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Home > CIO News > Business process outsourcing can be key for survival, say CIOs |
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However, two technology executives who have been there and done just that -- outsourced core business processes -- say attitudes can and do change when a company is fighting for its life.
Bennett, who spoke at IDC's recent business process outsourcing conference, pioneered an offshore outsourcing strategy for Barry-Wehmiller in 2000 when the company was having trouble filling IT jobs at MarquipWardUnited, a newly acquired business in Phillips, Wis. Faced with a labor crunch that threatened to hold back the fast-growing acquisition, Bennett established an IT outsourcing operation in Chennai, India. Now staffed with 160 engineers, the Chennai center plays a key role at Barry-Wehmiller. It helped to lessen some labor costs and increased the company's ability to bid for contracts competitively at some of its divisions. In some cases, it increased the size of the company's U.S. workforces. Still, acceptance and support of the strategy are tied closely to a division's unique circumstance, said Bennett, citing Paper Converting Machine Co. in Green Bay as an example. Acquired by Barry-Wehmiller in 2005, Paper Converting had been in a downward spiral since 2001, under pressure by customers to lower prices and forced to cut workers. "They were losing money and the need for outsourcing was a matter of survival," Bennett said. In the end, "the entire organization embraced it." Chief Babysitting Officer Marcia MacLeod, vice president of business process outsourcing at The Williams Cos., learned the necessity of outsourcing shortly after she arrived at the Tulsa, Okla.-based energy company. One of the largest natural gas producers in the United States, Williams had 25,000 employees and was trading at close to $50 a share when MacLeod accepted a job there in 2000. By 2002 the energy company was on the ropes, tainted by the Enron scandal and flirting with bankruptcy. Its high-riding stock dropped from $48 a share to $28 and finally $2 before bottoming out at $0.78. A loan from Warren Buffet kept the company afloat, while it spun off nearly everything except its core business, natural gas exploration, production and distribution, and took steps to shed 85% of its employees. "BPO was a tool to ensure cost reduction and process improvement," MacLeod said. Highly customized business operations in numerous subsidiaries made no sense for a company reduced to 3,500 people. The former energy giant feared it lacked "the discipline to achieve common processes on its own," MacLeod said, and decided it needed a partner to help drive its downsizing strategy. So in July 2004, Williams signed a 7.5-year contract to hand off its finance and accounting, human resources and IT services to IBM, in a $320 million deal. As part of that deal, IBM agreed to offer jobs to 460 accounting, finance, human resource and IT employees from Williams. Outsourcing was 'transformational," for Williams, as the experts like to say. "For the first time, we can call Williams a growing company," MacLeod said. Now at 4,000 employees, including 1,100 in Tulsa, Williams is hiring again. "Outsourcing has played a significant role in that." But change is hard, even when livelihoods hang by a thread, MacLeod stressed.
"A lot of knowledge" walked out the door, MacLeod said, "so we are looking to bring some of the business analytical work back." On the other hand, an ongoing internal debate about whether Williams should maintain its own data centers dissipated when a center in Oklahoma was flooded last year and IBM flew in people to make payroll and close out the fiscal year on time, she said. But the company continues to realign the IT portion of the contract, refining statements of work, service-level agreements and roles and responsibilities. "Never underestimate the impact of change management," MacLeod warned the audience at IDC's conference in New York. Out in the oil fields, employees like to do things 'their way, with a handshake." Autonomy dies hard. "It amazes me that some people still believe that how they pay their bills is strategic to their business." As the liaison between IBM and Williams, MacLeod came to call herself the CBO -- chief babysitting officer -- given the time required to "making the kids play nice together." Others in the company were more inclined to refer to her as the "IBM hugger," she joked, although "IBM would probably say they haven't seen that side of me." Let us know what you think about the story; email: Linda Tucci, Senior News Writer
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