Study outlines document outsourcing growth opportunities

A survey of 551 large organisations in North America and Western Europe has found that improvements in predictive analytics and the development of mobile communications strategies will characterise successful document outsourcing service providers in the coming years.

The findings are published by InfoTrends, a market research and consulting firm for the imaging, document solutions, production print and digital media industries. Entitled Service Expansion Opportunities for Document Outsourcing in 2016, the report builds on insights from previous research and is a response to the suggestion that the relevance of print-only document outsourcing contracts is in decline. Emerging service opportunities, market opportunities and other customer requirements were identified in interviews with customers in financial services, insurance, consumer packaged goods, and other vertical industries.

“Enterprises are seeking external support for channel-agnostic delivery of communications, as well as support through creative services, data management, analytics, and other value-added services,” said Matt Swain, senior director of InfoTrends’ customer communications services.

“While document outsourcing providers often already have deep and long-standing relationships for print production, management, and mailing, it is critical for these providers to continue to evolve their business offerings to maintain margins and remain relevant.”

Source: fm-world.co.uk-Study outlines document outsourcing growth opportunities

Contract and relationship management most in-demand skills for data centre outsourcing, survey says

Expertise in contract and relationship management are the skills businesses look for the most when outsourcing data centre and cloud data centre services, according to a new survey.

Technology news provider Computing.co.uk said that research it conducted showed that the ability to “manage service partners and oversee contracts and their delivery” are the skills businesses mostly look when entering into data centre outsourcing agreements.

People with skills that have “a strong security focus” are second most in demand by businesses entering into such outsourcing deals, according to the Computing.co.uk report.

IT contracts expert Iain Monaghan of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: “In identifying negotiating and contractual skills as keys to success, the research echoes our experience. The best managers understand what has been agreed, preferably by having been involved in the original negotiations, and can apply their understanding and skills both to ensure that suppliers deliver what they’ve promised in the contract but also to identify areas of the contract that require attention – where, for example, an innovation in service delivery could be better exploited by an amendment in the contractual terms.”

“Rather than ‘putting the contract in a drawer’, they use it as a living instrument that describes the relationship between the two companies and develops as that relationship develops,” he said.

Source: www.out-law.com-Contract and relationship management

Number of US Tech Firms Outsourcing IT Services Doubles since 2013

BDO’s 2015 Technology Outlook Survey has revealed that the number of tech firms that either offshore or outsource their IT services has doubled in the past two years. Furthermore, the number of firms who say they are likely to outsource either IT or manufacturing processes to offshore locations has tripled, from 5 per cent to 14 per cent.

Amongst those firms that do currently outsource, the percentage that are outsourcing IT services and programming stands at 70 per cent, an increase from the 54 per cent of firms that answered similarly last year.

Aftab Jamil, partner at BDO, attributes this rise to the decreasing pool of skilled labour in the domestic market, remarking that “Locations like India and China are producing more engineers than the United States at this point in time, so given the talent pool that is available in the locations it is easier – even it’s no longer much more cost effective – to find the talent that you need.”

The survey found that 23 per cent of CFOs consider a lack of skilled workers as the greatest challenge to industry growth.