Source: www.itvarnews.net

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) everywhere are now poised to fully participate in the global economy by requesting bids, awarding projects, and building trusted relationships with service providers around the world, thanks to a new Web platform that has been launched: LimeExchange, the first socially networked marketplace for global talent.

“Small and medium-sized businesses haven’t dared to outsource due to legitimate concerns over risk, cost, and complexity,” says George Searle, CEO of Lime Spot LLC. “LimeExchange has cracked the code of outsourcing, making it simple for any business to build tight productive relationships with talented service providers anywhere on earth.”

LimeExchange is the first talent marketplace designed to help SMBs, entrepreneurs, and individuals to outsource, connect and collaborate globally. Through LimeExchange, SMBs gain the same competitive advantages of outsourcing, previously enjoyed only by larger companies, such as a flexible workforce, lower-cost labor, and access to specialized skills.

“There’s no reason why businesses and service providers of all sizes shouldn’t be able to participate in the benefits of globalization, whether on large projects, or small one-off projects,” Searle says. “LimeExchange connects two fragmented communities smaller businesses and smaller service providers through the power of social networking. We are bringing the competitive advantages of outsourcing down to the individual.”

LimeExchange breaks the mold of first-generation online services marketplaces, going beyond mere matching of buyers and sellers or providing simple “feedback” rating systems. Instead, LimeExchange is a relationship-based services marketplace, meaning it provides contemporary social networking and project management tools members need to establish, build, and sustain profitable business relationships online.

Businesses can sign up and post their projects on LimeExchange for free. They’ll receive free proposals from LimeExchanges global pool of professional service providers, contractors, and freelancers. Using LimeExchange’s “Connect” social networking features, buyers can make well-informed decisions about service providers before they award a project.

Source: www.allheadlinenews.com

KeyCorp, owner of KeyBank, is outsourcing from 200 to 400 technology and product-support jobs to India.

Alan Buffington, a Key vice president for enterprise systems development, revealed the plan to employees during an electronic “town meeting” on Friday. According to Timesunion.com, the official said the exact number of jobs to be outsourced will depend on the outcome of the bidding for the outsourcing contract.

Three Indian firms are vying for the contract, each offering a different number of employees who will take over American jobs.

The outsourcing is to be undertaken to save KeyCorp an estimated $10 million annually. Buffington said cost-cutting is necessary in the light of financial problems besetting the financial services industry.

KeyCorp’s fourth quarter net income in 2007 was down to $25 million from $146 million in the same period in 2006. It posted a net income of $919 million last year compared to $1.056 billion in 2006.

The company has about 19,000 employees in the U.S.

Source: www.itweb.co.za

STEPHEN FLOYD : The concept of outsourcing is not new; it has been around for years in the form of one party contracting another to manage a business process more effectively and efficiently than it could be done in-house. IT outsourcing, on the other hand, is a relatively new discipline.

“Today’s IT outsourcing is different from the computer bureau services of the 1960s and 1970s because information technology plays a central role in almost every facet of business today,” says Stephen Floyd, head of core services at Fujitsu Services South Africa. “The bureaus of old mostly processed simple billing functions and had no idea of managing the complex, integrated applications, networks and servers that are common today. And let’s not mention the Internet.”

A decision to outsource IT processes in the 21st century will place a much greater reliance on the quality of the service provided by the outsourcer than ever before. This means the process of choosing a supplier is just as important to the outsourcee as is the reason for wanting to outsource in the first place and the fundamentals of the contract.

“Outsourcing can be a spectacular success if it’s done correctly and for the right reasons, follows due process and is based on realistic expectations and a clear understanding of where the benefits are likely to be experienced,” Floyd adds. He suggests companies thinking of outsourcing should understand and take note of the following points as they form the basis of a good strategy:

* The importance of following a sound process in selecting the provider and designing the contract.
* The critical role played by the service provider’s infrastructure management methodology - or lack of it.
* The importance of developing an appropriate focus on costs and benefits, and understanding what and how benefits may emerge.
* The need for both parties to dedicate resources to properly manage the relationship.
* The need for new incentive models that reward both individuals and organisations for success.
* Understanding that failure is always a joint responsibility.
* And above all, understanding that outsourcing driven by price alone almost certainly leads to disappointment.

