The Definition of Outsourcing Success is Innovation Says New Study by Industry Researchers at Horses for Sources

NEW YORK & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new study from Horses for Sources (HfS) Research, a leading analyst advisory organization focused on outsourcing strategy, shows that once enterprises outsource business processes, their attention quickly turns from cost-savings to achieving innovation.

“Desperately Seeking Innovation in Business Process Outsourcing: Enterprises Speak Out”

The new research report, entitled “Desperately Seeking Innovation in Business Process Outsourcing: Enterprises Speak Out” reveals analysis from a May 2010 survey that canvassed the views and experiences of 588 shared services and outsourcing executives. The survey was carried out in conjunction with the Shared Services and Outsourcing Network.

The survey found that half of business process outsourcing (BPO) buyers are dissatisfied with the innovation they are currently achieving from their BPO endeavor; however, the majority of respondents are seeing significant potential to achieve it across certain business processes, within a two-year time-frame.

Those business processes where buyers cited the most innovation potential include industry-specific processes (for example, financial services and life sciences), analytics and several maturing BPO areas including procure-to-pay, supply chain and recruitment.

Commenting on the new findings, Phil Fersht, CEO of HfS Research and author of the report , added, “The answers lie with both BPO buyers and their service providers working together to achieve measureable business outcomes as part of organized and collaborative long-term partnerships. Too many enterprise buyers jump into a service provider relationship polarized on the initial cost take-out, and gloss-over the future initiatives they will need to implement in a couple of years, when they seek to find levels of performance, through better processes, talent and technology.”

Key findings from the study include:

43 percent of buy-side decision makers now view innovation as a critical element of BPO
Half of today's enterprise buyers are disappointed with their current state of innovation
Only half of the BPO engagements today are having adequate talent and technology provisioned, from both the client and service provider sides, to help drive innovation.
Customer care, recruitment, payroll and management reporting are noticeably failing to meet clients’ innovation expectations
There is enormous medium-term potential to achieve innovation across industry-specific processes, analytics and several maturing BPO areas including procure-to-pay, supply chain and recruitment
Major impediments preventing buyers from achieving innovation include ineffective change management and communications, and “unempowered” internal governance teams

To access a freemium copy of the new report Desperately Seeking Innovation in Business Process Outsourcing: Enterprises Speak Out, please register here to access the HfS Research library.

HfS Research will host a plenary session at SSON’s Finance Transformation 2010 conference, Chicago September 28-30, 2010 (click here for further details).

About Horses for Sources

Horses for Sources (HfS) is the foremost advisory analyst firm and social networking community, focused on helping enterprises make complex decisions with their global outsourcing strategies.

HfS provides the most impactful and frequently-visited collaborative community platform in the global services industry, providing rapid and insightful commentary, analysis and debate of enterprise outsourcing dynamics. The organization is unique in the fact that it integrates personable social networking with market research and advisory services.

HfS’ mission provides a unique environment for collective research, opinion, experience and knowledge across the global outsourcing industry to help enterprises explore new performance thresholds. Led by industry expert Phil Fersht, the HfS team is a multi-disciplinary group of analysts across North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific regions, with deep domain knowledge in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Information Technology Services and Cloud Computing.

Launched in 2007, the HfS blog has more than 100,000 monthly visitors across the global outsourcing industry, and is widely recognized as the leading destination for collective insight, research and open debate of industry issues and developments. The HfS LinkedIn community is thriving with over 10,000 industry professionals sharing views and information daily. More information about Horses for Sources can be accessed at www.horsesforsources.com. The company can be followed on Twitter at twitter.com/horses4sources and LinkedIn by joining “The BPO and Offshoring Best Practices Forum group.”