From
Advice to Delivery
Outsourcing is big business for the consulting industry.
2001-03 has seen a significant shift away from more traditional consulting
services towards outsourcing and outsourcing-related work. Philip Geiger is a
Board Director at the IT consulting firm, Xayce:
You only have to look at the number of outsourcing
announcements by blue chip companies in the last few months to appreciate that
the time is fast approaching when a lack of appreciation about IT and business
process outsourcing (BPO) would be akin to ignoring the impact of IT in the
1960s. Clients expect their consultants to understand the many facets and
implications of BPO. The upside is that this represents a significant
opportunity (and one that will close as clients acquire the experience to do it
themselves); the downside is that you won't be able to ignore BPO. You could get
away with that for a while, but - ultimately - clients won't want to talk to
you.
From the supplier point of view, the case studies in this chapter
typify two distinct sectors of the outsourcing industry.