Read More

Source: www.newindpress.com

First there were the common consumer solutions and business processes that were outsourced. Next came research and knowledge, followed by e-learning with the West outsourcing its teaching needs to countries like India.

The latest in line is the Legal Process Outsourcing, a one that is estimated to be a $640 million industry in India by 2010. As many as 1,800 people are involved in legal outsourcing in the country, an industry that is said to be worth $146 million currently.

Clutch Group with 300 plus lawyers involved in litigation support, contract management, real estate legal and legal research all over the world, set up shops in Bangalore a couple of months ago.

Speaking to this website’s newspaper, Abhi Shah, CEO of Clutch Group said that the global LPO market is worth $250 billion.

“Of this, 77 per cent is from the US, 18 per cent from the UK and 5 per cent is contributed by the rest of the world. It is also estimated that the top 200 companies in the US spend about $ 120 billion every year on legal services alone, $ 10 billion of which is the outsourcing sector,” he said.

Shah, forseeing the potential for the industry in India, further said that well over 70,000 English speaking advocates graduated every year in the country, contributing to the talent pool needed for the industry to grow.

The underlying potential is also estimated to increase India’s market share in the global scenario from the present 3-4 percent to 6-7 percent in the next two years. LPO saves up to 70 per cent in legal services cost to the company, say industry experts.

With outsourcing processes taking over in the e-learning, equity research and legal sectors, next in line would be outsourcing of blueprints in the architecture sector.

Source: www.business-standard.com

Software professionals from India can now appear for an online course, which will prepare them for a Health Level Seven (HL7) certification — a standard which helps hospitals and clinics from all over the world to exchange medical data besides being important for clinical trials. The last date for registration is March 3, 2008.

The hospital care business in the US amounts to approximately $700 billion, and administrative costs are estimated to be 14% or around $100 billion. Spending from the US market is expected to grow to $38 billion during 2007-08, states a report by Zinnov Research and Consulting, making healthcare outsourcing a big business opportunity. The global healthcare provider market currently is dominated by firms like CSC, IBM, Accenture, EDS and Perot Systems. Indian service providers accounted for only $115 million (Rs 460 crore) worth of outsourcing during 2005-06.

One reason is that India does not have enough HL7-certified professionals, which this online course intends to bridge. Indian firms, though, are getting their act together. HL7 India has been conducting certification exams in India since 2002, and India currently has around 300 HL7-certified professionals.

The course, which costs $100 (around Rs 4,000), does not issue an HL7.org certification. It, however, prepares one for the certification exam. Discounted for India and China (costs around Rs 14,000 for professionals in the US or Sweden), the course is estimated to take about 50 hours to complete.

Jill H Kaufman, Program Director, Healthcare and Life Sciences Standards, IBM (and also on the HL7 Board of Directors), says: “There will be 100 students accepted into this class of which 13 will be from India (China too has 13 students). Students who are not accepted from the course are put on a waitlist, and will have priority enrollment for future classes. The course is over 10 weeks and is estimated to take about five hours per week for the readings and assignments.”

HL7 is one of several ANSI-accredited Standards Developing Organisations (SDOs) operating in the healthcare arena. Hospitals and other healthcare provider firms use different computer systems for everything from billing records to patient tracking, explains Kaufman. All of these systems should communicate when they receive new information to make healthcare efforts more responsive.

There are several healthcare standards development efforts currently underway throughout the world. “However, HL7 is singular as it focuses on the interface requirements of the entire healthcare organisation, while most other efforts focus on the requirements of a particular department,” says Kaufman.

Incidentally, there are 15-20 large- and mid-sized vendors in India that provide IT services to the healthcare market in North America and Europe. Moreover, the clinical research outsourcing (CRO) market in India is also expected to cross $10 billion by 2010.

Players such as Tata Consultancy Services (around 4% of its revenues), HCL Technologies, and Wipro have been working in this space for quite some years. Other vendors are taking the acquisition route for faster growth in this space. Cognizant, for instance, acquired US-based marketRx; Firstsource bought US-based MedAssist, which gave the company the required exposure and client base to cater to the healthcare business; and Apollo Hospitals took over Zavata, a US-based healthcare BPO.