Deborah Kops

Archive

Farewell to the founding fathers (of the outsourcing variety)

There’s been a little-remarked upon trend going on over the last few years—the retirement of many of the founding fathers of offshore outsourcing companies. Since 2009 by my reckoning, there’s been a steady trickle of departures of some of the leaders, particularly in the BPO sector. What are the implications for the industry? Big integrated […]
Deborah Kops
February 20, 2013
Archive

“Call me maybe”– sales approach at outsourcing conferences?

Now I’m not always current on the latest pop (for me, the zenith of pop music was in the 70s, and everything’s been downhill since then), but I can hum Carly Rae Jepsen’s hit song Call Me Maybe. And, with the annual social rite of going to shared services and outsourcing conferences just about underway, […]
Deborah Kops
February 14, 2013
Archive

Outsourcing Relationships: Not Puppy Love

I’ve been obsessed about what constitutes a good outsourcing relationship for some time. Whenever I have the ear of a player in our outsourcing community, I leap at the opportunity to pick up another brilliant observation about what works…and what doesn’t when two parties come together to provide business services. Yesterday morning I was speaking […]
Deborah Kops
February 13, 2013
Archive

Shared services and outsourcing: Aren’t we just moving the deck chairs around?

  If you think about our efforts to transform business functions through shared services and outsourcing, are we just trying to make them more efficient and cost-effective? Are we really tackling enough change to make them more relevant to today’s business needs? In effect, aren’t business functions as we know them obsolete, and changing them […]
Deborah Kops
February 10, 2013
Archive

Legal: The Hardest Profession to Make Outsourcing Change?

The last bastion against outsourcing? Recently I sat down with Ed Brooks of the LPO Program to discuss the challenges of change management in the legal profession. Whether the perpetrator of the change is the GC, or law firm management, changing a profession that is mired in tradition, has historically been isolated from other corporate change, […]
Deborah Kops
February 5, 2013
Archive

Global Business Services at the Top Table? Servants don’t dine with their employers!

Over the past few weeks, it seems as if everyone is talking GBS, GBS, GBS.  Shared services organizations encompassing one function in a few countries with a center or two purport to be running global business services. Companies with transactional accounting processes operating around the world declare that they are GBS leaders. Sourcing leaders managing […]
Deborah Kops
February 4, 2013
Archive

Is Innovation in Outsourcing Insanity?

  I’m obsessed with the concept of innovation resulting from outsourcing. I’d love to find a real example of true, game-changing, big things that turn the delivery model on its head, taking clients to new heights of performance. But the risk aversion and contractual precision of the outsourcing industry work against innovation, not to mention […]
Deborah Kops
February 1, 2013
Archive

Buyers Forget that Outsourcing RFPs are Sales Jobs

Providers aren’t the only sellers in the outsourcing game. In fact, if a buyer doesn’t hold up his or her end when it comes to selling the opportunity, he or she risks a suboptimal relationship. Forget about the common wisdom that the relationship starts at selection and contract development—it actually starts the day that the […]
Deborah Kops
January 29, 2013
Archive

Welcome Home Outsourcing…Without the Welcome Mat

 For those of you who have read The Economist’s 19th January article “Welcome Home” I confess I am a week behind on my reading. The article joins a growing chorus of pundits and researchers such as HfS Research, for whom I co-authored a recent paper, who are declaring the era of foreign dominance of service […]
Deborah Kops
January 27, 2013
Archive

The Outsourcing Happiness Index

  Two weeks ago when I wrote a blog entitled “If my dashboard is so green, why am I so unhappy,” the fabulous Chris Gattenio of IBM tweeted about the article, saying new measurements were necessary to track a “happiness index” of sourcing clients. Well Chris, you got me thinking. Several years ago, I wrote […]
Deborah Kops
January 25, 2013
Archive

Revisiting the Sustainable Outsourcing Relationship Quiz

Several years ago, I developed an outsourcing relationship quiz, and posted it on the Shared Services and Outsourcing Network website. And it didn’t get much traction. But times seem to have changed. Seems as if every outsourcing client is more concerned about the quality of the relationship than ever before. So Ithink it’s time to […]
Deborah Kops
January 21, 2013
Archive

Shared Services Leadership Survey

Look around at the players in our shared services community, and you’ll see four distinct pathways to leadership. Each pathway corresponds to the level of maturity of the model, and at the same time is shaped by the business context in which the model operates. Which pathway characterizes your career? What kind of a shared […]
Deborah Kops
January 17, 2013
Archive

If my outsourcing dashboard is so green, why am I so miserable?

