Snelling Staffing Services today announced the success of their paperless payroll initiative. By replacing paper paychecks with a payroll card and electronic pay options, Snelling will provide all of their employees with greater convenience, security and reduced costs in accessing pay.
"Our business is based on having a talented, available workforce, so it is critical for us to provide added benefits to attract and retain quality workers," stated Roger Rohus, VP, Payroll and Billing Services, Snelling Staffing Services. "The Ecount Payroll Choices Program will enable us to pay all of our workers electronically and paperlessly, removing the need for employees to come to the office to pick up their checks, ensuring the security and safety of funds with zero liability protection, eliminating check cashing fees and guaranteeing pay on-time, every time."
Ecount, a Citi company, provides Snelling with the Payroll Choices Program, which provides organizations with the tools to convert their employee base to 100 percent paperless and electronic payroll. A cornerstone of the program is the Ecount Payroll Card, a prepaid Visa® card, that enables organizations to eliminate paper check management, and the high cost and hassles associated with them. In addition, Ecount provides electronic paystubs, compliance tools and easy technology integration (read: no technology investment), together with a strategy and team of consultative experts to help businesses achieve their corporate objectives.
Most organizations are looking for ways to trim unnecessary costs from their budget -- and migrating payroll from a paper-based, inefficient, manual process to a streamlined, paperless payroll is a great way to reduce avoidable expenditures. For organizations with a less-than-optimal direct deposit adoption rate, the Ecount Payroll Choices Program has quickly become the answer to their payroll problems enabling companies to provide desirable options to employees, while still effectively achieving a paperless and electronic payroll.
"Snelling, like all of our clients, relies on their workforce for their business," stated Matt Gillin, CEO of Ecount. "With the Payroll Choices Program, corporations are able to provide a real benefit to their employees, while improving their overall operations. By eliminating paper from their payroll processing, our clients are achieving cost savings of up to 75 percent, streamlining operations, eliminating the on-site payday 'fire drill' and providing a better payday experience for their employees."
Technorati Tags:
labor management, paperless payroll, resource management, Labor Consultant, outsourcing, smartsourcing, Talent acquisition, contract labor,
Showing posts with label outsourcing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label outsourcing. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Select Staffing
Select Staffing Expansion
Founded in Santa Barbara, California in 1985, The Select Family of Staffing Companies is one of the nation's fastest-growing, full-service staffing companies. The company operates as Select Staffing(SM), SelectRemedy(TM), Remedy® Intelligent Staffing, RemX® Financial Staffing, RemX® IT Staffing, RemX® OfficeStaff, and other national brands. Select Staffing(SM) offers premier workforce management services, including recruiting and screening professional job candidates, payroll and time attendance management, on-site supervision, proactive safety programs, and specialty staffing solutions, to a wide variety of client companies, including manufacturing, industrial, clerical, administrative, accounting, finance, information technology, and professional services.
Founded in Santa Barbara, California in 1985, The Select Family of Staffing Companies is one of the nation's fastest-growing, full-service staffing companies. The company operates as Select Staffing(SM), SelectRemedy(TM), Remedy® Intelligent Staffing, RemX® Financial Staffing, RemX® IT Staffing, RemX® OfficeStaff, and other national brands. Select Staffing(SM) offers premier workforce management services, including recruiting and screening professional job candidates, payroll and time attendance management, on-site supervision, proactive safety programs, and specialty staffing solutions, to a wide variety of client companies, including manufacturing, industrial, clerical, administrative, accounting, finance, information technology, and professional services.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Labor Consultant India
Alp Management Consultants
is a professionally managed labor consultant India and HR consultancy firm headquartered in Bangalore. We have the right combination of state of the art infrastructure and efficient manpower to handle the most complex HR requirements of any business, irrespective of the size of the company. We have extensive experience of functioning as a labor consultant India for different companies from the IT, ITES, consumer, industrial, finance, and healthcare industries
is a professionally managed labor consultant India and HR consultancy firm headquartered in Bangalore. We have the right combination of state of the art infrastructure and efficient manpower to handle the most complex HR requirements of any business, irrespective of the size of the company. We have extensive experience of functioning as a labor consultant India for different companies from the IT, ITES, consumer, industrial, finance, and healthcare industries
Saturday, January 19, 2008
SOA Solution From RedPrairie
RedPrairie announced that The Finish Line will implement RedPrairie’s Workforce Management application, with future plans to implement RedPrairie’s Execution Management application. The Finish Line looks to improve customer and associate satisfaction while increasing the efficiency and accuracy of its labor schedules and labor cost tracking.
