Intelligent IT Outsourcing enables practitioners to focus in on the essential issues that need to be addressed so that the fundamental structure of their sourcing strategy and its implementation is sound. The authors provide insight into the challenges likely to be faced and give detailed advice on how to pre-empt and manage these.

IT and outsourcing continue to be problematic, not least because fundamental learning about this subject fails to be applied systematically, and because IT is inherently difficult to manage. The economics are not obvious and emerging technologies have to be addressed, therefore IT goes to the heart of many enterprises and interfaces with multiple business units and processes, and there are continuous skills shortages.
Unfortunately complexities are not removed in outsourced situations where additional problems come into play, for example the supplier's capabilities, whether the IT is right for an outsourcing solution, and whether the contract is robust but flexible enough to allow for outsourcing to take place. Objectives need to be realistic, and factors such as whether the internal management is mature and capable enough in this field, and the impact of prohibitive switching costs on behaviour once an outsourcing deal has been signed all have to be taken into account.
The authors have built up over two decades of research, advisory and practitioner experience that enables them to distil the fundamental challenges in IT and outsourcing and demonstrate how these can be addressed.
* Focuses on the fundamentals of what should be done and what should be avoided, based on actual experience applied in major IT outsourcing deals
* Researchfindings and case examples included throughout to support recommended practices
* Written by highly experienced, internationally acknowledged experts in the field

'Delivering Business Value from IT' is focused on the evaluation issue in IT and how IT evaluation can proceed across the life-cycle of any IT investment and be linked positively to improving business performance.
Chapters 1,2 and 3 detail an approach to IT evaluation whilst chapters 4 and 5 build on these by showing two distinctive approaches to linking IT to business performance. The remaining three chapters deal with a range of evaluation issues emerging as important - specifically Internet evaluation, Y2K and beyond, EMU, quality outsourcing, infrastructure, role of benchmarking, and cost of ownership issues that practitioners regularly encounter.
A 'Computer Weekly' Professional Series book
Contains high visibility case studies including Safeway, Unipart, Hewlett Packard, Morgan Stanley, CNN, BP Exploration, British Aerospace, and Royal and Sun Alliance.

'Making IT Count: from strategy to implementation' focuses on the practical elements of delivering Information Technology strategy. Studies regularly show that over half of Information Technology strategies are never implemented, or are unsuccessful in delivering the desired results, and that a significant percentage of strategies implemented were never in the original plans. The linkage between strategy development and delivery needs a very clear focus; this is the key topic that the authors address. The book highlights eight major fallacies in managing IT, and eighteen better practices. It then details how to draw up strategy, instigate navigation techniques and make sourcing decisions. Change and delivery are a major focus, as is infrastructure development. Caselets and full length case studies of organizations such as General Electric, Siemens, Colonial Mutual, Charles Schwab, Macquarie Bank, ICI, United Airlines, Norwich Union, Walgreens and Dell and have been included to show how strategies have been successfully implemented and managed.

'Making IT Count: from strategy to implementation' focuses on the practical elements of delivering Information Technology strategy. Studies regularly show that over half of Information Technology strategies are never implemented, or are unsuccessful in delivering the desired results, and that a significant percentage of strategies implemented were never in the original plans. The linkage between strategy development and delivery needs a very clear focus; this is the key topic that the authors address. The book highlights eight major fallacies in managing IT, and eighteen better practices. It then details how to draw up strategy, instigate navigation techniques and make sourcing decisions. Change and delivery are a major focus, as is infrastructure development. Caselets and full length case studies of organizations such as General Electric, Siemens, Colonial Mutual, Charles Schwab, Macquarie Bank, ICI, United Airlines, Norwich Union, Walgreens and Dell and have been included to show how strategies have been successfully implemented and managed.

'Delivering Business Value from IT' is focused on the evaluation issue in IT and how IT evaluation can proceed across the life-cycle of any IT investment and be linked positively to improving business performance. Chapters 1,2 and 3 detail an approach to IT evaluation whilst chapters 4 and 5 build on these by showing two distinctive approaches to linking IT to business performance. The remaining three chapters deal with a range of evaluation issues emerging as important - specifically Internet evaluation, Y2K and beyond, EMU, quality outsourcing, infrastructure, role of benchmarking, and cost of ownership issues that practitioners regularly encounter.

