Global Outsourcing Trends für 2011: Innovation zählt wieder!

Die Experten der Global Sourcing Group sind sich einig: “Slow Recovery” war das Wort des Jahres 2010, wenn es um die Einschätzung der globalen Wirtschaft ging. In Bezug auf Outsouring-Projekte bedeutete dies in vielen Fällen Stillstand und ein Sich-Klammern am reinen Kostenfaktor, wenn es darum ging, Outsouring-Angebote und -Perspektiven zu beurteilen und abzuwägen.

Die gute Nachricht ist, dass sich der Blick 2011 nicht zuletzt durch die mittlerweile unbestrittene Power des neuen Cloud-Motors wieder weiten sollte und mit der verstärkten Fokussierung auf die Business-Aspekte auch die Innovationsleistung von IT wieder zum Thema wird; und damit eine Wertsteigerung, deren Messung auch weiche Faktoren einzubeziehen hat (die im Unterschied zu Einsparungsmaßnahmen nicht bloß einmal schlagend werden, sondern das tagtäglich positive Effekte produzieren können). Vorausgesetzt natürlich, dass die beiden wesentlichen Kriterien stimmen: Servicequalität und Preis.

Hier die Passagen (plus persönliche Hervorhebungen), die mich aufhorchen ließen, im Original:

Innovation in outsourcing is back on the agenda.

For the past two years, all the talk in the outsourcing sector has been about cost saving, and all the projects have been about restructuring or re-negotiating outsourcing contracts in order to deliver value for money (which really means lower costs). That is changing: organizations are beginning to expect more from an outsourcing than simply cost-cutting.

A recent study from the U.S. about companies seeking innovation in business processing outsourcing shows that 43% of executives in outsourcing customers view innovation as a critical element of BPO. It’s also true to say that cost-cutting and re-negotiation of the cost baseline of an outsourcing project can only save cost once: successful innovation can create a multiplier effect which can lead to increased savings going forward. So it makes sense that executives still see innovation as something that is important in their outsourcing relationship.

But outsourcing very rarely leads to innovation unless it’s either the central purpose of a project or the subject of a specifc targeted governance mechanism. The lower down the list of priorities innovation sits, the less likely it is actually to appear. A lowest cost mentality will never deliver innovation.

Over the next 12 months, companies will again grapple with issues around service provider selection, contracting for innovation, and paying for innovation. Ultimately, innovation is not something that can be measured like a service level, i.e., read off a spreadsheet. It needs to be handled sensitively and in a collaborative manner if it’s going to happen at all.

Cloud-based solutions will continue to grow in importance in the outsourcing market. What makes Cloud a delivery mechanism that’s here to stay (unlike its predecessors utility computing, ASP, grid computing) is the perfect combination of (a) fexible delivery model with multiple sources, (b) cheap price at a time of recession, and (c) maximizing remote capacity at a time when fast internet access to such capacity is now highly reliable. Not all of those three factors were present in prior iterations of so-called “fully-fexible IT delivery” models.