Cutter Consortium: Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Benchmarking Your Outsourcing Contract: Clauses

1 Apr 2008 15:06:31 GMT

Cullen, Sara | Executive Updates | 01 April 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Benchmarking of outsourcing contracts has recently become a highly desired practice by client organizations, but it is often poorly executed. It can be a difficult and expensive process regardless of how services are sourced, internally or externally. In Part I of this two-part Executive Update series (Vol. 9, No. 1), we examined a few of the issues, including approach options and opportunities to consider when thinking about benchmarking as part of an outsourcing decision or deal. Here in Part II, we provide examples of benchmarking clauses and the experiences of those who work with such clauses.

http://www.cutter.com/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2008/srcu0804.html

Two Stories Shape Outsourcing in Latin America

23 Apr 2008 22:13:04 GMT

Funes Cervantes, Alfredo | E-Mail Advisors | 23 April 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

I frequently read articles about outsourcing, benefits, risks, business value, challenges, best practices, concerns, and so on. I wonder whether this information, most of it around success stories, refers to a reality exclusive to American companies, or whether we have the same environment in Latin America.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2008/src080423.html

Do We Need a New Undergrad Business Technology Degree?

9 Apr 2008 15:29:04 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 09 April 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In this Advisor, Cutter Consortium Fellow Steve Andriole offers his expert advice as to the type of business technology education today's undergraduates should be receiving. These students will be your future IT employees. What do you think these students should be learning from their coursework? Read on to see whether you agree with this recommendation, framed as a letter to business school deans.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2008/src080409.html

Strategic Sourcing Has a New Definition

26 Mar 2008 20:40:51 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 26 March 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

A year ago I argued in an Advisor that sourcing was about to get more strategic (see "Sourcing Is Getting More Strategic," 7 March 2007). That is, going forward, organizations would source more strategic business processes other than just IT service functions. I have concluded that even this definition is too limiting. Strategic sourcing can mean the sourcing of such functions as R&D, product development, or supply chain, but really should mean far more.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2008/src080326.html

Software Supply Chain Optimization

15 Feb 2008 19:43:36 GMT

Underseth, Mark | Executive Updates | 15 February 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Industrial manufacturers depend on streamlined supply chains to build products. Retailers live and die based on their optimal supply chains. Likewise, manufacturers of electronic products -- such as mobile handsets, consumer electronics, communications equipment, and other intelligent devices -- rely heavily on distributed developers, outsourcers, software vendors, and even open source. Then, why not treat this software ecosystem as an embedded software supply chain and try to optimize it?

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2008/srcu0803.html

Business Performance Management: Buy, Rent, Open Source, or Build?

4 Mar 2008 15:21:39 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 04 March 2008 | Business Intelligence; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Despite several alternatives, most end-user organizations currently choose to develop their business performance management applications themselves. This trend is subject to change, however, because many organizations that are planning to implement performance management applications are still undecided as to how they will do so. Market conditions are changing as well. These findings come from a recent Cutter Consortium survey (conducted in January 2008) of 101 end-user organizations (based worldwide). The survey was designed to measure the extent that organizations are implementing business performance management and the techniques and tools they are using and the issues they are encountering.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2008/bia080304.html

Labor Trends 2008: Outsourcing and Staffing

27 Feb 2008 14:58:20 GMT

Adams, Dennis A. | E-Mail Advisors | 27 February 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Outsourcing continues to occupy the thoughts of IT managers, according to those surveyed for the January 2008 issue of the Cutter Benchmark Review. Last year, we found that 48% of respondents had or were planning to outsource work. That number has jumped to 55% this year. Outsourcing seems to be the way companies are going to manage not only short-term labor costs, but also longer-term costs associated with retirement and healthcare.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2008/src080227.html

Cut the Cord: Reduce Risks of Third-Party Dependencies

13 Jan 2008 19:12:57 GMT

Doughty, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 13 February 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Business continuity management (BCM) is no longer a luxury but an essential element of an organization's risk-management program. For an organization to have any hope of survival, the BCM process must embrace risk, emergency, and recovery planning in order to manage a "crisis" or "disaster" event. Undertaking any business continuity activity should form part of a wider planning structure; it is not an end in itself but a means to an end.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2008/src080213.html

