This issue of The Platform provides you with research, case studies and commentary designed to cover a variety of considerations across industries; from the drivers behind outsourcing growth in the restaurants and retail (R&R) industry to a financial services institution’s motivation to reach new markets.

Regardless of your current stage in the business operations improvement lifecycle or your specific drivers — we are confident this material will provide you with the information needed to deliver value to your organization. As you’ll read — one size does not fit all. And the good news: the maturity of back-office service delivery expertise has resulted in customized solutions, best practices and adaptable case studies that address your ambitions, needs and unique environment.

In our previous edition of The Platform, we invited readers to comment on which service delivery arrangements they believe best control SG&A expenses and improve long-term prospects for growth. When considering the various alternative service delivery models, we note the polarization around internal versus external impetus for change.

As you know, it’s beneficial to know what your industry peers are doing. Help us profile commentary and case studies most relevant to your industry issues.

Take the anonymous survey and see the results in the next issue of The Platform, as well as reflected future Platform content.

To which industry do you belong?

Financial services institutions are in the vanguard when it comes to developing and implementing creative and innovative sourcing strategies. They were among the leaders in recognizing and embracing the value of outsourcing, well before the word was in common use, and TPI Index data shows that the industry has historically ranked among the highest in percentage share of outsourcing transactions valued at more than US$50 million.

The retail and restaurant (R&R) industry is outsourcing more now than it has since 2004, a year in which this sector showed a voracious appetite for the strategy. The first half of 2006 saw an increase of more than 50 percent in number of outsourcing contracts awarded compared to all of 2005.

There are some limitations in looking at the market only from a total bookings, or TCV, perspective, the aggregate contract value in the year in which it is announced. An alternative approach, the annualized bookings perspective, accounts for Annualized Contract Value, or ACV — the value of a contract divided by its duration. The ACV approach shows that the number of sourcing contracts are actually increasing.

Rural India has approximately 500 million people who until now have had limited access to traditional banking services simply because most commercial banks found it too uneconomical to serve them. These people live in 600,000-odd villages across India’s vast terrain and are in the market for banking products that are typically a hundredth the size of a banking product in the United States or Europe and at a tenth the size and cost of a product in urban India. At ICICI Bank, one of the high-focus endeavors has been to create a transaction banking system for Micro-Finance Institutions (MFIs); a platform accessible through multiple online and offline channels in the same way a mainstream banking entity might offer.

Connecting the Dots...

When seated across the negotiating table from each other, the client and the candidate service provider for an outsourcing relationship share a few common topics on their respective worry lists. One is profitability.

Most consumers understand how the rising cost of living can challenge their budgets, but buyers of outsourcing services negotiating contracts seldom fully grasp the long-term effect that the price — inflation clauses they negotiate can have on their outsourcing pocketbook.

Big Six consists of Accenture, ACS, CSC, EDS, HP, IBM;
Big Five Europe consists of Atos Origin, BT, Capgemini, Siemens Business Services, T- Systems;
Japan SP consists of Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC, NTT, etc.;
All Market Share is 2006 YTD through September 2006

The full schedule for the fourth quarter series proceeds as follows:

• October 26 at 10 a.m. GMT, 12:00 p.m. EDT. Mike Slavin and David Karney will present Renegotiations Strategies Register today
• November 9 at 10 a.m. GMT, 12:00 p.m. EDT. Chris Kalnik will present Avoiding the Surprises of Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLA) in Outsourcing Contracts Register today
• November 16 at 10 a.m. GMT, 12:00 p.m. EDT. Paul Schmidt and Sid Pai will present Maturing Your Offshore Operations Register today
• November 30 at 10 a.m. GMT, 12:00 p.m. EDT. Mike Slavin and John Pirtle will present Best Practices for Effective IT Assessments Register today
• December 7 at 6:00 a.m. Eastern (U.S.) / 17:00 U.K. / 18:00 Central Europe / 19:00 Eastern Europe. Simon Tarsh will present Navigating Acquired Rights in U.K. TUPE HR Laws Register today
• December 14 at 10 a.m. GMT, 12:00 p.m. EDT. Scott Gildner, Harvey Gluckman and Morgan Lewis Counselors at Law will present Overview of HR Issues and Trends Register today

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