“We selected RedPrairie because it is proven in our industry, and it provides the most highly integrated, end-to-end solution for managing the operations of our stores,” said Finish Line Sr. Vice President of Information Systems, Roger Underwood. “RedPrairie has extensive capabilities in workforce management, due to their ability to integrate their execution management application. Once we are fully implemented with both applications, we will be better able to forecast our labor and project execution needs to achieve highly accurate labor coverage to match the need in our stores.”
RedPrairie’s time and attendance solution allows retailers to closely monitor labor hours and costs as they are incurred. Key capabilities of the application include time clock integration with posted schedules, enabling automatic employee punch validation; actionable alerts to notify managers of potential issues, such as employees approaching overtime; and automated payroll closing.
According to Kim Eaton, RedPrairie’s Executive Vice President, Field Operations, Americas, “Our solutions run in over 30,000 retail locations, scheduling and prioritizing the work of over one million employees each week.”
Eaton continued, “With visibility and responsiveness to real-time consumer demand, RedPrairie is the only solution provider that delivers a fully integrated workforce management suite that optimizes all task and traffic-driven labor needs. Ultimately, retailers are able to improve their business by capitalizing on revenue opportunities and aligning labor dollars to the right priorities.”
“We selected RedPrairie because it is proven in our industry, and it provides the most highly integrated, end-to-end solution for managing the operations of our stores,” said Finish Line Sr. Vice President of Information Systems, Roger Underwood. “RedPrairie has extensive capabilities in workforce management, due to their ability to integrate their execution management application. Once we are fully implemented with both applications, we will be better able to forecast our labor and project execution needs to achieve highly accurate labor coverage to match the need in our stores.”
RedPrairie’s time and attendance solution allows retailers to closely monitor labor hours and costs as they are incurred. Key capabilities of the application include time clock integration with posted schedules, enabling automatic employee punch validation; actionable alerts to notify managers of potential issues, such as employees approaching overtime; and automated payroll closing.
According to Kim Eaton, RedPrairie’s Executive Vice President, Field Operations, Americas, “Our solutions run in over 30,000 retail locations, scheduling and prioritizing the work of over one million employees each week.”
Eaton continued, “With visibility and responsiveness to real-time consumer demand, RedPrairie is the only solution provider that delivers a fully integrated workforce management suite that optimizes all task and traffic-driven labor needs. Ultimately, retailers are able to improve their business by capitalizing on revenue opportunities and aligning labor dollars to the right priorities.”
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Increase in Temp Workforce Follows The Economy
Following the economy
Volatile market conditions require companies to be more agile and responsive to changing circumstances, and supplementing work teams with interim workers may allow them to adjust staffing levels quickly and cost-effectively according to demand.
Tom Smith, production manager at Vancouver-based Kaso Plastics, said the custom plastic injection molding company budgets for temporary workers and typically supplements about 8 percent of its production staff with them.
“We use them for the jumps up and down in production mostly,” he said.
Currently, 11 out of the production area’s 99 employees are temporary – higher than usual, Smith said.
Kaso primarily uses temps for entry-level positions, but with the right skill sets, they may have an opportunity to move up in the company.
The use of temporary workers changes with the labor market, said Lisa Nisenfeld, executive director of the Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council.
When there’s abundant skilled labor, companies often use staffing services as their front door and can give workers a try.
When the labor market gets tighter, companies have to compete for workers, which often means offering a direct job, Nisenfeld said. Then, staffing services shift to become another source for potential workers because they have connections with a large number of people.
In times of economic downturn, companies may find benefit in relying on temporary workers.
“Temporary service allows companies to get someone in there, get a project done and not have to worry about firing or unemployment costs,” said Allison Beam, staffing consultant for Boly Welch, a staffing service that serves Vancouver and Portland.
