Alsbridge's blog

Latin America continues to capture the attention as an eye-catching destination that offers great value and resources when compared to other offshoring locations, especially for US based customers. It has grown significantly during the past years in BPO, Share service centres and Call centres due to the fact that not only big companies such as American Express, General Motors, Exxon, and others are running their operation here, but also well known reputable BPO service providers like, Accenture, ACS, EDS, Genpact, IBM, Infosys and TCS have opened operations centres in this region.

HR Transformation – there has been a lot of it about; industry commentators and conferences highlight many successful HR Transformation projects featuring: standard HR processes, global technology platforms, Ulrich models, “One-Company” visions, shared services, and outsourcing – all demanding projects and all major achievements by those involved.

If you are a UK Human Resources or Finance Director looking to drive cost out of your organisation and increase efficiency, outsourcing payroll probably seems like a reasonable strategy to help you achieve that goal. And it is. For years, many companies have been enjoying the benefits of outsourcing parts of, or the whole, payroll function. So, if this is an established and accepted strategy – why would you need an advisor?

Today’s challenging economic climate means that cost cutting is on the agenda like never before. Outsourcing, particularly when combined with offshoring, is a good strategy to achieve cost reduction. HR Outsourcing has now reached a lifecycle stage where lessons have been learned, and a range of outsourcing solutions refined to reflect them.

In a series of short articles Colin Whalen of Alsbridge plc considers good practice in the governance of outsourcing relationships. In this article, Colin considers the importance of both the client and service provider understanding how each party should behave in the cause of good governance. 

In a series of short articles Colin Whalen of Alsbridge plc considers good practice in the governance of outsourcing relationships. In this article, Colin considers why traditional service measures are an insufficient means of assessing and managing the overall effectiveness of service delivery. What problem? The SLAs are Green!

Payroll outsourcing, like F&A and IT before it, has now reached a lifecycle stage where solutions have been tried and tested, and lessons learned. Client organisations are now able to build on and benefit from this experience to approach outsourcing Payroll with more confidence than many have had in earlier years.

South Africa has a relatively established contact centre industry which is still experiencing growth of around 30% per annum. Approximately one third of that growth relates to operations serving the offshore market. Several large companies, such as Lufthansa, Admiral Insurance, Carphone Warehouse, Shell, Asda already have captive centres in South Africa.

The debate over where Payroll fits best as a process - within the Finance & Accounting or the HR function - is not a new one. But if your organisation is looking to outsource end to end Payroll as part of an overarching outsourcing strategy, as opposed to looking for quick outsourcing wins on disparate chunks of work, this may well be a question to which you need to give some serious consideration.

Whether for specific processes, or across the full range of Human Resources (HR) activities, outsourcing is a proven and viable strategy to increase the performance of the HR Function.  However, there is no single formula that applies to all organisations; HR Outsourcing (HRO) is being used to address varying strategic objectives and its scope will differ in terms of HR processes and geographies involved.  Organisations need a framework to help them consider the value of HRO to their organisation and their specific circumstances.