Outsource Magazine Issue 27 - (Page 56)

This issue: 25th AnniversAry; Account MAnAgeMent; outsourcing Works 25 yeArs of excellence T NOA Chairman Martyn Hart looks back over a quarter of a century of promoting best practice in outsourcing. competency and provides much-needed professional recognition in the outsourcing industry. A recognised benchmark of knowledge and ability, accreditation leads to professionalisation, which is the next step for the outsourcing industry. The outsourcing industry is full of next steps: the next function to be outsourced, the next game-changing technology, i.e. cloud; the next offshore destination; however, there will always be frontiers. Pioneering organisations outsourcing areas where others fear to tread; this will bring "interesting" problems to those constructing these new relationships. Every organisation will have parts of it that for one reason or another it thinks it will never outsource. Truly understanding the whys and wherefores of these conundrums will become a key competitive advantage for those that get the make/buy blend right. As outsourcing is accepted more and more, and standardisation increases, there will be fewer contractual issues for ‘normal’ outsourcing services like ITO and BPO. Outsourcing continues to be the only sure-fire way to obtain strategic business-step change that simply would not otherwise be possible, either organically or through simple acquisition. Over the next 25 years, we expect that outsourcing will be progressively accepted at all levels of business as organisations make decisions on where to place their resources in order to give them maximum return – and the NOA will be here to facilitate and promote successful relationships that bring benefits to endusers, suppliers and advisories alike. wenty-five years of advocating excellence in outsourcing. That’s what the National Outsourcing Association (NOA) is celebrating this year. But outsourcing has been around much longer than that, of course. According to the research project recently conducted by the NOA in association with Kingston University, the first recognised outsourcing deal took place in the 1950s. But the concept of increasing value by sending work to specialists goes back thousands of years, as far back as 380 BC. Plato alludes to outsourcing in The Republic when he comments: “Well then, how will our state supply these needs? It will need a farmer, a builder, and a weaver, and also, I think, a shoemaker and one or two others to provide for our bodily needs. So that the minimum state would consist of four or five men…” Companies and governments outsource today for much the same reasons. Better, quicker, cheaper. Yet outsourcing is more complicated than it seems at first glance. With so many processes, protocols and personal relationships to dovetail, allowing another organisation access to the inner-workings of your business can be daunting. Especially if you are a first-timer. Imagine the trepidation in May 1987, during a meeting in the British Telecom Tower, where a radical idea was floated: British Rail (BR) should outsource its telecommunications to British Telecom. John Welsby, BR chairman at the time, agreed. So a board-level committee was set up to explore the idea with Nick Kane from British Telecom, and board member David Rayner, as the senior BR representative. BR managers wanted some reassurance that outsourcing worked and a body of evidence had to be built to prove that this "new" idea was possible. This desire for evidence provided the foundation for the NOA as we know it today. The NOA began as a response to a growing need for both outsourcing customers and suppliers to share ideas, review successes and failures, stop re-inventing wheels, and in doing so create a body of “expertise and best practice” that could carry the industry forward. Twenty-five years later, the outsourcing industry is reaching maturity. Although outsourcing as an industry is established, the concept and development of outsourcing as a profession is relatively new. This is an issue of education and not only creating awareness, but creating standards to work towards. Hence the need for the NOA Pathway, a talent programme that reflects the fact that outsourcing is part of everyday business now. It provides a set of accredited qualifications that develops To find out more about the NOA visit www.noa.co.uk 56 www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk ●●● http://www.noa.co.uk http://www.noa.co.uk 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