Europe is the world’s largest market, with vast natural, technological and human resources. European countries compete strongly to attract investment that will maximise the potential of these resources. This competition is largely individual, with each government trying to lure investment locally. But France and Germany decided in 2005 to collaborate and sell all of Europe to foreign investors. (download for more ....)

Jack Anderson and Michael Segalla

Les français et les américains

23 mars 2007

pour en savoir plus

Deborah Kops

Outsourcing successfully should be relatively straightforward if one follows a few simple rules. Wading through the marketing hype and the thrill of the deal, the pressures to demonstrate cost reduction and quality enhancement, one finds that most of the predictors of success are actually quite basic…and obvious.  (download for more ....)

Deborah Kops and Rusty Weston

In our global economy, the challenges of talent supply and demand do not stop at the borders of the U.S.A., India, China or Eastern Europe. And nor can the multinational companies that seek to tap into the world’s labor supply in a bid to fuel their global business initiatives. The reality is that companies must recruit across continents, when necessary, because the demand for global services management talent — from strategists through operational management — currently outstrips the world’s labor supply. “There is a severe shortage of managerial talent that is able to effectively manage … global teams,” contends Arie Lewin, Professor, Duke University, co-author of a new Fuqua Management school study on outsourcing, one of the largest of its kind. About 70% of the study’s respondents express concerns about the business impact of the understocked talent supply.  (download for more ....)

Jack Anderson

"The Tax Misery Index and Business Location Choice"

Want to know how much it will cost you to work nearly anywhere in the world?  International tax expert Jack Anderson gives you the details for various income ranges starting from beginning consultant to a million dollar a year executive.  Then, for business he adds how much it will cost the company to employ you and where the most popular locations are for various business functions. HInt:  You pay for the top "quality of life" locations! (download for more ....)

Arie Y. Lewin, Mark Peacock, Carine Peeters, Jeff Russell, Gary Sutton

The second Duke University CIBER/Archstone Consulting study reveals that Forbes 2000 companies now view offshoring of business processes, IT, engineering and R&D activities as a means to drive business growth, not just reduce costs. Of the companies surveyed: 73% responded offshoring is an important part of their overall growth strategy.  71% cited access to qualified personnel as a major driver when considering offshoring. China is the fastest growing location driven by manufacturing and product innovation services.  (download for more ....)

see also,

Globalisation: the Great Unbundling

Gene Grossman and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg

"The Rise of Offshoring: It’s Not Wine for Cloth Anymore"

"The [Barbie] doll is designed in Mattel’s headquarters in El Segundo, California. Oil is refined into ethylene in Taiwan and formed into plastic pellets that are used to produce the doll’s body. Barbie’s nylon hair is manufactured in Japan, while the cotton cloth for her clothing originates in China. The moulds for the doll are made in the United States, as are the paint pigments used to decorate it, and the cardboard used for packaging. Assembly takes place in Indonesia and Malaysia. Finally, the dolls are quality tested in California, and marketed from there and elsewhere around the globe." (download for more ....)

Deborah Kops

While much has been written about the failure of business process outsourcing (BPO) initiatives, most of the blame has been laid at the feet of the service provider community, ...  BPO ... requires a higher level of sophistication and the acquisition of internal capabilities such as governance, performance, and risk management. As a result, the buyer must raise his or her game; he or she must become a “smart client.”  (download for more ....)

Richard Baldwin

"Globalisation: the great unbundling(s)"

"In the first unbundling ... firms [were] black-box bundles of tasks [and] competition was sector-to-sector, so individual firms ... might still prosper...The new paradigm ... predicts that international competition will play itself out at the level of tasks within firms ...Of the three novel features of the new paradigm, the most troubling ... is its unpredictability." (download for more ....)

Jack Anderson

The Misery scores--a sum of six tax rates--are lower in 16 of the locations this year, with France decreasing the most (although still in the top position). There was no change in 28 locations, and only 8 increased Tax Misery (7 of them just slightly). Overall, the original European Union-15 and China have the highest levels of Tax Misery--China because of its extraordinary social security and pension rates. The lowest levels generally continue to be in the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Russia and the U.S. (download for more ....)

Deborah Kops

Companies manage a range of assets comprehensively as a portfolio — capital, cash flow, human resources, fixed assets … but forget about ... service delivery of all stripes and sizes — insourced, outsourced, co-sourced, whatever. ...without defined requirements and business criteria ...  the corporation creates substantial hidden costs. Hence, the crime of the century.

(download for more ....)

What is a Business Process?

An operation is composed of processes designed to add value by transforming inputs into useful outputs. Inputs may be materials, labor, energy, and capital equipment. Outputs may be a physical product (possibly used as an input to another process) or a service. Processes can have a significant impact on the performance of a business, and process improvement can improve a firm's competitiveness.   The first step to improving a process is to analyze it in order to understand the ... (open for more ....)

Vinay Couto, Mahadeva Mani, Arie Y. Lewin, Carine Peeters

The advanced economies of the world no longer have a lock on high-skilled, high-paying jobs. In fact, the findings from the 2006 survey and our ongoing, in-depth discussions with companies currently offshoring and those considering it reveal a salient shift toward locating more sophisticated and mission-critical work in countries such as India, China, Hungary, Brazil, and the Philippines.  (download for more ....)

Porter's Generic Value Chain

To better understand the activities through which a firm develops a competitive advantage and creates shareholder value, it is useful to separate the business system into a series of value-generating activities referred to as the value chain. In his 1985 book Competitive Advantage, Michael Porter introduced a generic value chain model that comprises a sequence of activities found to be common to a wide range of firms. Porter identified primary and support activities as shown....(open for more ....)

Edward L. Glaeser and Janet E. Kohlhase

"Cities, regions and the decline of transport costs"

The theoretical framework of urban and regional economics is built on transportation costs for manufactured goods. But over the twentieth century, the costs of moving these goods have declined by over 90% in real terms, and there is little reason to doubt that this decline will continue. In this article, we document this decline and explore several simple implications of a world where it is essentially free to move goods, but expensive to move people. We find empirical support for these implications....(open for more ....)

BPM and Value Creation

Companies rely on a range of core and support processes to create value for their customers. Every business has unique characteristics embedded in its core processes that help it achieve its goals and create competitive advantage. Strategic business processes, such as new product design or high-sensitivity customer care, provide unique and durable business advantages to organizations. Those that depend on people's intelligence, experience, knowledge, judgment and creativity are...(open for more ....)