The State of Sourcing

This is the second blog post in a nine-part series detailing the various services and sub-services within select segments in the KPO industry. The first blog post presented the service offerings in the Publishing Outsourcing KPO segment. In this blog post, we discuss the services and sub-services offered by Analytics service providers. The segments we will be covering are listed in the exhibit “KPO segments”.

We believe that a clear delineation of which sub-service belongs under which service category is imperative. Buyers often are confused as to what constitutes a complete value-chain for a segment, and which sub-services can be expected by a service provider in a certain service offering.

Continue reading ‘The Analytics service guide’ »

Outsourcing in the services sector has been happening for the past couple of decades, with a slew of information technology (ITO) and business processes (BPO) getting outsourced to global locations. Over the past 8 to 10 years, there has been considerable interest in the market for knowledge processes outsourcing (KPO). These critical and high-end services are the most recent entrants in the outsourcing space. In order to understand more about the KPO industry, my team and I spoke to decision makers from the buyer and vendor communities to gather opinions and gain insights. This preliminary exercise brought us a varied spectrum of insights on aspects such as industry challenges, vendor concerns, segmental growth rates, end customer segments et al.

What we know so far is that the evolution of the KPO industry was very distinct from that of the ITO and the BPO market. After these two services were outsourced, service providers enquired about further needs for outsourcing services. Trust built over the years from existing outsourcing relationships brought high-end, value-added work on the sourcing table. This work was not heavily dependent on the location of the delivery team and it involved a higher level of judgment and rigorous methodologies by smaller teams. The nature of work was more sophisticated and involved a higher degree of partnership and collaboration. To sum up, the KPO industry involves complex processes, requires insights and analysis based on skills and judgment, require people with a higher education background and specialized knowledge, and the end results can vary from provider to provider. The list of key KPO segments is illustrated in exhibit 1.

Continue reading ‘Where does the KPO industry stand? A few observations on its evolution so far’ »

Having done a report earlier on e-discovery and document review, which is by far the most outsourced service in the legal services outsourcing domain, our next stop was most definitely going to be outsourcing of contract management – the next big thing in outsourcing of legal services. As we started speaking with the people who deal with contracts, some of the variations and facts that came out were mind boggling. Here are some examples –

• Contracts may need up to 5-10 drafts by conservative estimates
• Contracts may need up to a year to finalize
• Contract values range from USD 10 – 1,000 million
• Hundreds of types of contracts
• Legal team sizes ranging from 6 – 1000+
• More than 40 countries across which contracts are managed by a single firm

Continue reading ‘Contract outsourcing – outsource to manage better’ »

The decade from hell. That’s what TIME magazine called it in 2009- what with terror attacks, two terms of GW Bush, the great big downfall of Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac and subsequent real estate fiasco– it’s no wonder that Americans are really tired.  Well, that and no more MJ!The first decade of the 21^st century is over. So how did outsourcing fare ?

Since so much of what we do consists of looking at trends, here are some of the top of the hat trends that breezed around and then hung like a fog over the decade.

Continue reading ‘2010 is dead. Long live outsourcing’ »

At the recent Global LPO conference 2010, held in New Delhi, the idea was to facilitate closer contact between buyers and vendors in the industry. The buyers spoke about their experiences and put forth their concerns. The vendors building upon experiences, offered advice to the potential buyers on how to approach, what to look out for, the value offered, etc. Among many other issues discussed, one that received attention from various speakers was – what do buyers and vendors need to do to facilitate a smooth and mutually beneficial relationship? 

The need to change and develop is something that cannot be stressed enough. For an industry as young as the LPO, and with the potential that it offers, the mantra is going beyond understanding customer needs. LPOs must stay ahead of the articulated needs. With most companies looking at outsourcing as a strategic move, they want it to contribute to their overall business performance. Outsourcing by and large has moved beyond the cost and labor arbitrage, and the same stands true for LPO industry. The idea is to move away from the tag of service providers to partners. Here we discuss just some of the many initiatives that LPOs need to take to start thinking and taking on the role of partners. 

Continue reading ‘LPOs need to think like partners’ »

Commented a respondent of our survey on ‘The Current State of Digital Content’. So,  how are things shaping up for digital formats, does everyone in the publishing industry feel the same way? Read on.

Changing the ‘format’ of content

The publishing industry has progressively been going digital. While selling digital content is recent, publishers have used digital production techniques/processes that are reliable, stable and efficient. Such processes, however, ended mostly in the creation of PDFs – that doubled as print ready files and/or a product that was to be sold digitally.

Continue reading ‘Device specific formats are horrible to support, and I hope they die!’ »

A few days ago,  Seth Godin, marketing guru and best selling author, decided to part ways with his publisher, Portfolio, to self-publish. So, why did Seth decide to self-publish? And more importantly, how much money does he stand to make?

So, why did Seth decide to self-publish?

Continue reading ‘How much will Seth Godin earn by self-publishing?’ »

Google has the answer to a lot of questions we ask. And looks like it has the answer to this one too.

The company has been trying to digitize books through its Google Books initiative for a few years now, so it is surprising that they didn’t answer this question at the outset.

How did they do it?

Continue reading ‘Google this: Number of books in the world’ »

Dear reader,

Firstly, thank you for visiting the ValueNotes Sourcing Practice blog. It’s your contributions and vibrant discussions that keep us going, and help us understand the state of sourcing today!

If you’ve been a regular on our blogs, you would have noticed the many changes to our navigation and content. Until last week, we had separate blogs focusing on e-learning, publishing, research & analytics and legal services outsourcing. As time moved on (it’s been a year now!), we realized the value in cross-linkages, and in communicating with our audiences together.

So while once we were four, we are now on one platform, bringing you, our peers in the outsourcing sector, a consolidated view of the many industry sub-segments. We believe this move will add more value to our discussions, and enable a dynamic cross-industry representation among our readers. To illustrate, while on one end publishers could discuss how e-books can change the market, members from the new media and e-learning segments can also add to the subject and give a more comprehensive view.

Continue reading ‘Coming together to discuss The State of Sourcing!’ »

From releasing a new Kindle application for Android devices to allowing customers to exchange textbooks for a gift card or announcing Facebook and Twitter support in Kindles – the past few days have been quite eventful for Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). While these new developments reflect the inherent dynamism in the book distribution market, the possible launch of Google Editions or DangDang.com planning an IPO are indicative of the competition that the market is witnessing.

But of all the news items, what I found most interesting has been the announcement of AmazonCrossing. AmazonCrossing will use customer feedback and data from other Amazon sites to identify non-English best sellers. Once identified, Amazon will acquire and translate the book for consumption by the global English-speaking audience. The move leverages Amazon’s existing distribution networks that contain multiple channels, formats, stores and partnerships with independent book sellers.

Continue reading ‘Amazon translating into more business’ »