Outsource Magazine Issue 34 - (Page 111)
THE BACK END THE DEAl DoCTor
Paul Morrison, Alsbridge
Paul Morrison is Partner and Head of BPO and Shared Services Practice at
Alsbridge. He has over 18 years' consulting and sourcing advisory experience and
is a former director of the NOA
Feeling under the outsourcing weather?
Take a seat: the Deal Doctor will be with you directly...
What does robotic
automation mean
for outsourcing?
Of late there has been much
chatter about robots in
outsourcing.
And let's face it, a little bit of
sci-fi imagery adds welcome
colour to earnest outsourcing
discussions about KPIs,
gainshare and build-operatetransfer. But the use of smart
software that 'learns' and
replicates work previously done
by process clerks, agents and
analysts, is in its infancy and
the implications are only just
emerging.
One view sees robotic
automation as so massive
and far-reaching that it spells
the end of outsourcing and
offshoring - there will be no
need to shift work to low-cost
locations or specialist suppliers
if you don't need workers. At
the other end of the spectrum,
others argue that robotisation is
simply a smart marketing label
for just the latest, incremental
form of automation, and that the
world of outsourcing will carry
on as usual.
Both positions are caricatures.
But the robot story is special.
Lean, adaptive, rules-based
software promises automation
that previously simply couldn't
be done, in far quicker
timeframes. The clincher is that
companies are already using
robotisation successfully and
at scale, with the list of case
studies in banking, telecoms
and other sectors lengthening
rapidly.
In the usually sleepy village
of global outsourcing, this
constitutes major disruptive
change. Service providers
are quickly thinking through
what this might mean for
their business models. Smart
buyers need to ensure they
have sufficiently flexible
contracts and commercials to
handle implementing robotic
automation, particularly in
terms of governance, change
and charging. And just about
everyone needs to consider
their future relationship with a
new breed of player, the robotic
solution provider. Time to get
ready, the robots are coming.
What is SIAM and
is it relevant for
my ITO strategy?
SIAM stands for
'Service Integration and
Management', and basically
it refers to the emerging
practice of hiring a third
party to make your many
service providers play
nicely together.
It is a response to the classic
challenge of multisourcing. The
era of the IT megadeal is over,
in which one supplier provides
services across the entire IT
estate or back office. Therefore
companies need to contract
with multiple suppliers, a trend
that is being deepened with the
rise of cloud, XaaS and other
services alongside traditional
towers.
The result is that outsourcing
buyers have a number (often
dozens) of suppliers whose
mutual interdependencies are
unknown and unmanaged.
Boundary incidents, unplanned
outages, stalled escalations,
red-faced contract managers,
and poor service are the end
result.
The need for good
multisourcing governance is
widely known, but in practice
it has lacked teeth to deliver.
SIAM is new in ITO and BPO
(we have seen its like in other
industries such as construction),
in that it identifies a new thirdparty role, to set out the rules
of the ecosystem, bang heads
together and make clear the
incentives for smarter, joint
working.
Why isn't everyone doing this?
As ever the devil is in the detail:
there is no standard definition
of what SIAM includes
getting suppliers even
partially aligned is complex
not all suppliers are willing to
take on the SIAM role (and miss
out on the bigger delivery roles)
It can be difficult to pin down
the benefits of SIAM, whereas
the costs are clear
The jury is out on the longterm significance of SIAM.
But if you seek a grown up
and systematic approach to
outsourcing complexity, SIAM
could be worth exploring.
Anyone for MYANMAR?
If you'd like to submit a query for the Deal Doctor, please email Paul at paul.morrison@alsbridge.eu
www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outsource Magazine Issue 34
Challenges and Champions
Outsourcing in a Troubled Economic Environment
Richard Jones
High Stakes
In Transition
The Bigger Picture
Numbers, Numbers Everywhere...
NOA Round-Up
Struggling To Get Through?
International Commercial Disputes In Outsourcing Agreements
Is Infrastructure Necessary?
Global Freelance Platforms Grow Up
Trumping Price – Only with Best value
Kerry Hallard
Technology Investment in 2014
Water Will Always Find A Way
The Right Time Is Now
You, Robot?
The Legal View
Top Ten
NelsonHall Round-Up
Online Round-Up
The Deal Doctor
Inside Source
The Last Word
Outsource Magazine Issue 34
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