Global Sourcing, Out-Sourcing & Offshoring Services Tools Information for EU Companies & offshoring vendors!   

Outsourcing is a powerful way for companies to reduce costs, improve quality of service, time-to-market, extend the scope of customer services and be better capable to focus on the core competencies of the organisation - are paramount to keeping a competative edge in global as well as internal markets.

For European and especially German companies, outsourcing and near/ off-shoring can also create a new source of flexibility that helps them meet fluctuations in demand, thus bypassing the hindering thicket of labor laws back home.
Europe's rapidly aging populations and low birth rate means that offshore labor will be increasingly needed in coming years to make up for a fast dwindling workforce.

Outsourcing used to be a decision made by financially troubled businesses that wanted to cut costs or offload unprofitable, cost-ineffective  or money-sapping assets.

Over the last several years, initially led by American and then followed by British companies, a new global-sourcing trend has set in. Nowadays, virtually every industry views outsourcing as a smart business practice, and one that's simply unavoidable.

Outsourcing & Offshoring have now become mainstream. Outsourcing is a business practice that is now on the boardroom agenda of most European blue chip companies and public sector organisations.

Read about the major challanges of outsourcing>>
Why Do leading companies outsource & offshore >>
successful outsourcing & choosing the right vendor >>

outsourcingMonitor.EU Caters to You:

• Companies which have outsourced (or are about to outsource) significant business infrastructure, such as IT, telecoms and processes. In particular if you are a German or other European corporate looking into outsourcing and /or globaly sourcing (offshoring) any of your business units or core business processes.
• Offshore vendors and service suppliers.
• Legal, recruitment, and offshoring/ global sourcing consultancy service companies and any other service providers which support the industry.

 OutsourcingMonitor.EU's core objectives are:

1. Providing a much needed thought-leadership information platform for the European outsourcing industry. There's need for focusing on best practice and the provision of information for all EU companies involved in the outsourcing decision.

We do this by growing the outsourcingMonitor.EU thought-leadership databank, by hosting a wealth of free research, case studies, database directories, market intelligence, and ever-expanding content targeted to the information organizational decision-makers seek on emerging trends and best practices in outsourcing as a strategic business solution.

And by your help -
Provide us your articles and/or white papers about best practice in offshoring & outsourcing, or volunteer as an expert for our teleseminar program.

Promote your company’s thought leadership, increase your brand awareness, and connect with a European network of IT decision makers!

2. Facilitating the introductions of buyers and sellers of IT services.

   We do this via our Vendor & Service Provider Directory, Multimedia Advertising & Teleseminars

3. Providing a fair and unbiased representation opportunity to all and any organisations involved in outsourcing market-place (buyers/ users, suppliers, third party services & support)
   

   If you have a good service/ product to offer or promote tell us about it.
   Check out the Free ways to promote your offer available to you on OMEU.

4. Become the complete resource and 1st stop for any stakeholder interested in finding out about any aspect of the European outsourcing market.

Outsourcingmonitor.EU has an extensive News Delivery section besides other written content, providing up to date information on market developments in business technology, BPO and much more.  Goto News Index >>  or   RECOMMEND/ ADD YOUR OUTSOURCING NEWS FEED>>
Or even start your own blog- ideal for any non-geek.

OutsourcingMonitor.EU offers you:

• Deep analysis and evaluation tools, templates saving you precious time and money by eliminating months of research and helping you avoid costly mistakes.
• A resource of EU outsourcing Thought Leadership and the opportunity to publish your articles, white papers etc., and and even start your own blog right on our outsourcing site or have your voice heard via our teleseminars and your outsourcing related video seen!
• The opportunity to network and advertise yourself post a job
• Contact to service providers experts for market entry/ penetration into germany, china, india etc.

back to top

 outsourcing & offshoring major challanges

There are, however, big challenges and road blocks to outsourcing many organizations are experiencing:

• The uncertainty and fear of turning over operations to an outside provider
• The mega-deals are usually very vendor-complex, often requiring a collaborative multi-sourcing, multi-shoring solution, where either one or both of the parties can end up wanting out of the engagement.
• Obtaining a deep cross-cultural understanding
• Maintaining close communication, even when time-difference makes this bothersome
• Frequent travel for you and your employees in order to optimize communication with your outsourcing partners on all levels.
• The sales process is still very long and involves high-level decision makers from across the client's business
• Managing the impact of outsourcing/ offshoring on your current employees
• Lack of Time for all this change-proccess
• Lack of Expertise - new territory , failure- anexieties
• Budget restraints - and what's the real cost or gain of outsourcing?
• Access to Service Providers - limited or too confusing

back to top

 why do leading companies outsource & offshore?

Companies are offshoring and outsourcing their software development, IT and various business processes, HR, back-office, marketing, call centers, sales , accounting, design, development, testing, DB architechture and a variety of complex needs.

While looking into multi-shoring outsourcing (global-sourcing) approach in order to enable your company to save money, it is important to realize that a long-term strategy and vision are neccessary, as it may not be that you see great savings immediately.
However, there are a host of other important benefits:

• Dramatically Reduce time to market of your products
• Improve company focus - Better focus (your own team) upon your core Vs. context
• Increasing your R&D capacity - get more done
• Accessing a better and much increased talent pool - Access skilled resources by tapping into global talent pools with world-class capabilities, especially if resources not available internally or locally
• Higher flexibility in expanding/reducing your personnel. Partners can easily resize according to the cyclical market needs you have
• Better ability to react fast to new situations
• Improved controlling and reporting of output - Improving organizational performance
• Gaining higher predictability (cost/speed/quality)
• Reducing R&D spend without sacrificing quality and productivity
• Creating and sustaining a competitive advantage
• Harness leading technologies
• Expand services
• Enrich customer relations
• Enhance supplier relations
• Reduce and control operating costs - You may even be able to lower your costs & grow your margins
• Focusing resources on core competencies while obtaining resources to improve important, non-core business processes - make capital funds available, cash infusion, asset transfer
• Increase efficiency
• Share risk models - get the best return on your IT investments by sharing risks with outsourcing vendor

back to top

 Successful outsourcing factors - best practices  

the most important factors for successful outsourcing

• Understanding your firm's goals and objectives - long term vision and clear strategic plan is a must
• Selecting the right vendor - careful assesment needed
• Deciding on the right contracted services business model for you - Time & Material, Fix Bids, Risk Models
• Strategic integration of your offshoring/ global-sourcing needs into your business model
• A properly structured contract
• The ability to realign offshoring/ outsourcing goals as your business needs change and flex - fast & effectively
• Ongoing management of relationships - excellent clear Communication is vital to invest and maintain:
  • Senior executive support and involvement is vital - reward those who help you with the outsourcing, involve them with the outsourcing / offshore partner team on all levels and plan for frequent travel
  • Cultural compatibility and cross-culture understanding - educate yourself and your team, all your workers onshore and offshore
  • Make the outsourcing offshore development- center employees feel they are part of your team. Visit them regularily.
  • Seamless integration of onshore and offshore teams - treat them the same
  • Careful attention to personnel issues - engage in open & honest communication with your outsourcing-affected employees
• Proper mix of retained "in house" staff and outsourced operations is important to ballance
• Track the performance of offshore/ nearshore and your onshore teams with the same metrics
• Have clear communication plans and processes