Big US Banks Expected to Remain Closely Aligned with Indian Outsourcers
October 30th, 2012
Pandit understood back-off benefits of outsourcing.
By Narayan Ammachchi
When Indian-born US business executive, Vikram Pandit, resigned several weeks ago from the Citibank, an important question cropped up: Will his departure have any impact on the thriving practice of outsourcing, which has long been a vital back-office for US financial firms? Outsourcing companies in India agree that it has been increasingly difficult to get contracts in the US but
Cyber Attacks and Outsourcing: Prepare for the Worst, While Hope for the Slightly Bad
October 24th, 2012
By Stan Lepeak, KPMG
The real risk of cyber attacks on critical computing infrastructure is nothing new, but the perceived threat level continues to grow, as evidenced recently by the dire warnings issued by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. There is no shortage of well publicized and documented occurrences of cyber attacks to reinforce that they are a serious and in some cases potentially fatal threat.
Colombia in Transition: A Nation Moves Away from Commodities and Leaps Toward Services
October 9th, 2012
President Santos sees a future in IT.
By Luke Bujarski
Colombia has officially broken out of its agricultural and commodities exports shell to include professional services as a key strategic focus for growth. President Juan Manuel Santos and select industry leaders rolled up their sleeves during the annual “Acuerdos Para La Prosperidad” (Treaties Toward Progress) summit held in Medellin two weeks ago, to discuss Colombian competitiveness in the context of sixteen strategic industries. In addition to big oil and mining, agriculture and medical tourism, among others, a breakout session on outsourcing services exposed some of Colombia’s opportunities
Cali Colombia: Targeting Bio-tech, Financials and Aerospace
October 1st, 2012Carolina Monsalve of Invest Pacific explains why Cali is generating buzz among transnational corporations.
Guadalajara Wins the Minds then the Hearts of Trade Mission Delegates
September 24th, 2012
By Duncan Tucker
The high levels of talent and collaboration potential of Guadalajara, and its proximity to the United States were among the factors that impressed a dozen U.S. and Latin America delegates on a tightly run investor mission organized by Nearshore Americas, which took place last week. The cooperation between the government, the private sector and academia in Guadalajara’s investment ecosystem was repeatedly cited as one of its greatest strengths, with representatives of all three sectors giving a compelling case for investment during a tour of the city.
Can Strategic Sourcing lead Your Business to Great Collaboration and Innovation?
September 21st, 2012By Jon Tonti
Sourcing external service providers to reduce costs and increase efficiency is the strategic sourcing baseline for any company. From that starting point companies grapple with how to get the most out of their strategic sourcing by finding the right providers and then aligning with them. A lot of company money is spent on consultants to advise management teams how to do exactly that. Nearshore Americas talked with Scott Madden’s Andy Flores in order to take advantage of his knowledge and the residual knowledge built up at Scott Madden in regards to strategic sourcing.
What Happens When Vendor Management Capabilities Don’t Exist in All Layers of Your Organization?
September 12th, 2012
By Jon Tonti
Every company has different structures for managing vendors that hinge on where to centralize and decentralize power. Decentralization can give employees the space to act more independently and gain the capabilities that come with the challenge; however, an organization may run the risk of disjointed communication, less objective vendor scrutiny, or putting unprepared managers in high pressure situations.
Jamaica BPO in Depth: Special Report Uncovers Potential for Specialized Services
September 11th, 2012
Read the full report by clicking here
By Jon Tonti
Jamaica has the largest English speaking population in the western hemisphere behind the United States and Canada totaling 2.7 million. What’s the best way to tap into this thriving population of English-speaking Jamaicans? That’s one of the key questions pursued in a new Nearshore Americas E-report – BPO Jamaica– that takes a fresh look at a country that both Gartner and A.T. Kearney say is a “market to watch in 2012.”
BPO Jamaica stresses that companies like ACS/Xerox, Teleperformance, Convergys, VistaPrint, and Scotiabank are not in the Jamaican market for pure labor arbitrage, but are instead pushing into more sophisticated BPO, taking advantage of Jamaica’s human capital, the country’s “major strength,” and a strength that is now beginning to flourish in Kingston rather than solely Montego …
Kanban Case Study: Taking ‘Lean’ to the Furthest Limits on Globally Distributed Teams
August 27th, 2012
By Jon Tonti
A recent post on the practice of “Kanban” stirred up significant interest at Nearshore Americas – so we decided to revisit the issue and look specifically at how it works for globally distributed teams. In the previous article, we touched on Kanban’s framework, in this analysis, we look at Kanban usage by a product development team at Experian (the global information and credit processing firm) and how it leads to organic cross-functional team development.
Why the “Command and Control” Model of US Management Fails to Work in Latin America
August 21st, 2012
Duke’s Lewin: P&G is struggling in Brazil because of trying manage the ‘American Way’.
By Jon Tonti
Just because US music, fashion, and entertainment have long since permeated and been adopted by Latin America, don’t think that the US corporate style of management enjoys the same reception. Latin America has its own management style that is as different to the US management style as France’s is to Germany’s. “I recently saw a situation where a company brought in a top manager from outside the region who was put in charge of a group of executives from the home country that resulted in 25 percent of those executives leaving the company,” said Jane Siegel, a senior scientist at Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley campus.
