By guest author Tony Scott
Company Introduction and History
I recently interviewed Dr. Anand Deshpande, the founder and CEO of Persistent Systems. Persistent, based in Pune, India, has the tag line “Partners in Innovation.” Persistent believes that its outsourced software product development services allow its customers to minimize time-to-market, improve the quality of their products, reduce the risk of failure during the engineering development process, and improve the predictability and reliability of the engineering process. By outsourcing portions of the development process, Persistent allows customers to focus on their core competencies while helping them to minimize overall product engineering costs.
Persistent went public on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on April 6, 2010. Its offering in the outsourcing world is far more advanced than what most people perceive outsourcing to be about. Persistent provides the potential for companies to focus on their real core competencies and is one of the real opportunities to create value through outsourcing high-level but non-core activities. >>>
Rural America OnShore Sourcing, Inc. (Rural America) is a U.S.-based onshoring company. Through its offices in Ohio, Kentucky, and Wisconsin, it provides the same outsourcing services performed by offshoring companies, except it uses professionals based in rural parts of America instead of overseas, hiring these professionals for 25% to 40% less than the cost of U.S urban labor. The goal is to offer clients the advantages of using U.S.-based labor while reaping the cost benefits equivalent to offshoring. >>>
The Future of Call Centers
Last week I talked about the double-edged sword facing outsourcing companies that are playing a pure labor arbitrage game because of lower cost of communications and the potential to virtualize call centers. This week I’d like to share with you some of my interview with several senior executives from a company that has taken advantage of the opportunity to virtualize call centers – West Corporation. >>>
By guest author Tony Scott
Almost exactly two years ago, Sramana Mitra wrote an article titled “The Death of Indian Outsourcing.” That article created quite a bit of controversy and stimulated a lot of conversation. Companies providing outsourcing services, companies using outsourcing services, and people in general in the United States and India often had a reflexive and somewhat knee-jerk reaction to her article (or at least its title) based on their personal biases for or against the entire concept of outsourcing. >>>
Deal Radar continues its coverage of the changing labor landscape with Fieldglass, which provides a SaaS platform, InSite, that helps global 2000 corporations acquire and manage contingent or contract workers, outsourced services, and direct hires so that firms can better understand and use their workforces. >>>
This blog has covered various aspects of outsourcing in some depth; today we turn to a business model that is at the crossroads of the older outsourcing model and the growing preference for on-demand and SaaS services. uTest uses crowdsourcing for its customers to test their Web, desktop, and mobile applications through a large community of software testers worldwide. Through uTest, companies can get their apps tested across location, language, operating system, browser, phone maker, model, and wireless carrier (for mobile apps). >>>
FTRANS provides accounts receivable outsourcing and credit management solutions. It helps small companies manage their accounts receivables so they can have greater access to working capital and increase their cash on hand. The Atlanta-based company focuses on outsourcing the accounts receivables (A/R) of small and mid-size businesses. >>>
By Guest Authors Richard Hooker and Steve Monas
[Richard and Steve wrap up their series of excerpts from their book “Shoestring Venture: The Startup Bible” with a post on the advantages and concerns of outsourcing the many tasks that any business’s back office takes care of.]
A business’ internal capabilities are the stuff that strategy is made of, so outsourcing many — if not nearly all — of a business’ critical functions seems to create dangerous dependencies. Forgivable, perhaps, in a startup, but risky in a growth-oriented company, no? In this excerpt, we weigh the pros and cons of outsourcing a sizable chunk of the critical back office functions rather than developing the capabilities in-house. >>>
By Guest Authors Richard Hooker and Steve Monas
[Last week, Richard and Steve explained why businesses of all sizes should outsource and stressed that organization is a critical part of outsourcing. Today’s post covers more skills entrepreneurs need to manage a successful outsourcing relationship.]
As in every other aspect of starting a business, your biggest enemy in outsourcing is you. Outsourcing is not just a way of saving money, or an excuse not to organize critical tasks, it is an entire set of management skills and knowledge that outsource entrepreneurs have to master. In this excerpt from our book, “Shoestring Venture: The Startup Bible”, we go over the skills and requirements vendor relationships require. >>>
By Guest Authors Richard Hooker and Steve Monas
[The series, which started with “The Outsourcing Imperative”, continues with a discussion of what needs to be planned before and while working with an outsourcer.]
Not only does outsourcing allow entrepreneurs to build full-scale enterprises, building a virtual organization, at least in part, is an absolute requirement to be competitive in an age of accelerated change. Developing outsourcing competence, however, is a daunting task, especially when all the other imperatives of a startup come crashing down around your head. In this excerpt from our book, “Shoestring Venture: The Startup Bible”, we discuss all the necessary planning that goes into building a partly- or fully-outsourced startup. >>>
By Guest Authors Richard Hooker and Steve Monas
[In this series, Richard and Steve use excerpts from their book “Shoestring Venture: The Startup Bible” to explain why even startups on shoestring budgets should outsource some of their business functions.]
We live in a brave new world in which all the tools to build a full-scale enterprise are at the fingertips of anyone with a business idea — without ever having to walk out their front door. >>>
Although it has traditionally been a nimble player in a competitive market, Accenture again stumbled as it ended the first half of a rather depressed fiscal year. Not only were the Q2 results slightly lower than the company’s outlook, but Accenture also reduced its outlook for the entire fiscal year. >>>
Now that Obama wants to bail out General Motors, are we on our way to becoming an ICU of failing companies? This week, Zero-In discusses Perilous Protectionism and the danger of technology companies going on welfare en masse.
Related Reading:
* Obama and Outsourcing and its 49 comments
* Obama’s Economic Policy Thoughts which include: >>>
Here are some comments from Forbes readers on my last column. My response is below. Please feel free to chime in. >>>
Anything I write about outsourcing seems to lead to a heated debate. My article on the Death of Indian Outsourcing was one such piece. The more recent Obama and Outsourcing received a similar welcome. Regardless of what happens to the outsourcing industry as a result of the US elections in November, outsourcing firms will remain key contributors to a changing global economy. Here is my analysis of the top 10 outsourcing stocks to watch. >>>