By using temporary workers, employers don’t have to pay permanent salaries or benefits. The practice may even boost productivity and retention rates because it eases the work burden on full-time staff, the national study indicates.
Kelly Services Inc.’s Vancouver branch is placing about 150 people a week – up about 33 percent over last year, said Branch Manager Susan Schneiderman.
“I think businesses have been in the throws of growth but aren’t sure they can sustain the growth,” she said.
Companies are using temporary assignments as a way to evaluate prospective full-time employees, and more and more are using them on a project basis.
“The value of employment services is being recognized,” Schneiderman said. “We no longer have to introduce a company to the idea of a contingent workforce.”
Smith said using a staffing service saves him from worrying about staffing so much.
“Through the ups and downs, I can add and reduce the temporary staff quickly,” he said. “To be honest, we can weed through them pretty easily. There aren’t a lot of ties to a temp, and I just call the staffing service and say this person’s not working out.”
Companies are increasingly worried about whether a worker fits into a work environment, not only about whether a worker has the ability to do the job, Beam said.
On the flip side, workers are also feeling out the company.
Gen X-ers and Gen Y-ers are demanding job satisfaction, Schneiderman said.
Many temporary workers are between long-term jobs and temping is a source of supplemental income, but some are using it for support until they find the right thing, Nisenfeld said.
“People are more concerned about the fit and some are willing to wait for the right job,” she said. “It’s not just about salary and skills anymore.”
Volatile market conditions require companies to be more agile and responsive to changing circumstances, and supplementing work teams with interim workers may allow them to adjust staffing levels quickly and cost-effectively according to demand.
Tom Smith, production manager at Vancouver-based Kaso Plastics, said the custom plastic injection molding company budgets for temporary workers and typically supplements about 8 percent of its production staff with them.
“We use them for the jumps up and down in production mostly,” he said.
Currently, 11 out of the production area’s 99 employees are temporary – higher than usual, Smith said.
Kaso primarily uses temps for entry-level positions, but with the right skill sets, they may have an opportunity to move up in the company.
The use of temporary workers changes with the labor market, said Lisa Nisenfeld, executive director of the Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council.
When there’s abundant skilled labor, companies often use staffing services as their front door and can give workers a try.
When the labor market gets tighter, companies have to compete for workers, which often means offering a direct job, Nisenfeld said. Then, staffing services shift to become another source for potential workers because they have connections with a large number of people.
In times of economic downturn, companies may find benefit in relying on temporary workers.
“Temporary service allows companies to get someone in there, get a project done and not have to worry about firing or unemployment costs,” said Allison Beam, staffing consultant for Boly Welch, a staffing service that serves Vancouver and Portland.
By using temporary workers, employers don’t have to pay permanent salaries or benefits. The practice may even boost productivity and retention rates because it eases the work burden on full-time staff, the national study indicates.
Kelly Services Inc.’s Vancouver branch is placing about 150 people a week – up about 33 percent over last year, said Branch Manager Susan Schneiderman.
“I think businesses have been in the throws of growth but aren’t sure they can sustain the growth,” she said.
Companies are using temporary assignments as a way to evaluate prospective full-time employees, and more and more are using them on a project basis.
“The value of employment services is being recognized,” Schneiderman said. “We no longer have to introduce a company to the idea of a contingent workforce.”
Smith said using a staffing service saves him from worrying about staffing so much.
“Through the ups and downs, I can add and reduce the temporary staff quickly,” he said. “To be honest, we can weed through them pretty easily. There aren’t a lot of ties to a temp, and I just call the staffing service and say this person’s not working out.”
Companies are increasingly worried about whether a worker fits into a work environment, not only about whether a worker has the ability to do the job, Beam said.
On the flip side, workers are also feeling out the company.
Gen X-ers and Gen Y-ers are demanding job satisfaction, Schneiderman said.
Many temporary workers are between long-term jobs and temping is a source of supplemental income, but some are using it for support until they find the right thing, Nisenfeld said.
“People are more concerned about the fit and some are willing to wait for the right job,” she said. “It’s not just about salary and skills anymore.”
