Guy Kirkwood's BPO Backchat
5 feb 2006
NelsonHall, the UK-based sourcing analyst firm, will hold a webinar revealing its new research findings on the HRO market.
The company’s analyst team has been conducting a series of detailed HR service provider and HRO buyer research in recent months to produce reports on the global multi-process and mid-market HRO environments. Industry analysts Phil Fersht and Scott Golas will present on the following topics based on NelsonHall’s ongoing research:
- Current state of the HRO industry
- Predictions for 2006
- Global HRO buying dynamics: North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific
- Overview on HRO mid-market landscape
- Overview of trends in the HR services areas: recruiting and RPO, managed payroll, benefits admin, health & welfare
- The HRO service provider landscape in 2006
The one-hour session will comprise of a 45-minute presentation from Fersht and Golas, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A from participants. NelsonHall clients will also have the opportunity to pose questions to the analysts after the session.
The webinar will take place on February 14 at the following time: United States: 7:30 a.m. PST /10:30am EST; Europe: 3:30pm GMT/4:30pm CET; Asia: 9:00 p.m. (Calcutta) /11:30 p.m. (Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur). To register: visit
3 feb 2006
www.nelson-hall.com/webcast.Would anyone like to spend USD15bn on an outsourcing deal? Well, that's exactly what General Motors has just done. GM has today announced one of the world’s largest IT re–sourcing initiatives, with major contracts going to EDS, HP and Capgemini.
EDS, which has been GM's main technology provider for the past twenty years, won the majority share. With this agreement, plus other business that was not part of the recompete, EDS now expects USD1.2bn to USD1.4bn in annualized revenue from GM over the next five years; (which has saved its bacon, frankly).
HP was awarded more than USD700m in services contracts over the same five-year period. The agreement spans global product development, manufacturing and quality, customer and dealer information systems, and global SAP management support.
GM selected Capgemini to assist its Information, Systems and Services organization to support some of the program’s key strategic elements, including the management of application integration, which provides strategic planning, architecture, program management and verification services. It is interesting to note that Capgemini pursued six GM contracts and was awarded all six.
With deals this size, it's no wonder that the major ITO firms have put their BPO business units on the back burner.
2 feb 2006
Geopolitical instability may have been blamed by US President Bush for his desire to cut oil imports by 75% by 2025, but as the chart below shows, it is the US weakness and it's ongoing antagonism to the other big four producers that is driving the change. The desire for new technologies, mentioned by Bush, including fusion becomes ever more pressing.
Prophetically, one of the great Russians pioneers of fusion physics said: "We will not harness the potential of fusion until it becomes a necessity".
I think that time is fast approaching.
1 feb 2006
I was asked in a note from Surekha Appana of Valuelabs what the is difference between BPO and KPO. My initial thought was more money; but I then questioned why.
The basic difference between BPO and KPO is that BPO mainly deals with customer care and technical support through communication, transaction processing, telemarketing, and so on. KPO is offshoring of knowledge intensive business processes that require specialised domain expertise. It involves high-end processes like valuation, research, investment researches, patent filing, legal and insurance claim, to name a few. For such tasks KPO requires people with a better educational background... and therefore costs more money.
I think that as BPO becomes more commoditised, many offshore firms particularly in the commercially aggressive markets of India, will morph into the more value-add services of KPO to maintain margins.