What About “bundled deals?”
Is this a specially coined marketing term to distinguish a provider of multitower, multiprocess or multifunction outsourcing, or something completely different? Does the client obtain a distinctive value proposition when bundling versus committing to one of the multis? And how big is a bundle? One, two, three functions?
Single-process and commodity are used interchangeably
Commodity outsourcing is defined as a smaller, component-like deal, while single process could pertain to one discrete process or function. Having used process and function interchangeably, is a single-process deal also a commodity deal? According to Wikipedia, the new authority on absolutely everything, a commodity is something for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation.
A review of history (five years ago) indicates the interchangeability of the terminologies single-process, commodity and point service, as a way to describe outsourcing services that could be easily procured. Does this mean that this type of deal can be ordered out of a Sears Roebuck catalogue of outsourcing?
The terminology for internal delivery is confusing
The terms shared-services center and captive are sometimes used interchangeably. Is consolidation of operation by one corporation to an internal set of customers, not shared-services centers or captives? Yet there appears to be a dichotomy in their usage … shared-services centers, which are located offshore, seem to be captive, yet those on/or nearshore are simply … shared-services centers. And to further confuse the issue: What transpires in a shared-services center cum captive? In some corporate parlance, shared-services centers are a consolidation of one function only (comprising multiple processes), while in other’s definition, shared-services centers encompass multiple functions.
There is some movement to create parity with the commercial arrangements commensurate with third-party outsourcing, calling shared services/captives “internal” outsourcing. So processes or functions that are consolidated in one or more locations in either shared-services centers or captives are also known as internal outsourcings.
Think I am hallucinating? I kid you not; spend even ten minutes cruising the Web and your head, too, will spin.
Would the world be a better place with an official dictionary of services globalization? Certainly, the pursuits of world peace or slowing global warming are far more worthy preoccupations. But wouldn’t it be nice if we all spoke the same language?
Deborah Kops is Chief Marketing Officer of a leading offshore business-process outsourcer. Formerly a partner at two professional services firms, Managing Director at two global banks and a founding executive at a BPO provider, she has a unique perspective on an industry that she believes will flourish, often in spite of itself.
