To fix or to ship? That is the question

Fix a function before shipping it for outsourcing, or ship it first? For many buyers of outsourcing services, the question is like an enigma wrapped in a riddle.

Customers looking to outsource services often are concerned whether to re-engineer broken areas of their operations that are headed to outsourcing – before shipping them, says Tiger Tyagarajan, executive vice president of Genpact, the commercialized division of what had been Gecis Global, or GE Capital International Services. Often the solution depends on who recognizes the problem – and who the function touches, he says.

A customer’s employees might complain that the problem area hinders their ability to perform. So outsourcing it before repairing could only create the impression that outsourcing exacerbated the problem and lead to finger pointing as to the problem’s source. For external customers, fixing first repairs the broken process and helps ensure a positive transition for the external customer.

Even Tyagarajan says it’s a case-by-case situation – and management must understand the needs of various stakeholders and set their expectations.

“Sometimes fix and ship works, and sometimes it doesn’t work,” he adds. “That almost sounds like a consultant’s answer.”

Whose responsibility is the upsell?

An interesting trend is emerging among buyers in the customer management arena. There’s an expectation that when a call-center operator is on the line with a caller, the time is ripe for an upsell.

So when a customer calls for technical support, a billing problem or a service issue, once the issue is resolved, the buyer believes that’s the ideal opportunity to deepen the relationship by selling a contract or service extension or to cross sell other products or services.

“Based on the goodwill established in the transaction, buyers believe we should present some unrelated sale opportunity,” says Bob Corsi, senior vice president of operations for NCO Customer Management, a Horsham, Pa.-based business process outsourcing provider for all stages of customer lifecycle services. The company recently topped 100 facilities worldwide with the October acquisition of Risk Management Alternatives Inc. “Customers and clients are looking for us to take the transactions and turn them into value-adds,” he adds.

The concept has merit – even if the effort is more of a planting of a seed than the reaping of the harvest. To be sure, commodity transactions like billing services or outbound calls are so scripted and routine that the environment for a sale might not be right. Yet, a good rapport and outcome following a frustrated caller’s experience might create fertile soil for future harvests.

“By handing this correctly or building brand loyalty,” Corsi says, “the next time the customer needs something, the choice becomes an easy one.”

Companies wonder: how good are my people?

Imagine you’re an HR manager, and you have no clear picture of your employees’ critical skills. Now imagine those people start leaving en masse. How will you reclaim that talent and remain competitive?

That’s the bleak image presented in a landmark IBM study that revealed 60 percent of 320 organizations surveyed potentially will suffer a brain drain when Baby Boomers begin to retire. It reported that some 19 percent of executive, administrative and managerial posts in the U.S. alone will retire by 2008.

Companies working in mature markets in North America, Japan, Northern Europe and Australia are most at risk. Those in emerging or growth markets, especially in Asia-Pacific organizations – excluding Japan, reported the greatest flexibility in proactively staffing with a younger workforce.

“The consequence will be that employers will find out when it is too late that a careers’ worth of experience and talent has walked out the door,” says Monty Baker, IBM’s vice president of global BPO HR Solutions in Toronto. “That will leave insufficient talent available to fill the void.”

The solution? Empower executives and HR staff to improve and retain human capital. Start planning for the exodus today. Hire and train younger managerial and executive staffing, get an up-to-date view of employee skills, become more flexible to quickly apply current skills to changing market opportunities, train and promote from within – yet be prepared to hire additional skills from outside the company.

“Ultimately, those organizations with an emphasis on HR business intelligence will win the day – and future generations of business leaders,” Baker says.

Paper, space wasted in yesteday's copy centers

Does your company’s Midtown Manhattan in-house copy center crank out enough ROI to justify its expense?

At $85 a square foot for office space, the rationale for dedicating 1,000 square feet or more to a bunch of copy machines – instead of high-performing brokers or attorneys – is losing luster among many companies.

The alternative? Online, on-demand digital copy services. From Fortune 100s to small businesses, Web-based and drop-shipped copy production is finding favor for print jobs ranging from one to 1,000 documents. To wit: the “digital print” category is expected to top $25 billion within the next five years.

Files are uploaded, and once print, paper, binding and shipping specifications are selected, the job is good to go. Made a mistake? Re-open the file and make a change. Costs are slashed and savings are gained. Try that with your off-set printer.

“It’s not just about driving down costs but saving huge amounts of time,” says Adam Slutsky, CEO of Mimeo.com Inc., the New York City-based digital copy service.

“This is easier than walking a CD to the copy center on the 26th floor.”

Web-based doesn’t mean delayed deliveries. With its 140,000-square-foot print and production facility in Memphis, TN.--not coincidentally the home of FedEx--Mimeo customers have until 10 p.m. to hit “send” to ensure next-day delivery.

“Everyone in Manhattan knows the last drop for FedEx is at 7 p.m. on the West Side,” Slutsky says. “Our last ‘drop’ is so late that it practically becomes same day.”