take responsibility to direct outcome expectations and select an accountable person to research and recommend options without favor to vested interests. Teams understandably are often built with self serving members seeking personal if not departmental gains rather than solutions for the greater good of the company and their clients. Rather than a department representative, a senior level person with understanding of finance, supply chain and customer needs is required to effectively select the right fit BPO organization.

Values of an also ran: Minimize risk, Respect the chain of command, Support the boss, Make budget. – Tom Peters

Success stories abound for those companies with the leadership, vision and confidence to outsource non core functions that have accountabilities for measurable value/results. History is littered with business failures of those with a lack of insightful leadership. Be bold! Lead by the example of your actions and performance driven by core values and partnerships that focus on customer growth.

Harry Gorden, President, Transportation Management Services, Inc, a transportation management agency with over 35 years sales experience, providing consulting to the equity, capital management and supply chain communities as well as no cost referrals for manufacturers/distributors seeking the right fit transportation management support. Inquiries welcome at: [mailto:hmgorden@comcast.net]hmgorden@comcast.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Harry_Gorden http://EzineArticles.com/?Leadership-Determines-Value-of-BPOs&id=742970

Web Graphics - Are They Necessary?
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Bruno_Auger]Bruno Auger

Graphics are visual elements often used to point readers and viewers to particular information. Graphics add spice and style to web pages, and can help your visitors visualize what your site is about and how it's structured. Graphics are commonly used in business and economics to create financial charts and tables. Graphics are among the primary ways of advertising the sale of goods or services.

Websites began to use the GIF format to display small graphics, such as banners, advertisements and navigation buttons, on web pages. There is no limit in the Web specifications to the graphical formats that can be used on the Web. There are many resources, demos and tutorials on the basics of graphics design and construction, including integrating images into your webpage's that you will find on the web. Numerous websites have been created to host communities for web graphics artists.

Modern web browsers can now display JPEG, PNG and increasingly, SVG images in addition to GIFs on web pages. Web Images Can Be Used To Add Realism To Edited Photos. Computer graphics researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed systems for editing or altering photographs using segments of the millions of images available on the. JPEG images have generated tremendous interest among photographers, artists, graphic designers, medical imaging specialists, art historians, and other groups for whom image quality is paramount and where color fidelity cannot be compromised by dithering a graphic to 8-bit color. Apart from that, resolution problems are in the image file itself, and must be corrected there: use or create a higher-resolution image file.

3D computer graphics are works of graphic art that were created with the aid of digital computers and specialized 3D software. In recent times, digital photography has opened the way to an infinite number of fast, but strong, manipulations. Whether you'd like to browse your image collection and view pictures, convert between formats, print your graphics as hard copy, acquire images from a digital camera, maintain a sophisticated keyword database, decode pictures from the Internet, process and fine-tune your photographs. As part of an industry that is at the forefront of information technology, Graphics must be a leader with respect to the converging technologies in multimedia, computer-assisted design, reprographics and digital printing, network information services and network-based processing, electronic imaging, custom publishing, and electronic information access.

Computer graphics are often used in the majority of new feature films, especially those with a large budget. Since then, computer graphics have become more accurate and detailed, due to more advanced computers and better 3D modeling software applications, such as Cinema 4D. Most modern web graphics are made with Adobe Photoshop, the GIMP, or Corel Paint Shop Pro. Yet most page design elements, diagrams, typography within images, and many illustrations are composed of hard-edged graphics and bright color boundaries that are seldom encountered in photographs.

Bruno Auger creates a web graphics club.
Everyone need fresh new graphics for their websites.
Find out how you can obtain new graphics every
month at http://www.thewebgraphicsclub.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bruno_Auger http://EzineArticles.com/?Web-Graphics---Are-They-Necessary?&id=698342