Negotiation in Outsourcing: It's the Prep Work that Counts

30 Jan 2008 19:38:53 GMT

Cullen, Sara | E-Mail Advisors | 30 January 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

So much emphasis has been placed on negotiation in outsourcing contracts that an inexperienced person could believe it is the pinnacle of the outsourcing lifecycle and involves the greatest amount of work and the greatest risk of signing a bad contract. If it does become the pinnacle, then something has gone seriously wrong in an earlier stage.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2008/src080130.html

Sun Buys MySQL

22 Jan 2008 16:09:43 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 22 January 2008 | Business Intelligence; Enterprise Architecture; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Last week, Sun Microsystems announced it would buy leading open source database developer MySQL for approximately US $1 billion. This deal did not receive as much attention as it should have because it happened at the same time Oracle announced it would buy BEA Systems. Nevertheless, it is important. In the words of Sun CEO and President Jonathan Schwartz, "This is the most important deal in the history of the company."

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2008/bia080122.html

Benchmarking Your Outsourcing Contract: Approaches and Opportunities

1 Jan 2008 16:03:39 GMT

Cullen, Sara | Executive Updates | 01 January 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Benchmarking of outsourcing contracts has recently become a highly desired practice by client organizations, but it is often poorly executed. It can be a difficult and expensive process regardless of how services are sourced, internally or externally. This first Executive Update of a two-part series walks you through a few of the issues, including approach options and opportunities to consider when thinking about benchmarking as part of an outsourcing decision or deal.

http://www.cutter.com/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2008/srcu0801.html

Outsourcing Success: Unique, Shifting, and Hard to Copy

1 Aug 2007 15:46:23 GMT

Cullen, Sara | Executive Reports | 01 August 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

This Executive Report by Dr. Sara Cullen provides a new conceptualization of IT outsourcing (ITO) success from the client's perspective based on results from three surveys conducted during 1994-2000, a review of previous research, data from 49 cases, and data from seven additional in-depth cases. The key conclusions reveal that success is idiosyncratic and moving -- no single organization seeks exactly the same things as another from their outsourcing deals. And these goals vary over time. Replicating another organization's deal is unlikely to give you the success that you want -- you must design your deal to match your unique goals, needs, and constraints. Success is an individual journey; similar decisions made by different organizations yield different results based on the organization's competency.

http://www.cutter.com/sourcing/fulltext/reports/2007/08/index.html

SaaS for BI Gets Ready to Take Off

16 Jan 2008 13:35:50 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 16 January 2008 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In 2005 and 2006, we saw a resurgence of analytic service providers, with a number of BI and data warehousing vendors adopting the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Some of these were new firms focused specifically on offering on-demand BI applications and services; some were the old established BI players launching their own on-demand offerings. Today, available on-demand BI offerings range from reporting, dashboards, and focused analytic applications (offered as licensable services) to hosted data integration services and managed data warehouses.

Still, the key question is to what extent companies are actually adopting SaaS/on-demand software to meet their BI and data warehousing requirements. In August/September 2007, Cutter Consortium conducted a survey of 119 end-user organizations worldwide designed to measure the use of various SaaS/on-demand BI and data warehousing solutions.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2008/src080116.html

Outsourcing: Measuring What Matters -- Part II

15 Dec 2007 17:09:46 GMT

Ertel, Danny; Enlow, Sara | Executive Updates | 15 December 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In Part I, we described the current state of SLAs, KPIs, and other metrics used in outsourcing -- the good news, the not-so-good, and areas where there may be room for improvement. Here in Part II, we'll share some solutions -- ways companies are getting better results out of their outsourcing metrics.

http://www.cutter.com/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2007/srcu0719.html

The Seven Pillars: Wisdom for Buy-In of IT Services Sourcing

1 Dec 2007 17:04:40 GMT

Berry, John | Executive Updates | 01 December 2007 | Business-IT Strategies; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

IT organizations with ambitious plans in 2008 to source services, from infrastructure and application maintenance to application software development, must lay the groundwork with senior management for the necessary buy-in. Winning that support requires some understanding of the important predicates to sourcing success.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2007/bitu0723.html

