Demand for Emerging Skills is Higher from Non-Technical Industry Verticals | Market Insights™
Demand for emerging skills is higher from non-technical industry verticals
Demand for emerging skills is higher from non-technical industry verticals
Triple mandate for enterprises, technology priorities, emerging roles with enterprises
Demands of the next-generation investor
The Indian software outsourcing industry is currently at an interesting crossroads. Later this week, there could actually be a reshuffle in the top slots, something that hasn’t happened in over five years.
This change comes even as these firms continue to grapple with the twin challenges posed by the maturing of digital technologies and increased pressure on margins.
“The large and scaled Indian base providers will continue to experience head winds as digital cannibalizes their legacy business and challenges their profit margins,” said Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive at research firm Everest Group.
At the Procurecon Indirect conference in Copenhagen a couple of weeks ago, three senior procurement people from different corporations approached me with their woes about the lack of control and the high levels of procurement indiscipline their marketing departments exhibit. They wanted to know how and if Everest Group could solve the problem of rogue spend with external agencies for marketing services. It’s an interesting and very valid question.
Marketing services is one area in which many enterprises’ Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) have had neither the evidence nor the mandate to challenge established thinking. Furthermore, unlike IT and non-core business process outsourcing alternatives that have been around for 20 years, outsourcing options for marketing didn’t exist until recently. Now that they do, CPOs are sensing the opportunity, in partnership with Chief Marketing Officers, to transform the way marketing services are delivered.
Benchmarking can certainly provide rate-card analysis, SLA review, a breakdown of the cost-stack, and any number of other elements from the contract, to give a view of pricing and equitable contracting. But there are problems:
But, as one of my Procurecon conversations suggested, the issues for CPOs aren’t high levels of spend or a desire to be in control of every spending decision. Rather, they’re concerned about fragmented spend and lack of overall visibility.
They can begin by promoting the procurement function as an exemplar of best practice by pointing to examples in other spend categories of how procurement has driven cost savings, improved quality, or stimulated innovation. Doing so establishes CPOs’ leadership credentials.
Next, they can introduce some level of technology that will deliver at least visibility into spend. Several speakers at the conference cited the need for the procurement process to generate data to increase efficiency. Many CPOs without a mandate for category management seem reluctant to push for integrated procure-to-pay or source-to-contract systems. But less invasive approaches, such as customized applications in Salesforce, could still generate useful information about spend categories, transaction volumes, and whether suppliers are being contracted by separate groups within an enterprise.
Third, they can consider portfolio rationalisation, against these rationales:
Next, they can investigate alternatives. Arguably, marketing services and creative agency spend are still immature enough to offer the opportunity to arbitrage. And providers with capability are rapidly emerging. Accenture has acquired over 20 agencies since 2010. Onsite digital design agencies such as NuFu, Oliver, and Spark44 have a growing impact. Every major service provider – Atos, Cognizant, Sutherland Global, Wipro, etc. – is investing in or acquiring digital agencies, and these investments will allow enterprises to consider accessing marketing services alongside a suite of outsourced IT or business process services.
Finally, they can benchmark the status quo with an alternative. Can a sourced solution give the enterprise not only a cost advantage but also faster delivery, access to global talent, measurable outcomes, and real transparency?
So, CPOs, there’s little reason to ask yourself “how do I do it?” Instead, the real question is, “why wait?”
You can find out how Everest Group helps enterprises optimise global procurement operations here. We also help enterprises rationalise complex portfolios of external suppliers.
Augmented reality is an exciting digital transformation technology that is surprisingly powerful, and it has a wide variety of applications across industries. But, to me, what is most striking – and more important – about AI is the enormous amount of organizational change it drives across core operations. If your company is considering implementing AI technology, keep in mind that it’s not something you buy for a few million dollars and achieve tremendous benefit from it. It will fundamentally change how your company does business.
See how leaders are differentiating from peers – visit our digital transformation resource page.
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