Many workers have sophisticated skills and some companies budget for temps
Demand for specialized skills
Companies are increasingly demanding more specialized skills from temporary workers. It’s not enough for warehouse workers to be able to lift – they have to be able to handle inventory and complete data entry – and receptionists have to know Microsoft Word and Excel at the least, Schneiderman said.
Businesses are recognizing they can hire highly skilled project professionals through staffing services in specialized areas like finance, information technology and administrative support.
“People call us because they figure we have people with higher skill levels,” she said. “If they wanted mediocre workers, they’d hire anyone off the street.”
In an attempt to increase the skill set of many under-qualified workers, Kelly Services offers a free computer skills tutorial for its workers. WorkSource also has skills training.
“We don’t want to just put people in our database,” Schneiderman said. “We want to put them to work and increase their skills so they can earn more money and get better placements.”
Beam said many workers are coming to staffing services with more sophisticated computer skills. Some have experience with PageMaker and InDesign, where basic computer skills used to cut it.
Schneiderman said there have been layoffs in Southwest Washington this year, which has increased some of the skill sets being funneled into staffing services.
Hot temp sectors include manufacturing, office staff and accountants.
As the forecasted skills shortage grows nearer, these companies should be prepared to compete harder for these higher skilled workers. But a temporary workforce that is presenting itself, perhaps for the first time in such force, is retirees.
The pool may grow substantially in the next few years as active boomers who may not be ready to stop working completely continue to retire.
Nisenfeld expects to see continued strength in the temporary market in the coming months. She also expects there will be some loosening of the labor market, but it will be offset by retirements and regular exits from the workforce.
“Some companies are going to have to rethink what they’re doing to recruit because it’s so competitive for good employees,” Schneiderman said. “They can’t compete with low, low salaries.”
Nisenfeld said she wouldn’t be surprised if most companies budget for temporary help – the SWWDC does.
“It’s a great way to handle unforeseen tasks and backed up workflow,” she said. “It’s a regular cost of doing business.”
Companies are increasingly demanding more specialized skills from temporary workers. It’s not enough for warehouse workers to be able to lift – they have to be able to handle inventory and complete data entry – and receptionists have to know Microsoft Word and Excel at the least, Schneiderman said.
Businesses are recognizing they can hire highly skilled project professionals through staffing services in specialized areas like finance, information technology and administrative support.
“People call us because they figure we have people with higher skill levels,” she said. “If they wanted mediocre workers, they’d hire anyone off the street.”
In an attempt to increase the skill set of many under-qualified workers, Kelly Services offers a free computer skills tutorial for its workers. WorkSource also has skills training.
“We don’t want to just put people in our database,” Schneiderman said. “We want to put them to work and increase their skills so they can earn more money and get better placements.”
Beam said many workers are coming to staffing services with more sophisticated computer skills. Some have experience with PageMaker and InDesign, where basic computer skills used to cut it.
Schneiderman said there have been layoffs in Southwest Washington this year, which has increased some of the skill sets being funneled into staffing services.
Hot temp sectors include manufacturing, office staff and accountants.
As the forecasted skills shortage grows nearer, these companies should be prepared to compete harder for these higher skilled workers. But a temporary workforce that is presenting itself, perhaps for the first time in such force, is retirees.
The pool may grow substantially in the next few years as active boomers who may not be ready to stop working completely continue to retire.
Nisenfeld expects to see continued strength in the temporary market in the coming months. She also expects there will be some loosening of the labor market, but it will be offset by retirements and regular exits from the workforce.
“Some companies are going to have to rethink what they’re doing to recruit because it’s so competitive for good employees,” Schneiderman said. “They can’t compete with low, low salaries.”
Nisenfeld said she wouldn’t be surprised if most companies budget for temporary help – the SWWDC does.
“It’s a great way to handle unforeseen tasks and backed up workflow,” she said. “It’s a regular cost of doing business.”
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
SMART Workforce Management Solutions
A leading provider of solutions for workforce management for over twenty years, SMART has helped some of the world's most successful companies maximise the performance, productivity and value of their people. In turn, this has enabled our customers to achieve a sustainable reduction in their people costs of up to 10%.