The Nuts and Bolts of Work Made for Hire: Part 1

19 Dec 2007 19:42:09 GMT

Langin, Daniel J. | E-Mail Advisors | 19 December 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Unfortunately, software and other deliverables that contain intellectual property rights are not like most items. They are unique in a number of ways. They are often amorphous, intangible, and difficult to value. Perhaps more unfortunately, they are also sometimes difficult to own.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src071219.html

Negotiation Planning: Plan to Get Sustainable Results

1 Nov 2007 17:03:23 GMT

Cullen, Sara | Executive Reports | 01 November 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Negotiation can be a very important step in securing an outsourcing deal that yields sustainable long-term results. Even if there isn't a major negotiation at the time of signing an outsourcing deal, if you are a contract manager, you are probably negotiating with someone every day within the service provider or within your own organization. This Executive Report by Dr. Sara Cullen explores the planning stages of negotiation regarding outsourcing contracts through 10 major steps, divided into four key sections. The purpose of this type of careful planning is to ensure you reach sustainable solutions that work in the interests of both parties.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/reports/2007/07/index.html

Another Viewpoint on Turnover in Offshoring

5 Dec 2007 14:50:57 GMT

Hawk, Stephen | E-Mail Advisors | 05 December 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In the last Advisor (see "Current Offshoring Challenges," 21 November 2007), Phil Zweig examined the results of Cutter's recent survey on offshoring, which found that turnover in offshore staff was identified as a challenge by 30% of the respondents [1]. In his article, Phil makes many good observations about the severity of this issue and why we'd expect it to cause problems for clients.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src071205.html

MRP-as-a-Service: An Alternative Way to Execute Models for Business Processes

29 Nov 2007 16:04:20 GMT

Lee, Hyoung-Gon; Schuster, Edmund W. | E-Mail Advisors | 29 November 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

With the current interest in SaaS, it is just a matter of time before material requirement planning systems (MRP) become an Internet-based service rather than a dedicated software application hosted on local computers. Eventually, it might become obsolete to use packaged software for management of manufacturing processes and other applications in business. While packaged software will be around for many years into the future, peak sales might have been reached with the most recent economic expansion. For the US market, where the growth of manufacturing has slowed considerably and the idea of MRP is a mature technology, SaaS represents an innovative way of reducing operation costs.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071129.html

Integration Trends for On-Demand BI and Enterprise Applications

27 Nov 2007 15:35:40 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 27 November 2007 | Business Intelligence; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Approximately half of the organizations currently using on-demand BI and on-demand data warehousing solutions have integrated them with their enterprise applications and other operational systems. This finding comes from a Cutter Consortium survey (conducted in August/September 2007) of 119 end-user organizations (based worldwide), which was designed to measure the corporate adoption of various software-as-a-service (SaaS)/on-demand BI and data warehousing solutions.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2007/bia071127.html

Current Offshoring Challenges: Turnover

21 Nov 2007 14:53:25 GMT

Zwieg, Phil | E-Mail Advisors | 21 November 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In a recent Cutter survey on offshoring, turnover in offshore staff was identified as a challenge by 30% of the respondents [1]. And, indeed, it is a subject that has received considerable attention in the press over the last year. According to an article in Information Age earlier this year, among the challenges that offshore service companies in India face is "staff turnover averaging at 15-20% annually in software development and at anything between 30% to 140% in business process outsourcing" [2]. In January of this year, Infosys, one of the major offshore providers in India, reported through its COO Kris Gopalakrishnan that "attrition is slightly up at 13.5% compared to 12.9% last quarter. Attrition, if I exclude involuntary separation, especially at the entry-level, comes down to 12.2%. The corresponding number last quarter is 12%" [3]. Even in a quality company like Infosys, turnover is watched closely. In a recent Computerworld UK article, the following observation was made: "Indian firms have become a lot more sensitive to the attrition issue -- and for good reason. Indian BPO business leaders feel that high staff turnover is reducing their ability to 'innovate' and add value to their clients' operations" [4].

