Outsourcing is maturing as a business practice as organizations contemplate moving entire business processes outside of the organization, according to the Centre for Outsourcing Research and Education (CORE).
A CORE study entitled Optimizing Value from Outsourcingfound companies are looking beyond IT or narrowly-defined business activities. "Companies no longer see outsourcing as primarily a cost-reduction initiative, but rather as part of their broader strategy to access capabilities that are in short supply, to bring greater innovation into their organizations and to enhance their overall business effectiveness," said CORE president John Simke.
CORE’s research found organizations are mostly satisfied with the value they obtain from outsourcing but they find success is harder to achieve from more complex business process outsourcing (BPO). Only half of respondents said they are satisfied with BPO.
"Organizations are still learning how to manage BPO and larger IT outsourcing initiatives. They are discovering these initiatives require sophisticated governance processes and also very skilled 'stay back' teams to manage the relationship with the service provider."
Optimizing Value from Outsourcing is one of a series of studies CORE is conducting. The executive summary is at www.core-outsourcing.org.