Phew, what a week: debates aplenty and a plethora of first-class presentations to absorb – and this despite being unable to attend the IACCM’s EMEA 2008 event (sorry Tim!).
I’ve just returned from hosting a roundtable at SSON’s Planning & Implementing Successful New Shared Services event at London’s Cafe Royal. A wide-ranging discussion – to be transcribed and published forthwith – included some great lessons on getting automation right first time; the key topic, however, became the value of a solid and comprehensive change program at the business-case stage (something David Lines looked back on in our “If I could do it all again…” series last week). Opinion was pretty much unanimous that some of the biggest obstacles to a successful implementation can be avoided – or at least reduced in scale – by getting the programme right at the very beginning, and sticking to it. For much more detail on this topic and a host of others, keep an eye on the SSON homepage for the link to the transcription: coming soon to a PC near you…
Another roundtable – with plenty of forthright comment and lashings of controversy – took place on Tuesday when an august body of participants from across the sourcing space (and your not-so-august editor) looked at “Offshore Outsourcing: Can We Have Our Cake And Eat It?” – I’ll be publishing this tomorrow and can guarantee it’ll inform and provoke, with some excellent points raised by – among others – Stan LePeak from EquaTerra, Duncan Aitchison from TPI and controversialist-in-chief Vivek Wadhwa. Do let me know your thoughts on this topic – and let me have your ideas for future debates. We’re here to serve, after all.
Also on Tuesday I was lucky enough to get an exclusive interview with the President of India’s NASSCOM, Som Mittal. (I say “lucky” – three months of badgering his PR team probably helped my fortunes a little) NASSCOM is an increasingly influential body both within and beyond India and it was interesting to see how the organization is working to improve the country’s educational and training infrastructure, as well as to get Mittal’s views on how the sourcing space has changed in recent years – and what he sees as being the challenges facing the sector in times to come. Again, this interview will be hitting the SSON pages very shortly – possible after my own bit of outsourcing in the transcription space…
Meanwhile I’m waiting to hear back from my colleagues in the US as to what were the big topics at SSON’s Shared Services Summit in Vegas: one thing big takeaway – in the sense that it was the house doing the taking away – is that blackjack proved a sub-optimal investment strategy for at least one (un)lucky punter. Several billion dollars more optimal than Lehman Bros’, however. I guess it helps to have a sense of perspective, although the late and much-lamented Douglas Adams would disagree.
Before I leave (relatively speaking, I hope…) I must advise you to check out my interview with consultant, thinker and doer extraordinaire Bryan Bergeron. The man’s CV is phenomenal and if it weren’t for the fact that he gets up at 2am every day I’d be seethingly envious. Contender for Polymath of the Year, for sure. (NB: this is a fictitious award so please don’t start sending in your votes, unless they’re accompanied by vast sums of money…)
Until next time,
Jamie
Tags: automation, BryanBergeron, DavidLines, DuncanAitchison, London, NASSCOM, Outsourcing, roundtable, sharedservices, SomMittal, SSON, StanLepeak, summit, VivekWadhwa