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src071121.html

The Inventory Hub

15 Nov 2007 19:38:23 GMT

Schuster, Edmund W. | E-Mail Advisors | 15 November 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

One of the strengths of the US economy is the diversification of industries along with free markets that function well enough, if not always at 100% efficiency. The variety of products produced, ranging from branded consumer goods to energy resources, is truly impressive. Often Americans take for granted the scope of the US economy.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071115.html

Managing Outsourced Projects: Measurement Counts

7 Nov 2007 19:20:21 GMT

Mah, Michael C. | E-Mail Advisors | 07 November 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In our most recent survey on outsourcing (see "Outsourcing Insights Redux: Part I -- Truths and Perceptions"), we asked respondents how they evaluate supplier project estimates on applications development and maintenance projects. Compared to our previous study in 2004, the number of organizations moving away from manual methods or semimanual methods (i.e., linear math, bottom-up spreadsheets) and using more advanced (i.e., parametric) estimating tools and methods increased from 12% to 16%. Both are quite paltry numbers.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src071107.html

Benchmark Your Service Contract Price with Caution

15 Sep 2007 21:13:54 GMT

Mauk, Chet | Executive Updates | 15 September 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

The purpose of this Executive Update is to critically examine service contract price benchmarking as a tool to measure price efficiency of contracted complex services against market prices. A complex service contract can be viewed as a legal framework tied to a financial model. As a result, what is actually being benchmarked is a price exhibit tied to an underlying complex financial model. A heavily contested contract price benchmark result often causes relationship stress and unwanted distraction that can get in the way of long-term goals.

http://www.cutter.com/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2007/srcu0718.html

Upcoming Webinar: Transitioning to Agile Project Management: Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water

13 Dec 2007 19:39:25 GMT

13 December 2007, 11:30 - 12:30 pm EDT, Featuring Sanjiv Augustine, Senior Consultant, Agile Project Management practice

In this hour-long Webinar, Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Sanjiv Augustine will divulge how your PMBOK-style management expertise can be best leveraged when managing Agile projects. Sanjiv, a well-known Agile practitioner, has personally managed agile projects varying in size from five to over one hundred people and coached numerous project teams; in this webinar, he shares that hands-on experience with you.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/transitioning.html

Upcoming Event: Compared to What? A Look at Application Development Benchmarks

15 Nov 2007 19:38:57 GMT

15 November 2007, 11:30 - 12:30 pm EDT, Featuring Michael Mah, Senior Consultant, Cutter Business Technology Trends & Impacts, Measurement and Benchmarking, Agile Project Management, and Sourcing & Vendor Relationships practices

In this hour-long Webinar, Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Michael Mah, brings you some of the most interesting findings from the research he and his colleagues at QSM, Inc. did on more than 500 IT projects in 16 countries across 16 industries. Discover the story the data tells, and how you can apply this knowledge to improve your organization's software development effectiveness. You'll find out how your organization compares to those projects included in QSM’s research. You'll get insight into the question of how your projects behave in the context of the outside world.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/appdevbench.html

Managing Outsourced Projects: Make Sure You Have Enough People

24 Oct 2007 15:06:19 GMT

Mah, Michael C. | E-Mail Advisors | 24 October 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

My consulting experience finds that many of the problems being experienced in measuring and managing outsourcing relationships are traceable to client organizations being woefully understaffed. This is from pressures to cut costs, translated to either cutting staff on the client side or leaving positions unfilled in spite of attrition.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src071024.html

Just Added: Outsourcing Insights Redux: Part III -- Managing the Relationship

24 Oct 2007 20:50:50 GMT

Mah, Michael C. | Executive Updates | 01 September 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

This is the third and final installment of a three-part Executive Update series on applications outsourcing based on a recent Cutter Consortium survey of 95 organizations. 1 Here in Part III, we examine patterns regarding the client-supplier relationship after reflecting upon the survey question, "Do you plan to continue with your supplier?" Surprisingly, the majority of our respondents sought to switch vendors or bring work back inhouse (i.e., backsource). Clearly, relationship management needs to improve for outsourcing to be more successful.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/updates/2007/bttu0717.html

Happy Talk About On-Demand BI and Data Warehousing

23 Oct 2007 19:59:34 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 23 October 2007 | Business Intelligence; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