Delivering a complete solution, from time and attendance to workforce scheduling and from development to installation to customer support, our customers enjoy a more flexible working environment and an improved work-life balance for their greatest asset – their workforce.
SMART Workforce Management Solutions:
Manage complex shifts and annualised hours
Right size staff instantly to meet fluctuating demands
Cut absenteeism and recruitment costs
End spiralling overtime and see productivity climb
Improve employee relationships with powerful self-service
Implement flexible working and create business agility
Customers Include: Ocado, Gist, Habitat, Jaguar, JCB, NHS, Mandarin Oriental, Sainsbury's, Swissport, Trailfinders, Tussauds Group and Greater Manchester Fire.
SMART Technology
SMART's integrated solutions for workforce management provide efficient people management anywhere in the world. Developed using microsoft.NET technology, our zero-footprint web solutions are flexible, reliable, scalable and easy to implement. Whether fully installed on site, delivered as a managed or hosted service, the architecture enables you to focus on the specific areas of priority, and reconfigure the system at will to meet new challenges such as changes to Working Time Regulations. SMART systems enable planning, data capture and authorisation anywhere and everywhere you need it. Web-based advanced self-service, touch-screen kiosks and mobile activation via phone and PDA, ensure that employees can use the system even if they don't have PC access. Zero footprint SMART Web Technology ensures that no desktop installation or downloading of components, applets or software are required. It also ensures low network installation costs across all SMART solution modules and even lower maintenance/upgrade overheads in the future.
Customers
Our customers include some of the world's best known organisations, and our solutions and expertise extend to cover a broad range of industries including, Aviation, Logistics, Services, Manufacturing, Retail, Hospitality, Government and Healthcare.
Professional Support
SMART's focus and dedication to end-to-end customer support ensures that you enjoy maximum benefit with minimal cost of ownership. SMART delivers a comprehensive range of services, including; Project management, Implementation, Business Consulting, Training, Technology Support and more. This ensures that we future-proof your investment and provide a workforce solution that will meet your needs today and into the future.
Technorati Tags:
contract labor, labor management, workforce management
Delivering a complete solution, from time and attendance to workforce scheduling and from development to installation to customer support, our customers enjoy a more flexible working environment and an improved work-life balance for their greatest asset – their workforce.
SMART Workforce Management Solutions:
Manage complex shifts and annualised hours
Right size staff instantly to meet fluctuating demands
Cut absenteeism and recruitment costs
End spiralling overtime and see productivity climb
Improve employee relationships with powerful self-service
Implement flexible working and create business agility
Customers Include: Ocado, Gist, Habitat, Jaguar, JCB, NHS, Mandarin Oriental, Sainsbury's, Swissport, Trailfinders, Tussauds Group and Greater Manchester Fire.
SMART Technology
SMART's integrated solutions for workforce management provide efficient people management anywhere in the world. Developed using microsoft.NET technology, our zero-footprint web solutions are flexible, reliable, scalable and easy to implement. Whether fully installed on site, delivered as a managed or hosted service, the architecture enables you to focus on the specific areas of priority, and reconfigure the system at will to meet new challenges such as changes to Working Time Regulations. SMART systems enable planning, data capture and authorisation anywhere and everywhere you need it. Web-based advanced self-service, touch-screen kiosks and mobile activation via phone and PDA, ensure that employees can use the system even if they don't have PC access. Zero footprint SMART Web Technology ensures that no desktop installation or downloading of components, applets or software are required. It also ensures low network installation costs across all SMART solution modules and even lower maintenance/upgrade overheads in the future.
Customers
Our customers include some of the world's best known organisations, and our solutions and expertise extend to cover a broad range of industries including, Aviation, Logistics, Services, Manufacturing, Retail, Hospitality, Government and Healthcare.
Professional Support
SMART's focus and dedication to end-to-end customer support ensures that you enjoy maximum benefit with minimal cost of ownership. SMART delivers a comprehensive range of services, including; Project management, Implementation, Business Consulting, Training, Technology Support and more. This ensures that we future-proof your investment and provide a workforce solution that will meet your needs today and into the future.
