Datamonitor, Report, Outsourcing, Future

New Datamonitor report looks at future of outsourcing

In its report, The Future of Outsourcing, independent market analysis firm Datamonitor examines what lessons from the past the new wave of outsourcing can learn from and what will drive its success going forward.

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Outsourcing is increasing its reach in terms of vertical industry reach as well as geographic scope, according to the report. While the firms investing in it are wide-ranging, their individual needs are all similar in that they need to reduce overheads as much as possible. Yet the outsourcing phenomenon is rarely understood.

Datamonitor’s report examines outsourcing in Automotive, Energy, Healthcare, Technology and Financial Services markets. Some points highlighted include:

Sales force outsourcing common practice within the pharmaceutical industry

Sales force outsourcing is being used as a tactical maneuver by pharmaceutical companies, using the services provided by contract sales organizations (CSOs) to meet their short-term and longer-term. The benefits:

Speed and efficiencies - CSOs can quickly a build sales forces or provide additional sales representatives. This is useful for pharmaceutical companies to adapt to sudden changes in their sales force needs;

Expertise - Using a CSO can provide pharmaceutical firms with sales force expertise in new geographic or therapeutic areas they wish to expand into, but do not have the expertise in;

Avoiding capital outlay - For some pharmaceutical companies, particularly smaller ones, such an investment may be too risky or they may not have the upfront capital required. Outsourcing the function to a CSO offers a viable alternative.

Western domestic contact center outsourcing is slowing whilst “BestShoring” is the latest strategy to emerge

Outsourcing is continuing to grow across all vertical markets, and contact centers are no exception. However, western domestic contact center outsourcing is slowing in the wake of new business realities and offshore locations providing high levels of customer service at a lower cost.

Many investors in the US and Western Europe have adopted the “nearshore” model as a way of moving their operations to cheaper locations. Simply put, they locate their facilities in relatively close proximity to the markets they service. (e.g. from the standpoint of US investors, Canada and Mexico.)

However to derive maximum profits from outsourcing, many are now using the “BestShoring” strategy - tailoring specific customer care needs to locations that are best suited for these functions. It allows the investor to save on the cost of domestically sourcing the work, while at the same time removing the inflexibility of using only one offshore location. For example, many outsourcers are now locating administrative-to-mid level customer care in offshore locations including India, Argentina and the Philippines (which may account for 60 - 70% of total call volume), while locating the high-end/value add work in nearshore locations such as the Czech Republic or Egypt.

Europe’s payment card market steps into a new era of outsourced card processing solutions

The result of the changing market conditions and the improved approach of US third party players mean that Europe’s map of card processors is starting to look very different than it did two years ago. One only has to look at the number of new outsourced processing relationships that have been signed over the last year. These include, First Data’s merchant acquiring alliances with ICS in the Netherlands and BNL in Italy; Sociiti Ginirale’s relationship with eFunds for international card processing and euroConex’s acquisition of Citibank Card Acceptance in Europe. In considering these recent, new relationships, as well as some of the acquisitions that have been made over the last year (largely by First Data International), it is clear that Europe is witnessing a second wave of outsourced card processing solutions.

Energy Sector - Effectively designed infrastructure further facilitates Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

The most successful approach taken by mass market customer service providers towards outsourcing has been to optimize systems in advance of relocating specific tasks. This recognizes that there are economies of scale from outsourcing a single entity rather than a number of disparate systems. With the systems fully in place and functioning effectively, this allows for a further round of cost savings beyond those efficiencies that naturally fall out of a process optimization process.

The UK domestic energy sector is one example of a deregulated industry in which the costs involved in serving customers have been cut in relative terms. Centrica is one example. Having invested in optimizing systems and with full migration of accounts complete, it is now in a position to seek to lower its costs of business processing. Centrica already has 1,000 back office seats in India, with the scope to add further headcount over time. Datamonitor estimates that the combination of the systems investment and BPO will see Centrica’s Cost-to-Serve fall from £30.74 per customer to £21.86. At present, Centrica’s policy is to keep customer service operatives in the UK, but it is well placed to deliver further cost savings should this change in the future.

Growth in outsourcing of fleet management services in the Europe slowing

Datamonitor expects Europe’s market for outsourced fleet management services to reach 6.67 million vehicles by 2010 representing a 3.6% growth over the 5.5 million vehicles in 2005. The 5% growth enjoyed during 2004 is expected to slow, reaching 3% by 2010. This decline of market growth represents a restriction in growth potential for fleet management companies.

Traditionally, fleet management companies have targeted outsourcing services at customer segments where the penetration of outsourcing services is already high. To maintain the currently high levels of outsourcing with medium and large size corporate clients, Datamonitor says companies need to adopt successful customer retention strategies - costs involved in retaining a customer are far lower than those incurred trying to expand the client base.