Royston

Moving non-core activities performed in-house to specialists outside the company helping the* business to focus on core competencies and improve performance standards is the main premis of outsourcing. The growth and rewards of this practice can be quite high but the downsides are daunting.

So what are the pros and cons of outsourcing?

The potential from outsourcing and BPO related activities:

• Savings in terms of cost from labour arbitrage
• Productivity

...

Planning a Green Christmas

The song tells of a white Christmas, but that refers to the weather and the Christmasy atmosphere that snow can bring. Planning for a green Christmas is all about being environmentally active and aware while saving money as well. In times of economic uncertainty that must surely be a good thing. And of course, if the weather brings a little bit of white covering too, then that makes a green Christmas perfect!

Exchanging gifts is a common practice ...

Digital Photo Recovery

Digital photographs are something that are important to all of us. Most of the pictures we take happen once in a lifetime, which is why they are so very important. From your child’s first steps to pictures of your family, photographs are very important. As important as they are, nothing is worse than losing them. This can be very traumatic and frustrating, especially knowing that you’ll never to capture the picture again.

Even though it may ...

Computer Diagnostics

The diagnostics that are associated with computers can help to identify any problem or failure that computers show when they are having problems. Diagnostics are used to test out the computer system, which includes both the BIOS and memory, software, and even the hardware that is attached to the computer.

The most common types of problems will occur when your computer is down to very low resources, which can either be a low amount of RAM, or a ...

Hi BizFacers

Most people will of course be aware about the great Welsh Panthenon of Gods - who lived on the windy slopes of Snowdon where year in an out aided by the great God of rain Dwnpwr mingled and delved into the matters of men and women. Interfering and generally making whoopee until fed up with the rain and the god awful food in Wales (especially the leeks and warm beer) they disappeared back to their mountain top retreat.

Anyhoo -- The Gods of Wales
...

Feasibility Study Project Management Template


Feasibility Study Project Management Template

Is your project feasible?
The best way to find out whether your project is feasible is to complete a Feasibility Study. This process helps you gain confidence that the solution you need to build can be implemented on time and under budget. So here’s how to do it in 5 simple steps...
Completing a Feasibility Study
A Feasibility Study ...

Industry Leaders and Conservative think tank contemplate commercial rates for student loans

I was a little annoyed by the recent call by the industry leaders for students to pay the equivalent of a commercial rate of interest for their loans at University. Currently the rate of interest for a student loan is set at around the rate of inflation - so assuming inflation gets back to a more normal rate over the next few years the long term loan rate will settle at around 3 to 5%. Although ...

A day in the life of a stressed out House-Person

I was there doing the washing up - yes I know this is unheard off - when that black and white idiot of a dog of ours starts the hound of the Baskervilles impression and begins to bark the bloody place down. I don't know what it is with Border Collies but they spend most of their day looking at the entrance to the drive waiting for someone to turn up then proceed to bark their flipping heads off - she's turned postie into a nervous wreak ...

I suppose many read the story this week about research that showed men who spend even a few minutes in the company of a very attractive woman perform less well in cognitive tests designed to measure brain function. Apparently when men are intensely focused on an attractive female such is the extent that cognitive resources are used up that it is almost impossible to think of anything else - in this case one researcher could not remember his address when asked by a particularly impressively built ...

The Buriden's Ass ‘method’ of decision making is used when two or more equally attractive alternatives exist and it is difficult to make a choice. It is of course based on the old fable of Buriden's Ass, who starved to death because he was tethered halfway between two equally large and succulent piles of hay - he couldn’t make up his mind which one to walk over to and eat. The approach is really simple; if the outcome of a choice between two options in terms of benefit is equally attractive focus ...

Pay Attention to governance structures and manage Outsourcing for success

In the Service Level Agreement the governance structure must receive special attention with all the relevant review and management processes, including escalation procedures should things go wrong. Furthermore, built-in mechanisms for changeover time must be included to account for continuous improvement. Obviously, targeted reduction in price is to be expected from normal improvements in technology or process, ...

Do not get ripped off in an outsource agreement the staff notice it first

The success of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) is also observed closely by your staff. We have seen in our outsource work that staff notice only too well whether their original employer is getting value or just being ‘ripped off’ and often have great fun when it does go wrong. This keen appraisal of how it works in practice impacts upon their own motivation and their relationships with both you and the outsource ...

Last Time on the Disco Diaries

Breakdown on M26 with 'teas up' and no coolant and three separate parties: the breakdown man, the cops and the little man from the Crawley garage add to my woes by confirming my worst fears about my foray into Discos with lots of epithets about crap cars, unreliability and won't touch that with a barge pole etc.

