Services Safari

What You Need to Know in 2007

Fast Facts and Stats

 

Every week, I get approximately 20 to 30 magazines and a book or two.  As I quickly read through them, I tear out relevant articles that may or may not serve as fodder for blogs. 

Here are some of the quick headlines and data points that you may find interesting:

• "Accenture: Customers’ Favorite for FAO" – “Finance and Accounting (F&A) has been the most attractive function of the BPO sector in 2007.  And, Accenture was the leader in this area in September 2007.  Microsoft and BT Group both selected Accenture to provide F&A services." Source: www.globalservicesmedia.com - November 2007
• “Outsourcing will be a major issue (in the coming presidential elections in the USA)" - This is a short interview with Arvind Panagariya author of India: The Emerging Giant. The author separates the issues re: unskilled illegal immigrants versus skilled high-tech workers.  Additionally, the article discusses issues such as near-shoring, the opinions of the Democratic party of the United States, and others in this piece. Source: www.globalservicesmedia.com - November 2007
• “Don't Be a Chump” – Bart Perkins writes in Computerworld magazine how CIOs can avoid becoming CHUMPs (CIO Hired for Undoable Management and Planning). Interesting little piece that too many CIOs probably identify with. Source: www.computerworld.com – November 19, 2007
• “The Making of a UPS Driver" - This is an astounding (and must read) article that dives into the difficulties companies have today with the Generation Y workers.  Take this excerpt: “Much derided as a group of upstart technophiles of little work ethic and even less loyalty, Gen Yers aren't exactly a perfect fit for Big Brown.  In fact, it's hard to imagine a worse match.... But if there's one group that isn’t down to being engineered, its Generation Y, people who can't even be bothered to use punctuation, let alone memorize anything.” Source: www.fortune.com – November 12, 2007
• “Not So Flat After All” - This is a book excerpt from Redefining Global Strategy by Pankaj Ghemawat. The excerpt is interesting in that it pokes holes in the concept of a single, generic, homogeneous global marketplace.  While there have been great strides in permitting free trade, global commerce, etc. there are also significant localization, governmental and other factors which are keeping our business world from being totally ubiquitous.  If you like quoting from Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, you may want to study this text as well. Source: www.cioinsight.com)
• “Legal Services in India to Grow to $640 Million by 2010" -- This article indicates that the legal processing outsourcing industry will grow some $564 million over the next three years.  This represents significant growth in this outsourcing each. Source: www.globalservicesmedia.com - August 2007 -   For more challenges to the legal profession, see www.tractis.com , a web platform for creating legally binding contracts on the web.
• “Captive Carve Outs” - this article looks at the history of a number of captive BPO or shared service arrangements companies have owned and then subsequently sold all or part of.  There is big money involved in these deals. Source: www.globalservicesmedia.com - October 2007
• “Overbroad Confidentiality Agreements Can Spell Doom” - This article ought to get every consultants attention.  It discusses how commonplace language in confidentiality agreements with employees may come back to hurt one's firm.  Consultants, by the nature of their work, are often asked to sign these agreements with both their employers and with their clients. Source: Washington Technology – 5/28/2007
• “The Transformation” – “Comprehensive outsourcing requires the remaining HR staff to gain a new set of skills.  Those who can't make the transition often find themselves out of a job." - if this is an interesting cover story it discusses not only changes in the HR marketplace but provides an solid sidebar stories and data on BPO in HR BPO directions. Source: Human Resource Executive – March 16, 2007
• “Is Strategic Alignment Still a Priority?" - Brian Watson takes on a controversial topic in this piece. It’s followed by another interesting article titled “Catalyst for Corporate Change” (“CIOs don't typically lead corporate transformation, but they are well positioned to help guide organizational change, reengineering champion Michael Hammer says."). Both articles are good and Hammer’s is particularly interesting.  Source: www.cioinsight.com

Unnecessary People Departures

Where is Everyone Going? 

 

(This blog will be cross-posted on www.softwareSafari.typepad.com ) 

 

Wachovia Capital does a great job of capturing attrition data on publicly traded service firms.  Their analysts are especially interested in the turnover rates experienced by Indian outsourcers.  I, too, track this information as attrition rates of 20 - 40% annually cannot be good for the clients who use these outsourcers’ services. 

 

In the November 2007 issue of Global Services magazine (www.globalservicesmedia.com ), there is an interesting article (“Early Warning on Attrition”) that describes the efforts of several outsourcing firms to stem further attrition. Highlighted firms include Convergys and Genpact.   

 

Several weeks prior to this story being published, I discussed predictive analytics around attrition with numerous HR software executives at the HR Technology conference in Chicago. In particular, I questioned the limited thought that is going into many talent management and performance management solutions regarding attrition.  In essence, most of these systems rely on compensation and prior evaluation data to determine someone's flight-risk potential.  Unfortunately, those data attributes, while present in most HR or talent management solutions, represent a limited view into the causes of attrition.

Stanley Bing, of Fortune magazine fame, recently published a book on crazy bosses.  He identified six common pathologies that these mixed up individuals possess.  Bad bosses, as it turns out, are either the first or second reason behind many employee departures depending on whose survey you read.  It would stand to reason that any early warning system around attrition should be significantly focused on the dysfunctional characteristics present in far too many managers, supervisors or bosses. 

 

The bulk of the Global Services article discussed those red, yellow and green dashboards that managers can use to identify potential attrition candidates.  To their credit, the companies utilizing the systems are evaluating more than performance data.  The article indicated that issues such as hygiene, rejections for internal job postings, work quality and other factors also are evaluated. 

 

Convergys stood out in the article by addressing issues related to management that contribute to attrition.  The article states:

“At Convergys, we have introduced a "Team Leader Transformation" program with an emphasis on training the team leaders to improve their people management skills.  Agents with more effective managers have higher job satisfaction, and are thus likely to leave," says (Sharad) Talwar of Convergys.”

 

Right on, Convergys. More human resource software firms should follow the lead of Convergys in this regard.  Bad bosses are more than just harmful to their employer and to themselves. They drive away significant numbers of great people.  Once attrition detection systems understand, track and trap these bad behaviors, corrective actions can be taken. 

 

Going forward, more work must be completed regarding flight-risk.  Systems should be monitoring whether employees are cashing in their stock options, have been bypassed for promotions, have received new supervisors, and other factors beyond compensation and performance evaluation scores. 

 

Talent management and HR vendors should also look at ways of evaluating the attrition impact of ineffective managers and not just bad bosses.  The latter has a toxicity about them that drives all workers away quickly while the former takes more time to run great people away.  When dealing with ineffective managers, companies may devise a number stratagems to either bolster the manager’s skill set, change their team composition to offset managerial weaknesses or other measures.  But, until HR and talent management vendors invest in understanding the root causes of attrition (instead of building new platforms for their technology infrastructure), we will continue to see uninspired, ineffective attrition management solutions.