Outsourcing Trends Continue
As 2010 gets underway, broad trends toward outsourcing of a variety of services and functions continue. For the foreseeable future, we will be in an era where efficiency and tight execution predominates. Those firms that constantly examine their cost structure and optimize value per dollar spent have the best chance of being winners.
We have written before about the opportunity to outsource various marketing support functions to gain efficiency. There are variable cost solutions in the marketplace for marketing communications, RFP production, and data base management that offer low cost high quality services.
Another example of this trend applied more broadly is exhibited in the insurance asset management marketplace. Insurers are outsourcing asset management in ever greater numbers. It seems they have concluded that their core competency is in insuring risk rather than manages investments. A number of asset managers have noticed this trend, and alertly have started to explore their opportunities in this space. Of course, managing assets for insurers requires specialized capabilities so it behooves them to carefully analyze their potential positioning in the insurance segment before jumping in with both feet.
Overall, firms should continue to look for ways to streamline their operations and narrow their focus. Outsourced resources provide interesting solutions to certain functional areas. Look for this trend to gather momentum in the months to come.
5 comments January 18th, 2010
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