Intelligent IT Outsourcing enables practitioners to focus in on the essential issues that need to be addressed so that the fundamental structure of their sourcing strategy and its implementation is sound. The authors provide insight into the challenges likely to be faced and give detailed advice on how to pre-empt and manage these. IT and outsourcing continue to be problematic, not least because fundamental learning about this subject fails to be applied systematically, and because IT is inherently difficult to manage. The economics are not obvious and emerging technologies have to be addressed, therefore IT goes to the heart of many enterprises and interfaces with multiple business units and processes, and there are continuous skills shortages. Unfortunately complexities are not removed in outsourced situations where additional problems come into play, for example the supplier's capabilities, whether the IT is right for an outsourcing solution, and whether the contract is robust but flexible enough to allow for outsourcing to take place. Objectives need to be realistic, and factors such as whether the internal management is mature and capable enough in this field, and the impact of prohibitive switching costs on behaviour once an outsourcing deal has been signed all have to be taken into account. The authors have built up over two decades of research, advisory and practitioner experience that enables them to distil the fundamental challenges in IT and outsourcing and demonstrate how these can be addressed.

This book is a companion to Global Business: Strategy in Context (ISBN 9780995682085) and takes the learning further into managing the key, functional areas that underpin strategic positioning. It first focuses on the major challenges and ways of running marketing and R&D functions in an international business. The author then gives insights, through frameworks, studies and examples, into how businesses manage organisation structure and architecture; sourcing and the supply chain; information systems and emerging technologies; and human resources, in different parts of the world—globally, regionally and domestically. The book also reviews how an international business can manage exchange rates in the context of the international monetary system. The book provides detailed understanding of challenges and practices in international project and change management, and concludes by establishing future, post–COVID-19, challenges, opportunities and directions for international businesses. Notable features of this title are … • Based on up-to-date research studies. • Reviews the post–COVID-19 shifting global context, changed business priorities and impacts on strategy. • Covers the essential international business management functions. • Includes extensive sections on international project and change management. • Details how the 2020-2021 crises have accelerated the adoption of emerging technologies, and how global digital management can be executed. • Focuses on the future. The book provides management principles for dealing with systemic risk and redesigning an international business for the new (ab)normal.

This book examines real-world implementations of service automation technologies using Robotic Process Automation and Cognitive Automation tools. This newest, detailed research finds that RPA adoptions are accelerating, maturing, and scaling in global enterprise. The research covers multiple industries, applications, and shared services, and uses case studies to establish action principles and how to mitigate automation risks. The book also examines the first enterprise-worthy cognitive automation tools that use machine-learning algorithms to process big data, often in natural language form, and analyses three major detailed cases and the conditions for effective implementation. The book includes interviews with major clients, providers and analysts, and a detailed analysis of the automation and future of work debate. The book provides a compelling and incisive, evidence-based perspective on the direction and management of service automation, taking trends through to 2025. Automation technologies like RPA, CA, and the newest Blockchain technologies are found to transform and elevate human work rather than eliminate it.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 12th international Global Sourcing Workshop 2018, held in La Thuile, Italy, in February 2018. The 9 contributions included were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. The book offers a review of the key topics in sourcing of services, populated with practical frameworks that serve as a tool kit to students and managers. The range of topics covered in this book is wide and diverse, offering micro and macro perspectives on successful sourcing of services. Case studies from various organizations, industries and countries are used extensively throughout the book, giving it a unique position within the current literature offering.

Domestic and global outsourcing is prescribed for everything from back office services like information technology development, human resource transactions, and indirect procurement to core services such as innovation, research and development, marketing and customer care. While the vision of global sourcing using multiple suppliers that are agile, effective, and cost efficient is certainly achievable, it requires an immense amount of detailed management to make it work. Not surprisingly, outsourcing IT and back office functions, especially, has received immense attention in trade journals, the media and in supplier and consulting marketing outlets. This has led to a cacophony of opinions on what works and what does not, and what the record actually is on outsourcing strategy and implementation. Outsourcing Information Systems brings together the papers that combined contribute a detailed understanding of how outsourcing of IS and back office functions has developed, and is likely to develop, the theories that can be applied to this field of study, the mistakes committed and learning achieved, and insights into what really does work. Leslie Willcocks and Mary Lacity have carefully selected in-depth analyses of the major forms of sourcing and related managerial practices from rigorously researched and objective sources based in the academic literature to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date resource for researchers and practioners both.