Business Intelligence the Key to Winning at Outsourcing
07/05/2008 12:05:00

Sydney, 7 May 2008 – The ability to report on key business metrics via
customer portals has become a deciding factor in today’s outsourcing
contracts as businesses demand greater transparency and accountability
from their suppliers. That’s according to leading business
intelligence company, Yellowfin, which says it is increasingly
providing solutions to outsourcing companies whose customers want them
to underpin their offerings with advanced reporting tools and customer
portals so they can monitor the outsourcer’s performance in real
time.

Yellowfin CEO, Glen Rabie said momentum for outsourcing continues to
grow as businesses seek to lower their costs by leveraging the
capabilities of specialist providers. However, he said companies on
their second or third round of outsourcing contracts have learned the
hard lessons from past experience and now expect far more of their
suppliers than simply reducing their expenses.

“In the early days of outsourcing, companies just looked at their
transaction costs and didn’t think through all the implications for
their business,” Mr Rabie said. “This meant that those who outsourced
their HR function had less control over how they met their regulatory
and insurance obligations, while companies outsourcing their marketing
or product fulfillment lost access to key customer data.”

Mr Rabie said today’s outsourcing customers are driving a new level of
service delivery by requiring their supply partners to provide
extensive reporting of a wide range of business metrics to enable them
to track their KPIs and ensure they meet their regulatory
obligations.

“Regardless of whether they are a full service provider or deliver
Software as a Service online, today’s outsourcers are expected to
demonstrate a level of sophistication in their business intelligence
that keeps the customer fully informed about the function being
outsourced.”

Yellowfin Levels the Playing Field The business realities of
outsourcing as a low margin, high volume approach means that small and
mid-sized outsourcers can rarely afford expensive business
intelligence tools, which is where Yellowfin’s affordable, web-based
solutions come in.

“Yellowfin takes the hard work and expense out of business
intelligence with intuitive, easy-to-use solutions that integrate
seamlessly into clients’ existing systems and provide real-time access
to a full array of reporting, analysis and collaboration tools via an
online portal,” said Mr Rabie.

One of Yellowfin’s clients recently won a major outsourcing contract
on the strength of its ability to provide the customer with online,
searchable access to detailed business analytics about the outsourced
function.

“Customers are no longer willing to simply give up control of any part
of their organisation and nor should they. They want the reporting
capabilities and transparency that will enable them to track their
performance in all areas of the business, regardless of who actually
delivers the service.”

Mr Rabie said advances in technology made it possible for outsourcing
companies to provide secure access to customer and transactional
records online.

“We’re increasingly seeing situations where contracts are being
awarded on the strength of the outsourcer’s ability to support their
service delivery with business metrics and analytics. Indeed,
companies which fail to leverage these technological advances to
enhance their offerings are destined to lose market share to their
more proactive competitors,” he said.

ENDS