  How often are outsourcing relationships considered “performing” when it comes to meeting SLAs and hitting cost reduction targets, but when it comes to the service experience, the client (and sometimes even the provider) considers the deal an utter failure. Providers, take heed. The days of trading service for cost is over. Increasingly clients today […]
Deborah Kops
January 15, 2013
Archive

What a surprise to outsourcing providers…people actually matter to the CEO

The prevailing belief in the sourcing world is that cost is king and people are fungible. Yet a study by The Conference Board, The Conference Board CEO Challenge 2013 (www.ceochallenge.org), flies in the face of this, and other commonly held tenets, about the way the C-suite regard sourcing initiatives. Today’s study, based upon a survey […]
Deborah Kops
January 10, 2013
Archive

Barista or Bangalorean? Time to source shared services (and outsourcing) talent at Starbucks?

Barista or Bangalorean?  Time to source shared services (and outsourcing) talent at Starbucks? Recently I had the privilege of chairing The Conference Board’s vaunted annual Shared Services Conference. Since I’ve always had trouble sitting still, and chairing a conference means listening intently in every session, I was blown away when Paul Nicolaisen, VP Shared Services […]
Deborah Kops
January 8, 2013
Archive

Which Planet are Outsourcing Equity Analysts from?

2013 is bound to be an interesting year. With a host of rumors and suppositions out and about in the first five days of the year:  outsourcing saving companies faced with the economic implications of the U.S. fiscal cliff, the oft-imaginative Indian press declaring that this is THE year for M&A, and visions of social media and robotics effecting indelible changes on the industry, […]
Deborah Kops
January 5, 2013
Archive

Finance Transformation

ACCA: Expert Insights on Shared Services and Outsourcing This report presents insights from global experts of companies at the forefront of finance transformation activity.  It explores the issues, challenges and opportunities facing businesses transitioning to new finance models to improve business performance.  This is the first in a series of reports exploring aspects of finance […]
Deborah Kops
December 20, 2012
Archive

Merry Sourcing Change Year

  What is Santa putting in the stockings of all you shared services and outsourcing change agents this year? Seats  at the table when the sourcing strategy is first formulated so you don’t have to clean up afterward Business lines that don’t see you as empire builders Understanding by fellow team members that change is […]
Deborah Kops
Archive

It’s the water cooler chatter that sinks outsourcing and shared services change.

You know the situation well; the sponsors are all bought into outsourcing and shared services, but the stakeholders-at-large have mounted own guerilla war, trying to sink the program. Finding, and managing, the ringleaders is often like herding cats. You know who I am talking about: those self-appointed keepers of the corporate flame who position themselves […]
Deborah Kops
December 14, 2012
Archive

Sourcing Change Management Lessons from the Fiscal Cliff

Government is the gift that just keeps on giving…when they’re not taking through regulation and taxation.  Check out my newest post at http://www.ssonetwork.com/business-process-management/columns/sourcing-change-management-lessons-from-the-fiscal/
Deborah Kops
December 12, 2012
Archive

Behave and Believe—The Ultimate Goal of Shared Services and Outsourcing Change Management

  Last week I was wading through a pile of change management methodologies—you know, the standard ones that are actually quite good—the Kotter and the PROSCI frameworks and strategies, tools and techniques.  It struck me that the change management challenge for outsourcing and shared services is not the dearth of methodologies—there are plenty of templates […]
Deborah Kops
December 11, 2012
Archive

Never Fear, a Sourcing App is Here.

Tired of wading through voluminous reports? Want to see and hear, rather than read fine print? Want to manipulate the data yourself? Check out a market-first app on the success of finance and accounting shared services and  outsourcing. Co-authored with Jamie Lyon of ACCA, the app can be found here. This app presents findings from […]
Deborah Kops
December 6, 2012
Archive

Around the World and Back Again…Sourcing Services to the USA?

The immigration officer asks “what do you do?” And, returning from India or wherever, you really don’t want to tell him that your role in life is sending or managing processes offshore.  Most of us wish that the US could compete–it certainly would eliminate contextual communications and travel headaches. Can American talent compete? Check out […]
Deborah Kops
December 5, 2012
Archive

To brand or not to brand (shared services and outsourcing). That is the question…

  Now, I fundamentally believe that branding any corporate business model change that happens through shared services and outsourcing is a good thing. After all, people buy brand. Brand is shorthand for what we get, and what we expect to feel like after we buy a product or a service. It’s a promise.  And when […]
Deborah Kops
December 4, 2012