How Client Capabilities, Vendor Configuration and Location Impact BPO Outcomes

Despite the increasing use of onshore and offshore business process outsourcing (BPO), a comprehensive literature review [38] finds that there has been limited empirical research on BPO outcomes. This article responds to the call for research by developing and testing a conceptual model for BPO outcomes using data from 50 firms publicly traded in the U.S., including 38 firms in the Forbes Global 2000. We find that client firm capabilities, vendor configuration, and country location lead to interesting tradeoffs in the BPO quality, cost, and time outcomes. For example, while multi-sourcing offers advantages such as risk mitigation, client firms encounter reduced BPO time benefits when they use multiple vendors. While onshore BPO can lead to an improved quality, higher onshore labor costs result in lower BPO cost savings. And while offshore destinations such as India offer lower labor costs, time zone differences lead to reduced BPO time benefits

The development of service provider's BPO-IT framework

Purpose The decision to operate BPO-IT organisational model by a business process outsourcing (BPO) service provider has far reaching benefits. The purpose of this paper is to develop a service provider’s BPO-IT framework that provides in-house IT function (software) required to process client services. Design/methodology/approach The multi-case study adopted an exploratory sequential mixed method research approach. In the first instance, seven BPO service provider organisations were investigated in the qualitative phase and 156 in the quantitative phase, respectively. Findings The adoption of the developed framework indicates that it could reduce failures in BPO relationships through reduced turnaround time in processing client services, improved quality of service, reduced cost, improved client and provider’s competitiveness, and confidentiality of client operations. Outsourcing clients could lay the foundation for a successful relationship by adopting a selection process that could choose the right provider. Originality/value The paper reveals BPO-IT organisation’s operation towards in-house provision of software required to process client services. A research exploring BPO service providers from a top outsourcing destination like India could provide offshore outsourcing clients the information to move towards onshore outsourcing. </jats:sec

Offshore outsourcing - A global shift in the present IT industry

The paper analyses the offshore outsourcing of IT services (OOIT), which have become increasingly important for the global IT industry. Through this rapid process of firm relocation, a new terminology has emerged, which forms the starting point for our paper. We compare wage cost differentials of IT workers in key offshore locations like India to those in the US and Europe, incorporating the hidden costs of offshoring - including long-term risks and opportunities - in order to determine the total cost of offshore outsourcing activities. The debate on the potential future negative employment impacts in the major OECD countries recently became a point of political contention in the US presidential election campaign, reflecting widespread fears in the US and elsewhere that outsourcing will lead to decreased income and job loss. In Europe, policy makers are searching for instruments to guide these developments so that major social disruptions do not lead to disproportionately negative welfare impacts in the short term. The future costs and benefits of outsourcing can currently be assessed only in broad terms due to the lack of adequate data and representative statistics. However, the theory of comparative advantages suggests that overall, offshoring and inshoring countries will gain from the new international division of labour in the long run. --offshore outsourcing of IT,international factor movements and labour markets,international business,multinational firms

Multimedia animation outsourcing : capstone proposal ...

Outsourcing in multimedia animation is a three phase research project in order to create a comparative analysis to obtain a hypothesis in three categories: 1. What are the comparative pros and cons of multimedia animation outsourcing? 2. What the benefits/disadvantages of multimedia animation outsourcing are in terms of costs, quality and time effectiveness? 3. What are the historical, current and future trends in multimedia animation? This research was conducted by literature investigation, qualitative interviews of several small to medium to large business in the beginning to advance states of this industry. Topics in history, industry trends, budget, saving time and cost, quality employee and social responsibilities, cultural issues and more were reviewed in this research. These companies either outsource or are outsourcers in the multimedia industries In-House, Onshore, Nearshore or Offshore. The purpose of this research is to obtain new information from these selectively chosen companies\u27 interviews for other companies who are, or planning to outsource, their animation to have another information resource. Multimedia Animation Outsourcing is considered the most current innovative technology and the wave of future in its learning phases. This research is an educational contribution to that technology

How Does Customer Service Offshoring Impact Customer Satisfaction?

Information technology (IT) plays a vital role in customer relationship management (CRM), because CRM processes include the collection and analysis of customer information, firms use technology tools to interact with customers, and IT created the conditions under which firms can offshore CRM processes. Customers have negative perceptions toward offshoring, which suggests that firms might be reluctant to offshore IT-enabled CRM processes. However, firms have significantly increased offshoring for CRM processes, presenting a conundrum. Why would firms increase offshoring for CRM processes if there could be a risk to customer satisfaction? This paper helps to resolve the conundrum by studying the impact of CRM sourcing on customer satisfaction with the firm’s products and services, as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction IndexTM. We analyze data for 150 North American firms and business units over a nine-year period. Front office offshore outsourcing and front office onshore outsourcing are both negatively associated with customer satisfaction, which suggests that negative customer perceptions may be due to the firm boundary dimension rather than the geographic location dimension. Front office offshore outsourcing is not statistically significant for services firms, which suggests that customers are more accepting of offshore providers in a service setting. Over time, the coefficient for back office offshore outsourcing has become more positive, which suggests that firms may expect to see a similar improvement for front office offshore outsourcing in the future. Our empirical results provide a basis to understand why firms have increased IT-enabled CRM offshoring despite short-term risks to customer satisfaction

Critical Success Factors in the Offshore Business Process Outsourcing of Debt Collection to India

This research identifies critical success factors for the offshore business process outsourcing of debt collection to India. It develops a critical success factor model for offshore debt collection incorporating the new concept of Opaque Indifference. Opaque Indifference is a series of constructed states eliminating negative cues for debtors dealing with offshore debt collectors. The research contributes to the existing literature by applying information systems outsourcing theory to the offshore business process outsourcing of debt collection

Organizational Learning and Capabilities for Onshore and Offshore Business Process Outsourcing

This paper identifies and analyzes firm-level characteristics that facilitate onshore and offshore business process outsourcing (BPO). We use organizational learning and capabilities to develop a conceptual model. We test the conceptual model with archival data on a broad cross section of U. S. firms. Our empirical findings indicate that firms with experience in onshore information technology (IT) outsourcing and capabilities related to IT coordination applications and process codification are more likely to engage in BPO, and firms with experience in internationalization are more likely to engage in offshore BPO. We also find that IT coordination applications have a greater impact on onshore BPO than on offshore BPO, and the effect of process codification is partly mediated through IT outsourcing

Investigating the Information Systems Heterarchy

This article assesses how one IS organization is changing in response to the increased globalization of software development and posits the emergence of a new form of multi-national enterprise (MNE)—the heterarchy. Data from two projects create new insights into the structures and behaviors of ISMNEs as they adapt to global systems development. The article identifies four primary dimensions of impact—cultural, economic, operational, and organizational—and suggests how such organizations are evolvin