The majority of organizations currently using on-demand BI and data warehousing solutions are generally satisfied with the results. This finding comes from a Cutter Consortium survey (conducted in August/September 2007) of 119 end-user organizations (based worldwide), which was designed to measure the corporate adoption of various software-as-a-service (SaaS)/on-demand BI and data warehousing solutions.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2007/bia071023.html

Profiling Your Strategic Technology Alliances

11 Oct 2007 21:13:33 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 11 October 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Business-IT Strategies

This Advisor suggests you take a hard look at your strategic technology alliances. How many do you have? Are they productive? How do you decide which ones to pursue -- and which ones to terminate? Some of the alliances you may have include:

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt071011.html

Multisourcing Pros & Cons

10 Oct 2007 21:05:44 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 10 October 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

To multisource or not to multisource? This is a question that will grow in importance as the size of sourcing and the varieties of processes sourced marches upward. In true, two-handed fashion -- on the one hand, on the other hand -- let's consider multisourcing's value first, then some of its risks.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src071010.html

On-Demand BI and Data Warehousing: Customization Required

9 Oct 2007 21:02:40 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 09 October 2007 | Business Intelligence; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

The majority of organizations using -- or planning to use -- on-demand BI and data warehousing solutions require that the application/service be customized to support their data analysis and data management needs. This finding comes from a recent Cutter Consortium survey (conducted in August/September 2007) of 119 end-user organizations (based worldwide), which was designed to measure the corporate adoption of various software-as-a-service (SaaS)/on-demand BI and data warehousing solutions.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2007/bia071009.html

Outsourcing: Measuring What Matters -- Part I

1 Sep 2007 20:40:08 GMT

Ertel, Danny; Enlow, Sara | Executive Updates | 01 September 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In this Executive Update, Part I of a three-part series, we'll describe the current state of SLAs and other metrics used in outsourcing -- the good news and the not-so-good news, as well as areas where there may be room for improvement. In Part II, we'll share some solutions and innovative ways that companies are getting better results out of their outsourcing metrics. In the final installment, we'll discuss how to make the case for trying something different, both internally and externally.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2007/srcu0717.html

The Asian Megalopolis, Part 2: Opportunities for Information Technology Growth

27 Sep 2007 14:29:50 GMT

Schuster, Edmund W. | E-Mail Advisors | 27 September 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Innovation

China is a vast country with abundant human resources. Today, China is undergoing a rapid amount of change as its people build a modern, high-performance economy. Given continued rapid economic growth along with population concentration, China is moving into an age unprecedented in human history, the age of the Megalopolis.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt070927.html

Managing Outsourced Projects: Four Useful Guidelines

26 Sep 2007 14:23:49 GMT

Mah, Michael C. | E-Mail Advisors | 26 September 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

On many offshore projects, there's a high degree of parallelism between the requirements and the build/code/test phase. One metaphor to consider is that of building a house -- imagine what would happen if an architectural blueprint was incomplete yet the contractor rushed in to pour cement for the foundation and erect the walls too soon. Many offshore teams try and compress time this way, only to have to rework the code.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src070926.html

Can Innovation Survive Virtual Teams and Outsourcing?

1 Sep 2007 14:13:06 GMT

Adams, Carl | Executive Updates | 01 September 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Innovation

Innovation is important for economic development at a national level and for business survival at a corporate level. However, if the trend toward global virtual activity and outsourcing continues, then we are heading for an overall slowdown in innovation as the corporate problem space is outsourced and virtual working practices raise barriers to collaboration and problem sharing.

In this Executive Update, I suggest some ways corporations can support innovation in an outsourced virtual environment.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/updates/2007/ieau0701.html

Using a Performance Points Model for Your KPI "Incentive" Scheme

15 Aug 2007 14:12:15 GMT

Cullen, Sara | Executive Updates | 15 August 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

There are several approaches to setting key performance indicator (KPI) incentives in outsourcing arrangements. The term "incentive"1 is used in this Executive Update to reflect the financial risks and rewards that are allocated to the service provider by the client regarding KPIs. Incentives over the provider can be negative (risk) and/or positive (rewards). Such incentives encourage providers to meet expectations and, where desired, to deliver outstanding service.

http://www.cutter.com/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2007/srcu0716.html

Can Innovation Survive Virtual Teams and Outsourcing?

