Outsource Magazine Issue 27 - (Page 113)

THE BACK END INSIDE SOURCE At the cutting edge of outsourcing espionage since 2010… Oh, good grief… I was reading recently HfS’ Tony Filippone’s article on Horses for Sources ‘Have Industry Events Reached Their Stagnation Point?’ and after delighting momentarily in the furore which this generated I thought of an event I attended a couple of weeks ago which really epitomised much of what Mr Filippone is talking about (not to mention being an organisational catastrophe in its own right). So I thought I’d throw my two cents’ worth into the debate. Even though I’m safe behind my anonymity I’m not going to name the event in question – while I respect Mr Filippone’s decision to take that step I don’t necessarily agree with it – so you will just have to take it as read that it was a supposedly large-scale event put on by a well-known conference provider. I should also confess that I wasn’t in the best of moods in the first place due to an almighty SNAFU the previous day which has led to one of my team seeking employment elsewhere… So my knife was already sharpened. Here in no particular order are some of the things wrong with what I am confident in describing as the single worst conference I have ever attended: nobody on the desk when I arrived for registration; no delegate packs (just a double-sided info sheet with faded ink); no coffee provided until five minutes before the opening address; cold coffee; presentations full of provider puff with very little genuine value; no working microphones until halfway through the third presentation (I sat midway up the hall and struggled to hear anything); delegate numbers orders of magnitude below what was promised when I signed up; atrocious, cold food at lunch; expensive wi-fi which only worked sporadically (seriously, organisers, if you’re billing people that much to attend your gigs and can’t throw in free wi-fi you need to take a good long hard look at yourselves); an incompetent tech team repeatedly shutting down the projector; slides loaded in the wrong order; a speaker who couldn’t speak English to any noteworthy degree; an operations team which was absent at almost all teams only to pop up in the middle of the “networking” – ie “grouching” – break and encourage us to come to talk with the sponsors; poor lighting; high levels of background noise. Awful. It’s simple: if you can’t put on an event to at least some degree of competency you shouldn’t be in the business. A real mess I love a good excuse – and here’s a genuinely great one. A colleague of mine was en route to a meeting at the end of February when his meet-ee called to let him know he wouldn’t be able to make their appointment. Of course my colleague started to take umbrage – but his wrath turned to hilarity when his acquaintance sheepishly explained his circumstances. Apparently, he had taken the morning off to show a relative around London and whilst doing a tour around Westminster he had had an unfortunate accident: he had slipped on, and fell into, a pile of horse manure… When he called, he was on his way home to change – presumably in a train carriage whose occupants were allowing him plenty of room to breathe… My colleague refuses to name names but some of you must know the gentleman in question, so please do spread the good word… NB: You can send industry gossip or just a good tale like that to me at insidesource.outsource@gmail. com “Every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies.” – Jane Austen www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk 113 ●●● ● http://www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outsource Magazine Issue 27

NEWS
PLANET ITO
NORM JUDAH MICROSOFT’S
IN THE KNOW
CALL BRITANNIA
DAVID EVELEIGH
CHAIN GAIN
CAN EVERYTHING BE OUTSOURCED?
NOA ROUND-UP
QUICK CHANGE?
TRANSFORMING FINANCE
CAROLINE STOCKMANN
GOOD REVIEWS
OUTSOURCING IS NOT MAKE VERSUS BUY: IT IS A CONTINUUM
PAYING ATTENTION
POWERING UP YOUR CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ENGINE
BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS
HEAD-TO-HEAD
TOP TEN
THE LEGAL VIEW
HFS RESEARCH
HEADLINES...
ONLINE ROUND-UP
INSIDE SOURCE
THE LAST WORD

Outsource Magazine Issue 27