Offshore Outsourcing: Business Models, ROI and Best Practices [Hardcover]

Marcia Robinson (Author), Ravi Kalakota (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2004

Something radical is happening to corporate organizational structures, something subtle yet far-reaching in impact. It is the rapid emergence of offshore outsourcing as a corporate strategy. Cost reduction, productivity improvement, and cheaper labor - these are the promises of offshore outsourcing. This book reveals how GE, American Express, Dell, British Airways, Delta Air Lines, BellSouth, British Telecom, and numerous other companies are successfully using offshore outsourcing to reduce costs associated with IT, customer care, finance and accounting, human resources, and transaction processing.

Offshore Outsourcing: Business Models, ROI, and Best Practices is a comprehensive guide to the real-world application of offshore outsourcing across all industries. Authors Marcia Robinson and Dr. Ravi Kalakota give you an in-depth analysis of offshore outsourcing. They discuss what is behind this trend, how it is paying off, and, most importantly, provide you with a step-by-step guide on how you can implement your own offshore strategy.

Based on extensive research and interviews, this book offers insight into how managers of leading firms are implementing offshore outsourcing. You will find plenty of practical tips and tools to apply offshore outsourcing in a wide variety of business environments.

Offshore Outsourcing is organized in three easy-to-read sections:

Part One introduces the value proposition of offshore outsourcing, including fundamental concepts, the different business models, and the business process landscape.

Part Two examines the specifics of the processes being offshored today, namely information technology, customer care, finance and accounting, human resources, and transaction processing.

Part Three describes the major activities of the offshore strategy, vendor sourcing, and country selection.

Robinson and Kalakota include multiple best-practice case studies to illustrate how firms are executing their offshore strategies. The authors map out key steps to help you make the right choices with your own offshore projects and reveal the benefits, costs, and risks of offshore outsourcing. Finally, it’s your choice. Offshore outsourcing can be a haphazard affair that creates anxiety among employees and fails to deliver bottom-line results. Or, with this book at your side, it can help you create a more focused, streamlined, and competitive organization.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Good practical advice on outsourcing for companies of any size. This book explains the critical elements: people, process, and technology. -- Andy Mulholland, Global Chief Technology Officer, Capgemini

Offshore outsourcing is an irreversible trend. This book shows you how you can capitalize on it. -- M.R. Rangaswami, Managing Director, Sand Hill Group

Outsourcing is taking hold as a business model. This book presents a concise look at globalization and the impact. -- Jack Doering, VP, Strategy and Business Planning, Hewlett-Packard

About the Author

Marcia Robinson is the president of E-Business Strategies, a technology research and strategy consulting practice that helps companies create tomorrow’s business models today. Along with her consulting experience in the area of BPO, she has worked extensively in CRM, call center management, and service process re-engineering. Robinson is a former executive with SunTrust Bank, where she was responsible for several strategic initiatives, from rethinking the institution’s integration infrastructure to designing a multi-channel architecture. She is co-author of the business technology bestseller e-Business: Roadmap for Success, as well as e-Business 2.0: Roadmap for Success, M-Business: The Race to Mobility, and Services Blueprint: Roadmap for Execution.

Ravi Kalakota, Ph.D., is the CEO of E-Business Strategies. Dr. Kalakota holds the distinction of having co-authored the bestsellers e-Business Roadmap for Success and Frontiers of Electronic Commerce, the e-commerce industry’s earliest and now considered classic book. He has consulted extensively with Fortune 1000 companies such as SAP, Sun Microsystems, Intel, Guidant, and AT&T, and is a sought-after speaker. On the academic side, Dr. Kalakota has held the Georgia Research Alliance Chair in E-commerce at Georgia State University, the Xerox Chair in Information Systems at the Simon Graduate School of Business, University of Rochester, and also taught at the University of Texas at Austin.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mivar Press, Inc.; 2nd edition (October 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974827010
• ISBN-13: 978-0974827018
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #585,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the cover price ........., April 29, 2005

By 

Stuart Gardner "www.sdgardner.com" (Fair Lawn, NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Offshore Outsourcing: Business Models, ROI and Best Practices (Hardcover)

This isn't a bad book, but it nowhere near justifies the cover price. There just isn't the information within to justify the cost of the book.

After making the mistake of buying this book I went back and looked at some of the reviews. It is interesting to note the number of duplicates. Further, many of the reviewers have reviewed only this book. But wait; one of the reviewers has chosen to write a (negative) review of antother outsourcing text. Must be the suspicious auditor in me.

Leaving aside the accuracy or intent of any reviews, my primary complaint with this text is the absence of any real coverage of risk (regional, IT, infrastructure........). And no real coverage of due dilligence. Mmm.

Save your money: Gartner gives away more than this book provides.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource for strategic business decisions., April 16, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Offshore Outsourcing: Business Models, ROI and Best Practices (Hardcover)

I decided to pick up this book with the hope that it could shed some light on the heated offshore outsourcing discussion for me. It did, but not in the "for or against" way I expected. More than anything else, the authors are focused on boiling down the concepts of offshore outsourcing so that readers can apply them to their own situations.

The business model chapter is particularly good and does an excellent job of broadening the definition of offshore outsourcing. Like a lot of other folks, I thought offshore outsourcing typically involved a U.S. company sending customer service or IT to an Indian company. The authors make it clear that that's not the case by going into detail about hybrid delivery models, captive centers, shared services, build, operate, and transfer models, and other business and delivery models.

The authors divide the book into three sections: the first part is an overview of offshore outsourcing, the second part talks about the different areas companies have outsourced (had no idea about human resources), and the third discusses how companies can select a vendor and a country and begin a project of their own if they find that offshore outsourcing is a viable option for them.

Overall, I thought this book was very informative, but don't expect the authors to come out guns a blazing on one side or another of the offshore debate. This is a "comprehensive guide," not a manifesto.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In depth analysis of offshore outsourcing, February 5, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Offshore Outsourcing: Business Models, ROI and Best Practices (Hardcover)

Everyone is talking about offshore outsourcing but most of the discussion is rather superficial. I picked up this book to better understand what is happening.
I found this book to be extremely helpful in understanding the landscape and critical sucess factors in moving current in-house operations offshore. This book looks beyond the hype of everyday headlines and focuses on identifying the framework to really understand offshore outsourcing.
The best part of this book is the numerouus case studies. For a business manager,this book is a great reference guide for how to approach the controversial topic of outsourcing. The in-depth analysis of different processes(IT,customer care,HR,F&A,and transaction processing)highlights the true ROI that can be achieved across different areas of a company.
The authors have taken their consulting and real-life implementation experience to deliver a superior offshore outsourcing reference guide! Highly recommend it.