Technorati Tags:
contract labor, labor management, workforce management
Friday, December 14, 2007
Risks of not moving towards outsourcing, specifically Smart-Sourcing.
In many ways, we only need to look to the U.S. automotive industry to answer that question. In manufacturing, those industries that delayed or simply ignored the move to off shoring paid and continue to pay a heavy price. Change in any industry is painful, especially when the industry is accustomed to premier stature. The only thing more painful, in the long run, is ignoring the change. We need to face the challenge and opportunity of globalization with a retooling of our educational systems and our workforce. For those individuals, organizations and nations who resist the future will be uncompromising in passing judgment on their inability to keep pace.
Technologies part in the Enterprise Process of Smart-sourcing
Smart-Sourcing is a business decision but, like so many business decisions in today's organizations, you cannot separate the business from the underlying technology. Doing so would be like a pilot trying to maneuver a plane without understanding the limits and capabilities of the aircraft. What's most important to keep in mind when considering how technology fits in is to look carefully at the ways in which the organization doing the Smart-Sourcing and the provider of the Smart-Sourcing link their technologies in order to achieve agility and accelerate innovation? It's fairly easy to have someone else perform a process, but not so easy to make sure that process continues to keep pace with every other aspect of your business after it's been outsourced. Smart-Sourcing requires greater synchronization and coordination of processes that may reside with multiple partners. That is primarily a technology challenge.
Smart-sourcing Dependence on Intelligent Knowledge of a Company's Core Competency
Simply put, you cannot smart-source without an explicit and well understood definition of a company’s core competency because you will not have a solid foundation for partnering on what is non-core. It is amazing how often a senior exec at an organization will be stumped by the question of core competency. Far too many people define a core competency as a product or service. Core competencies are rooted much deeper in an organization's culture, brand, and behaviors than any product or service. Understanding your core competency is essential if you are to identify where you should focus your energy and resources. It is also key in accepting those things that detract from, dilute or otherwise compete for your resources.
Once a company understands its core competency, it should proceed in the following manner.
Knowing what you are best at is a start. But then you need to objectively understand the metrics of performance in both your core and non-core areas. In a Smart-Sourcing analysis, you will actually rate your processes on two dimensions: from core to none- core; and then from high performance to low performance. The result will be a set of four categories of process, those that you Optimize, Reengineer, Outsource and Offshore. This is a rigorous process that takes much of the guesswork out of an outsourcing and off shoring decision by making it objective and methodical. As amazing as it may seem, to date most outsourcing and off shoring decisions have involved much more seat-of-the-pants and intuitive decision making than methodology. Smart-Sourcing is about moving the decision from art form to science
Once a company understands its core competency, it should proceed in the following manner.
Knowing what you are best at is a start. But then you need to objectively understand the metrics of performance in both your core and non-core areas. In a Smart-Sourcing analysis, you will actually rate your processes on two dimensions: from core to none- core; and then from high performance to low performance. The result will be a set of four categories of process, those that you Optimize, Reengineer, Outsource and Offshore. This is a rigorous process that takes much of the guesswork out of an outsourcing and off shoring decision by making it objective and methodical. As amazing as it may seem, to date most outsourcing and off shoring decisions have involved much more seat-of-the-pants and intuitive decision making than methodology. Smart-Sourcing is about moving the decision from art form to science
The Next Step in Outsourcing Move forward to “Smart-Sourcing” and Containing Innovation
When we raise the specter of work mobility, the first thing that most people think of is outsourcing. Smart-sourcing is not synonymous with outsourcing. Outsourcing is only one part of Smart-sourcing. Outsourcing is meant primarily to reduce costs and transfer the risks of a defined process to a third party.
Approximately 60% of all organizations that undertook an outsourcing initiative did so, initially, for only cost objectives. The term used for this sort of outsourcing is "lift and shift," meaning an existing process is lifted out of its current organization and shifted over to the third party. The third party may achieve economies of scope through shared services, technology or international wage arbitrage, but such a relationship will rarely lead to higher levels of innovation. This innovation deficit in current outsourcing relationships represents a huge opportunity lost. One tends to believe that this is one of the most limiting factors in the acceptance of outsourcing and off shoring.
