Professional Outsourcing Executive Search

Lauder Beaumont Associates provides specialist executive search services to professional outsourcing service providers and suppliers.

Talent Competition

Whilst some industries struggle to maintain full employment, there remains a shortage of professional outsourcing talent, and competition is increasing.  According to the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals® (IAOP®), recruiting, developing and retaining key employee talent will be a critical challenge facing professional outsourcing organisations in 2011.

Market Growth

Opinion is split amongst outsourcing providers as to whether current economic conditions are slowing deal flow or driving increased levels of outsourcing in an effort to drive down costs.  Whatever your view, demand for outsourcing and third-party services continues to grow.

Strong market growth is predicted in geographies with strong economies, led by Brazil, China, India and the Middle East.  Vertical industry services as well as functional and process areas are more likely to report significant outsourcing growth in 2011.

Trends

In most cases, cost reduction is the initial reason organisations consider outsourcing but it’s a sign of growing market confidence that innovation in outsourcing is back on the agenda with organisations beginning to expect more from outsourcing than simple cost-cutting.  The trend is towards smaller deals in terms of size and scope and larger deals being implemented incrementally with a more realistic and tighter business case.  Mega-outsourcing deals are on the decline due to a more pragmatic, realistic and cautious approach to using third-party services.  Global sourcing of services is far more accepted and with continued tough economic conditions, companies are forced to consider increased offshore outsourcing.  Globalisation of service delivery continues as providers move large swathes of delivery personnel to lower cost locations.

The biggest trend currently impacting outsourcing is cloud computing.

The Cloud

Opportunity or threat?  Will buyers use cloud computing in lieu of traditional outsourcing?  Cloud based solutions have grown in importance in the outsourcing market but the fly in the ointment are concerns about data security and data privacy.  These are currently the main reasons given by organisations for not moving to a public cloud model.  Cloud computing could simplify and standardise the procurement of specific services but also increase the number of providers and complicate the service architecture.  Some say that the theme of 2011 will be SaaS to SaaS integration!

Lauder Beaumont Associates is a specialist in the professional outsourcing services market and can help you win the competition for talent. Call now on  0845 673 2888 or e-mail us at: rob.andrews@lauder-beaumont.com to discuss your talent acquisition challenges.

Read on to see some example executive search assignments successfully delivered……

Case Studies

Head of BPO – the Netherlands

For a leading European outsourcing company, Lauder Beaumont Associates (LBA) was retained to find a head of BPO in the Netherlands.  The role, reporting to the outsourcing services country MD, is responsible for running the BPO service line as a full P&L business, and driving its development and growth in-line with the strategies and plans at global and country level.

The challenge for LBA was identifying an individual who had the breadth of general management skills, coupled with BPO knowledge across a range of service offerings.  In addition, the ideal candidate would be a Dutch speaker.

Due to the immaturity of the Dutch BPO market compared with the US or UK, finding an individual with the correct profile in the Netherlands proved extremely challenging.  The solution was to widen the search and LBA identified a Dutch national who had gained significant BPO experience working in the UK.

Head of UK Operations

For an International contact centre outsourcing organisation, Lauder Beaumont Associates (LBA) was retained to find the Head of UK Operations.  The role is the most senior position in the UK and reports to the International Corporate Manager.  The position is responsible for the operational management of 700 FTEs and growing rapidly, managing key client and supplier relationships together with the operational strategy, set up & success of newly acquired contact centres across the UK.

The client was torn between searching for an individual who was very experienced, who had managed larger operations and overseen significant growth or to stick to their preferred model of employing talented individuals with great potential who would view the role as a challenge and develop in the role.

LBA’s suggested approach was to bring candidates to the table with a range of experience, to profile each individual and assess their propensity to deliver against the key success factors for the role.  After an LBA led evaluation process, the client hired the least experienced candidate with huge growth potential.

Onshore and Offshore Financial Shared Services Director

For an International business and technology services company, Lauder Beaumont Associates (LBA) was retained to find an Onshore and Offshore Financial Shared Services Director. The role, reporting to the Chief Financial Officer International and Global Operations, is initially responsible for the offshore Financial Shared Service Centre (FSSC) and the transition of appropriate activities to this centre. This is to be followed by taking on responsibility for the onshore financial processing in addition to the existing offshore FSSC. The FSSC is a multi-client service centre serving external clients and the outsourcers own finance operations.  The role is primarily a client facing one and the key challenge is to work with in-country FDs to help them realise the benefits of utilising the FSSC and work with them on the transition.

The challenge for LBA was to find an individual with the experience of rolling out services across multiple countries who had the Finance operational experience to empathise with in-country FDs and understand their unique challenges whilst overcoming resistance and selling them the benefits. This required a fairly unique combination of skills; ‘a sales orientated finance person’ was sometimes how it was described.

LBA’s solution was to identify outsourcing services providers who had been on a similar journey and then to identify the person responsible for making it happen.  Several candidates were evaluated but ruled out because they didn’t have sufficient offshore experience until eventually a suitable candidate was identified; a qualified accountant who had migrated multiple countries into a FSSC for a similar sized outsourcing company.