Global Delivery: “Shorely” Confusing!
Welcome to my blog on the topic of how global providers of BPO and ITO services promote, differentiate and brand themselves to the buy-side customer….
In the past 18 months, I have spent countless hours on the web sites of global service providers, from the largest US and European players, to the Indian ‘biggies’ to the emerging and upstart firms. These days, buy-side executives in the market for BPO and ITO services expect large and mid-tier providers to have some type of global delivery capability. This has sparked an interesting marketing game among providers.
Perhaps to avoid using “offshore” (a term that can carry a negative connotation on the buy-side) , provider marketers have created a dizzying array of “x-shore” terms to describe their delivery capability. For instance, Capgemini has trademarked “RightShore”, and gone to great lengths to associate itself with that term in press releases and articles. (You’ll see this if you Google “rightshore”). Other firms skirt copyright infringement by using two words in lower case. EDS has laid claim to “Best Shore” (again trademarking a la Capgemini). In its various forms, ‘best shore” is used by many providers including SPi, TeleTech, GCI and Sutherland. There are others, “Dual-Shore” (NIIT) and “Balance Shore” (Lancesoft) among them.
Genpact favors the vanilla “global service delivery”, but then stands apart from the pack. Though a world map is a ubiquitous feature on provider sites, Genpact’s reveals a truly global network of centers in Hungary, Brazil, China, India and elsewhere. CSC’s marketers have developed the term “CSC World Sourcing”, though the corporate site provides no detail on locations. (Interestingly, the site does describe the five types of centers they offer to clients, a detail I’ve not found elsewhere.)
We also see “blended delivery” and “onshore/offshore delivery” commonly used, though those terms often describe project management, and not global delivery, models.
Then we have Nearshore, a term meaning different things depending on where you are (or where your clients are). In the US, nearshore has traditionally meant Canada, though Mexican and Latin American providers and government agencies seem to have wrested the neashore flag from the Canadians through aggressive marketing.
Not to be left out, Indian providers have gotten in the game by opening Nearshore Europe centers in central and eastern Europe to support clients in the UK, Germany, etc. Witness Infosys’ announcement of a “nearshore delivery center” in Brno, Czech Republic. It all depends on where you stand. I haven’t yet heard a provider touting Dalian, China as “Nearshore Japan”, but I guess that’s just a matter of time!
A final thought on a broader issue: Some months ago, an HP services executive told me that their huge global delivery network was not something to promote, but merely “the engine that makes their services business run.” What do you think of global delivery as a provider differentiator? How will it change in the future?
Let me know.
hey george, wonderful blog…you sure do have a good observation…of this trend….but perhaps we cannot blame them, differentiation is important when you many competitors. But im not sure if customers are in any way attracted to these terms…it definitely is the service offerings and how these companies have used these terms in the “above the line” marketing…to draw the attention of prospective buyers.
Cheers!
Asif