StratoServe

"Innovation Generation in Buyer Seller Relationships" is my Ph.D. dissertation topic. Somehow, there is little talk in the media about the importance of B-to-B relationships which really have given rise to the popularity of B-toC relationships and CRM systems in the B-to-C domain.

It was thus good to read about provider-outsourcer relationships from UK. Apparently,  Altos Origin has won a 10 year sole provider contract with Britannic. This development occured after Britannic acquired Resolution Life Group. Bloomberg reports that this merger was well received by the market.

A fragmented or changing supply base; is not good for managing any kind of supplies; supply managers will assure you. Much more so when it comes to knowledge based services…

What a great day- great weather , hotdogs with mustard sauce and fireworks in the evening. We had called Calcutta (now Kolkata) and guess what – folks totally unconnected with outsourcing  knew all about the 4th of July holiday. Young folks working at Call Centers for  US companies were having a day off. Just to check out I called various 1800 nos. and found well attended telephones anyway- I was a satisfied customer. As a consumer, my "pursuit of happiness" went well today!

When Jack Welch talked about the central purpose of any business as creating "satisfied customers" I thought the message was simple. Mr. Welch also said that "organizations do not create jobs- satisfied customers do". Think about it, in whatever business you are…

In his recent story in the North West Indiana Times, Keith Benman mentions the phenomena of "backsourcing” (earliest scholarly citation I could find Hirschheim, R. and M. Lacity. "Backsourcing: An Emerging Trend," Journal of Strategic Outsourcing Information, 45, 1998, pp. 78-89, Jeff Kaplan has a nice article too) where outsourcers become dissatisfied with outsourcing results and "backsource" the activity. The story mentions examples from IBM and JP Morgan and Sears with Computer Science Corporation.

The "backsourcing" phenomena seemed really interesting and using relationship marketing jargon it seems like a "marriage" going back and forth fairly amicably (?).My quick research revealed that the genesis of the "backsourcing" of the IBM JP Morgan $ 5 billion (yes billion) deal is linked to the merger of Bank One and JP Morgan.  Apparently, doing strategic stuff in-house became more important so the employees who had transferred to IBM (the provider) got transferred back (To JP Morgan/Bank One).

The Sears reference in the Benman story seems unclear , Sears refers to building a relationship with Computer Sciences Corporation rather than "backsourcing" stuff.

In any case, thanks to the authors cited above for giving a great point for discussion in my MBA Class.