Anyhoo … I get a call from the garage next day, 'Hello Mr Morgan I am afraid I have some bad news - we can repair your car (damn ...

Involve Managers and Staff in the work of change management

Many Change Managers assume that if the rationale for change is made clear to the organisation then they will go along with it. In the process of demonstrating the need to change and an understanding of the impact (on themselves and their group) employees will buy- in and thereafter work actively to realise it. There is an assumption behind all this that ‘Change’ is negotiated and develops over time and that the change agent’s ...

Just sleep on it and the solution will come

I suppose many have read about recent research led by a leading expert on the benefits of napping at the University of California that suggests that Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep enhances creative problem-solving. At last now when I get caught sleeping on the job I have the perfect excuse. The study by Sara Mednick and Denise Cai graduate student in the UC San Diego Department of Psychology showed that REM directly enhances creative processing ...

Strangelove revisited - my love hate relationship with Land Rover Discovery's

I expect most people associate Land Rovers with a robust off road vehicle capable of navigating the Sahara desert (see Ice Cold in Alice) or scaling the heights of Mount Kilimanjaro on a single tank of petrol. Robust rugged and ready for any off-road experience. Well the reality is other-wise and my experience of Land Rovers (specifically the series TD5) has shown them quite incapable of getting out of our ...

How many bacteria in a doner kebab - Bristol University Student finds out the hard way

I was talking to her indoors about her sisters son who's at Bristol University who just had a nasty run in with Gastroenteritis following a 'delicious' late night snack of a donar kebab (despite repeated warnings from his mum) after consuming a quick ten pints at the student union bar. This nasty ailment is an inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract involving both the stomach and the small intestine ...

Why do People Write Viruses and Spam - how can we stop them?

Why do people write viruses, spam programs and other malware that causes thousands of lost hours and frustration to end users every day of the week and why are we not more severe with these people when they do get caught?

We concede to virus writers, bootleggers of software and pirates of music some sort of kudos and aura of a folk hero a 'Robin Hood' charm - when in fact they are petty criminals. What motivates ...

Attachment 35

OK Prince Philip's recent remark to president Obama as to whether he could tell all the politicians apart led me to publich my top list of Gaffs by HRH Philips - he's worth his weight in gold in my view:

My Top 5

1.0 "If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."
(at a 1986 World Wildlife Fund ...

Stiff competition in the penis enlargement industry

After a period of relative quiet and normality I have noticed my inbox is becoming inundated with spam posts again. As normal I still get the occasional post about the little pink or blue tablets some of them almost looking as if they were sent via legit sites but of late it is the stiffening competition in the penis enlargement industry which is giving me gip. Apparently you can gain inches to your anatomy (in minutes) by wearing ...

The Prince William Cup - another obsequious gesture by the WRU

A new rugby trophy was apparently chosen by Prince William first son of Prince Charles the Halfwit from three different designs presented by specialist jewelers in Wales; Mari Thomas, from Llanelli and Nicola Palterman from Neath won the commission to create the cup. The creation is 55*cm high, 1.5*mm gauge trophy as their biggest and most their most elaborate job to date - see pic below for the monstrosity. The blurb ...

I read with interest an article in the Sunday paper this week on the assertion that Bees 'Decision Making Strategy' (sic) could help the business world to come to more informed decisions.

Attachment 28

Apparently swarms send out 'scouts' to assess the quality of a potential site for a hive. The insects then report back to the old hive and do a 'dance' to describe the benefits of the site. The study concluded that the swarm then comes to a group decision on the best ...

Why is Business Benefits Planning Essential - free ebook to download

Benefits planning aims to deliver the benefits promised in the business case and ensures they are actually realised. Many projects although they complete successfully in project management terms fail to deliver any of the initial benefits that launched the initiative. I have seen countless examples of project teams and managers congratulating themselves with the success of the project, 'how well it went', 'all the ...

The Red Lady of Paviland

As BizFace members will be aware the 'Red-Lady of Paviland' currently resides in a box in Oxford and is the subject of action to attempt the repatriate the red-lady (actually red-bloke cos it is man!) to the land of origin Wales. The Red-Lady actually a red-ochre stained body of a man, is one of the earliest known Palaeolithic burials in the UK and quite rightly belongs as part of the heritage of the Welsh being an example of early occupation of this land some ...

The Bardsey Crown to Return to the land of Merlin

No doubt everyone is watching with great interest the attempts by the Bardsey inhabitants (all ten of them) to have the Bardsey island Crown returned to its rightful place in Wales.
The Island is a god forsaken lump of rock off the Llyn Penninsula in the North of Wales once inhabited by Monks in a colony established there in the 6th Century by one Saint Cadfan. - and as an interesting side note is the imputed last resting place ...