1 Sep 2007 17:33:06 GMT

Adams, Carl | Executive Updates | 01 September 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Innovation

Innovation is important for economic development at a national level and for business survival at a corporate level. However, if the trend toward global virtual activity and outsourcing continues, then we are heading for an overall slowdown in innovation as the corporate problem space is outsourced and virtual working practices raise barriers to collaboration and problem sharing. In this Executive Update, I suggest some ways corporations can support innovation in an outsourced virtual environment.

http://www.cutter.com/innovation/fulltext/updates/2007/ieau0701.html

ITAM Provides Visibility into Sourcing Value

12 Sep 2007 17:08:53 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 12 September 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Business-IT Strategies

Organizations seeking total visibility into a sourcing initiative's financial impact will find the task easier if they explore the cost/value equation through the lens of IT asset management (ITAM). The principles of ITAM offer managers a unique perspective into cost and value drivers. Here's how.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src070912.html

The Asian Megalopolis, Part 1: Opportunities for Information Technology Growth

5 Sep 2007 19:25:45 GMT

Schuster, Edmund W. | E-Mail Advisors | 06 September 2007 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Innovation

Given the dramatic impact the city has had on American and European society, the world economy is on the verge of an even greater development in urbanization. Exploring this trend, Muzhi Zhou of Tokyo Keizai University, Japan, and a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has written a book titled The Chinese Economy: Mechanism of its Rapid Growth. Published in April 2007, the book is written in Japanese and has been distributed throughout Asia. Professor Zhou is from a prominent literary family in China and brings a unique perspective to his writing and research through having successful academic, governmental, and engineering careers in both Japan and China.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2007/btt070906.html

Building a Methodology 101: Boosting Sourcing Management Performance

1 Jun 2007 18:28:46 GMT

Berry, John | Executive Reports | 01 June 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Organizations that are serious about sourcing might consider building a planning, decision-making, and execution methodology to boost internal management performance and total value creation from sourcing initiatives. While the idea of creating a methodology from nothing might seem intimidating at first, the construction process is not as hard as it sounds. This Executive Report outlines the broad principles behind constructing a methodology that, if followed correctly, will inject discipline, clarity, and sophistication into the process of managing sourcing initiatives. The report also attempts to persuade readers that the heavy lifting is worth the effort.

http://www.cutter.com/sourcing/fulltext/reports/2007/06/index.html

Using Schedules in Contract Design: Business Continuity

29 Aug 2007 18:27:45 GMT

Cullen, Sara | E-Mail Advisors | 29 August 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

This series of Advisors has been looking at using schedules to modularly construct contracts; you only use the schedules you need in any given circumstance. This approach also allows for third parties that may need to sign the schedules to have only the information they require. In the previous two Advisors, we looked at clauses in the area of personnel and underlying practices, plans, and procedures. In this Advisor, we will begin to examine business continuity clauses.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src070829.html

Staying Out of Court: Dispute Prevention and Management in Outsourcing Contracts

15 Jul 2007 20:22:17 GMT

Cullen, Sara | Executive Updates | 15 July 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Think of disputes that occur in outsourcing deals as mushrooms. To grow and spawn, they need an environment that is dark and full of fertilizer. Your goal is to create an environment that is well lit, with little fertilizer for the mushrooms to feed on. Disputes are not often caused by one particular issue but are usually triggered by an accumulation of many adverse events that eventually lead the parties to start "throwing mud at each other." The case below shows how seemingly superficial events can create a "fertilized" field ready for disputes.

http://www.cutter.com/risk/fulltext/updates/2007/ermu0714.html

Forward-Looking Sourcing Issues for Managers

15 Aug 2007 15:11:07 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 15 August 2007 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In the rush of sourcing issues that threaten to pull you under like a riptide, it is worthwhile sometimes to step back and recalibrate your perspective to better understand the current sourcing environment as a necessary step in planning for the future. This might represent an ideal time for this. We're just weeks away from the end of summer -- and after Labor Day, the starting gun goes off for those remaining projects in the planning queue before the end of the fiscal year.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2007/src070815.html