564 Posts Found

Viewed unemotionally, the offshore outsourcing of IT and call-center work to India is merely the most recent step in a 100-year-old trend in which large corporations farm out pieces of their value chains, through which raw material becomes finished products to be marketed, sold, and delivered.

Content: Quotation | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subject: Outsourcing / BPO

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Theories about offshoring do not always reflect the way real-life management decisions are made.

Content: Article | Author: Michael Mol | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subject: Outsourcing / BPO

Prepare to manage the risks and pitfalls of offshore outsourcing.

Editor’s Note: I found the sidebar about protecting intellectual property especially interesting…

Content: Article | Author: Sheeroy Desai | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Outsourcing / BPO

Business boundaries continue to be tested and surpassed; what was once good enough to win the gold medal won’t even qualify you to take part in today’s race. This is principally the case for field-service retailers and other companies that deliver products or services that people use every day: packages, consumer goods, groceries, maintenance and repairs. Being able to simply cover the distance will never … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Customer Related, Operations

Supply chain management is a key capability for any company needing to cut manufacturing costs via a well-planned logistics strategy. The authors share their academic and professional experience to help readers understand recent supply chain successes and challenges with such contemporary and cutting-edge examples as Wal-Mart and Dell. The chapters are presented in basic topic areas including network planning, product design, customer value, information technology, … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: David Simchi-Levi, Edith Simchi-Levi, Philip Kaminsky | Subject: Operations

For most businesses, warehouses full of stuff are a kind of security blanket. But Dell has replaced inventory with information, and that has helped turn it into one of the fastest, most hyperefficient organizations on the planet. Here’s how Dell uses speed as the ultimate competitive weapon, and why rivals may never be able to catch up.

Content: Case Study | Author: Bill Breen | Source: Fast Company | Subject: Operations | Industry: Personal Computer | Company: Dell

At least in the United States, most policymakers understand that in the long run, economic growth requires productivity growth: For per-capita living standards to increase, so must per-capita output. What is less well understood is that productivity growth requires the creation and satisfaction of new wants, not just the more efficient provision of existing wants.

Currently, discussions of productivity tend to focus on increases in efficiency … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Economics, Outsourcing / BPO

Companies beginning an outsourcing initiative often have more questions than answers. This article presents the results of a study by Accenture and the Economist Intelligence Unit, synthesizing the outsourcing best practices and ideas of hundreds of global executives from companies who have “been there, done that.” In addition to the overall results, you can see specific survey results by industry, including automotive, consumer goods and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Sources: Accenture, The Economist | Subjects: Best Practices, Outsourcing / BPO

Offshoring is a complex issue that is part of a much larger strategic picture. Companies need to develop a framework for deciding where and how business activities should be located

Content: Article | Authors: Anne Evison, Julian Birkinshaw, Roy Barden, Siri Terjese | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Outsourcing / BPO, Strategy

Jonathan Byrnes says you should invite your best suppliers to suggest innovative ways to develop new customer-supplier business efficiencies.

Content: Article | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Management, Operations

As business-process outsourcing takes hold, the provider landscape is shifting and so is the way outsourcing decisions are made. CIOs must consider: What’s the key value proposition and what differentiates my business from that of competitors?

Content: Article | Author: Michael Treacy | Source: Optimize Magazine | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Outsourcing / BPO

For years, companies have outsourced service functions like IT and facilities management with an eye toward streamlining overall corporate efficiency. But a new model — transformational outsourcing — can make big changes happen quickly throughout the organization by outsourcing not just support areas but core business functions. Based on a major Accenture study, Outsourcing for Radical Change offers a refreshingly candid look at amazing successes … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Jane C. Linder | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Operations

The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) has released a new report to help companies recognize, prioritize and pursue specific supply-chain “value creation opportunities.”

In introducing the new tool, GEMI points out that “Companies can enhance supply chain value creation by utilizing their environmental health and safety (EHS) capabilities more fully. This means that EHS capabilities need to be better integrated into existing business process teams.” … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) | Subjects: Operations, Social Responsibility (ESG)

In the past, product development teams were often insulated from other disciplines within the company. Too often, products were developed without adequate input from marketing about customer needs, from manufacturing about realistic and cost-effective production, from the environmental group about potential negative impacts, or from other functions about their unique perspectives on key product attributes. The negative impacts of this insulation included product-introduction delays, lack … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Jonathan Shopley, Robert D. Shelton | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Operations, Social Responsibility (ESG)

If you think the book has already been written on shared services, think again. With the renewed emphasis in recent years on profitability as the key corporate metric, “forgotten” functions such as finance, human resources, procurement and IT are back in the spotlight. They are not only being viewed as sources of cost efficiency, which has been the traditional focus, but also as tools for … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations

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Data-collaboration efforts among retailers and suppliers have been under way for years, but few companies have pulled it off. What’s the trouble?

Content: Article | Author: Laurie Sullivan | Source: InformationWeek | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Operations | Industry: Retail