Organizations need to focus their precious resources on what they do best in order to innovate on their core competencies. But, they also need partners who can continue to innovate on the non-core processes that they outsource.
Smart Sourcing advocates using partners who can help a company to focus on its core, balance risk and opportunity, lower costs, increase innovation across all of its processes and finally, put in place attitudes to optimize all of these factors, socially and politically. Outsourcing and off shoring are essential components of this but only if they pave the way for organizations to free up resources so they can focus on core competencies that lead to greater innovation.
Approximately 60% of all organizations that undertook an outsourcing initiative did so, initially, for only cost objectives. The term used for this sort of outsourcing is "lift and shift," meaning an existing process is lifted out of its current organization and shifted over to the third party. The third party may achieve economies of scope through shared services, technology or international wage arbitrage, but such a relationship will rarely lead to higher levels of innovation. This innovation deficit in current outsourcing relationships represents a huge opportunity lost. One tends to believe that this is one of the most limiting factors in the acceptance of outsourcing and off shoring.
Organizations need to focus their precious resources on what they do best in order to innovate on their core competencies. But, they also need partners who can continue to innovate on the non-core processes that they outsource.
Smart Sourcing advocates using partners who can help a company to focus on its core, balance risk and opportunity, lower costs, increase innovation across all of its processes and finally, put in place attitudes to optimize all of these factors, socially and politically. Outsourcing and off shoring are essential components of this but only if they pave the way for organizations to free up resources so they can focus on core competencies that lead to greater innovation.
The effects of Globalization on Outsourcing
Factors affecting the current Outsourcing Model
With outsourcing increasingly becoming a way of life in the global economy, the key question for many businesses is how a well managed outsourcing process can translate into business improvement across the board. Suppliers and manufacturers are moving from bringing workers to the work to taking work to where the workers are.
Globalization involves much more than just the popular misconception of cheap labor. There are three trends at play driving global outsourcing
Cost
Education
Mobility.
Everyone understands the process of wage arbitrage through which disparity in global pay can be used to reduce costs of a service or product. Yet this is only the smooth tip of the iceberg.
What we often underestimate is the degree to which secondary and post secondary education has accelerated in providing a skilled base of knowledge workers in other less developed economies. In Japan, for example, less than 1% of the population eligible for university actually attended in 1950. Today that number is greater than 25%. The same sort of shift is occurring today in India and China. This is having a profound impact on the availability of qualified workers for jobs that we would never have considered outsourcing.
The even greater shift is in how easily work can be moved to wherever it makes the most sense. Mobility of work is at least as great a factor in the changing landscape of global trade as the migration of immigrant workers to the new world was in the 19th and 20th centuries. When you combine these three very significant dynamics, it becomes clear that the depth and impact of outsourcing is far more than a passing arrhythmia on the global economic landscape.
With outsourcing increasingly becoming a way of life in the global economy, the key question for many businesses is how a well managed outsourcing process can translate into business improvement across the board. Suppliers and manufacturers are moving from bringing workers to the work to taking work to where the workers are.
Globalization involves much more than just the popular misconception of cheap labor. There are three trends at play driving global outsourcing
Cost
Education
Mobility.
Everyone understands the process of wage arbitrage through which disparity in global pay can be used to reduce costs of a service or product. Yet this is only the smooth tip of the iceberg.
What we often underestimate is the degree to which secondary and post secondary education has accelerated in providing a skilled base of knowledge workers in other less developed economies. In Japan, for example, less than 1% of the population eligible for university actually attended in 1950. Today that number is greater than 25%. The same sort of shift is occurring today in India and China. This is having a profound impact on the availability of qualified workers for jobs that we would never have considered outsourcing.
The even greater shift is in how easily work can be moved to wherever it makes the most sense. Mobility of work is at least as great a factor in the changing landscape of global trade as the migration of immigrant workers to the new world was in the 19th and 20th centuries. When you combine these three very significant dynamics, it becomes clear that the depth and impact of outsourcing is far more than a passing arrhythmia on the global economic landscape.
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