The SerCom and Topps Case Studies

Abstract

Outsourcing has long been used, notably in IT where the investments required to run systems were large and expertise was in short supply. Throughout the 70s and 80s, many companies lacked the IT infrastructure to run their applications efficiently and relied on providers of IT services for payroll and accounting applications. Since then, outsourcing has been used as a standard component of management strategy for a wide range of activities, rather than simply as a means to reduce costs and headcounts. Recent research has focused on BPO, KPO and open innovation as concepts which the IT outsourcing concept has fostered. This research is concerned with the “new” breed of outsourcing whereby entire business processes, sometimes critical to companies, are outsourced and clients build up sufficient trust with their partners that they rely on them for key aspects of their business such as bundling of key inputs, critical deliveries or complex data mining operations. Such arrangements require new types of outsourcing service providers, with finely tuned mixes of technological and business competences. Using two case studies, we study this new type of outsourcing from the points of view of both the client and the outsourcer.