Outsourcing Directory

Monthly Archives: May 2007

Monitoring Vendor Staffing Levels

There is a new buzz in operations areas regarding Staffing Accuracy. Staffing Accuracy is the measure of actually supplied staff versus planned staffing in each interval of the staffing forecast. I expect good vendor managers to forecast staffing levels using the same intervals used in forecasting.
Without accurate transaction volume forecasts, staffing forecasts are meaningless. However, […]

A Governable Outsourcing Deal - Part III

Addressing Complexity
Complexity is the first thing that we must change to facilitate the development of governable outsourcing deals. We have all been taught to believe, axiomatically, that “more information is better information.” Current outsourcing deals generally reflect this approach, drawing “every leaf on every tree” to describe the outsourced and retained services.
More information […]

A Governable Outsourcing Deal - Part II

Why do we create ungovernable deals?
Outsourcing deal documents fail to support governance for many reasons. Chief among them is that the deal paper is simply too complex. These documents go on for literally hundreds of pages, are full of arcane language and do not provide adequate information to permit a Customer to govern […]

A Governable Outsourcing Deal - Part I

Like most outsourcing attorneys, I have experienced the telephone book-sized outsourcing deal.  Truth be told, I even created a couple in my day.  Being in the relatively unique position of in-house outsourcing counsel, I also had the opportunity to deal with the other end of the process – governance.  While these documents were good, sometimes […]

Keep it Simple

A few years ago, a product came out that could have - and should have - revolutionized much of the way that business information is presented. Called the “Ambient Orb,” the product was simply a sphere that glowed, usually with the stock market. Green was up - the brighter, the higher; red was down, the […]

Transaction Volume Forecasting in Business Process Outsourcing

Picture the job of a call center director who must provide staff to handle inbound sales calls in response to sales and marketing initiatives. Picture the job of an insurance claims operations director who also must provide staff to cleanse and adjudicate claims. If they don’t have a good estimate of inbound transaction volumes, how […]

Medical Tourism - A Bypassage to India

In E.M. Foerster’s “A Passage to India,” the conflicts between British aristocracy and the Indian professional class was explored. It was a difficult story, highlighting pride, prejudice and institutionalized bias.
These days, however, passages to India (and Singapore, Argentina, Belgium and Thailand, among others) mean something entirely different for hundreds of thousands of people (about […]

The Trouble With Outsourced Call Centers

Over the past few years, outsourced call centers have become a whipping boy for the trouble with outsourcing. We have all seen the cartoons or the YouTube videos and we have all had similar experiences… A poor customer negotiates a maze of teleprompts and menus, is placed on hold for an extended period […]