outsourcing

MEA (Means-Ends Analysis) is an a approach that puts together aspects of both forward and backward reasoning in that both the condition and action portions of rules are considered when we decide which rules to apply. The logic of the process takes into account the gap between the current situation and the desired goal – where we wish to get to and proposes actions in order to close the gap between the two.

The method uses a set of rules that enable the goal to be achieved iteratively. The rules consist of two parts: rules that are prerequisites and ones that show the changes to be implemented.

MEA works by considering the present position as the current state and the objective as the goal state. The differences between the desired and the goal state are considered and actions are proposed that reduce the ‘gap’ between the initial and desired states.

Since the process is working from the current state towards a goal it is said to be doing forward chaining which implies a search strategy and a procedure that regards goal achievement as success – or if the outcome of a sub-goal is failure a new search is begun (or the process terminates as not possible).

Consider the following examples.

1. In a travel problem the current state and the goal state are defined by physical locations where we are now and where we have to get to.
2. In an assembly problem such as an IKEA flat pack the current state and the goal state are defined by the raw materials lying in a heap along with instructions on the floor and the finished product in your kitchen.

Aunt Agatha and the invite to tea

Aunt Agatha lives in Brighton and has invited me to tea this afternoon – she has a lot of money which she may leave to me which is actually a longer term goal for this journey. I am sitting in my office in London and need to decide how to get to Brighton.

Now there are lots of ways to do this: train, car, bus, on foot, private jet or roller blades but I subject myself to the following cost constraints:

• I must arrive at Brighton today within three hours
• The journey must cost no more than $100
• Any distance less than one mile must be walked

To begin this process I consider the available means against my constraints and decide on taking the train via Victoria to Brighton. To do this I need to leave my office and travel to the main station at Victoria which is a new goal.

To get to Victoria I can walk, take a taxi, bus or go by underground. Because of time constraints and cost I decide to take the underground to Victoria – this becomes a new sub goal. The nearest tube station being less than one mile away I walk

On arrival at the station I find the line is down due to a breakdown (goal failure). I can return on foot to get my car to drive to Brighton but this moves me away from my goal on cost and distance. I decide to take the bus to Victoria which becomes a new goal and as the distance is less than one mile I walk to the bus station.

I take the bus to Victoria alight and walk to the station office and purchase a ticket to Brighton. At Brighton I have to get to Agatha’s house – I can use the Bus, Taxi or Walk. As the distance is less than one mile I walk and arrive at Aunt Agatha’s house the end goal.

Just then my cell phone rings with a message and it’s Aunt Agatha, ‘I hope you don’t mind but I forgot I have to be in London today perhaps we can make it next week…’ Arghhhhhhhh!!!

Some problems for you to solve…

Vicars and Tarts

There are 3 Vicars and 3 Tarts and a boat on one side of a river and the church on the other. How can the 6 of them get across the river for morning prayers in the boat subject to the following constraints?

1. There must be at least one person in the boat
2. There cannot be more than two people in the boat at any time
3. There cannot be more Tarts than Vicars on either bank otherwise the tarts will take advantage the vicars and commit original sin.

Three coins

Three coins lie on a table in the order tails, heads, and tails. In precisely three moves make them face either all heads or all tails.

Article source: http://roymogg.com/the-means-ends-problem-solving-technique/

The digital revolution hasn’t just broadened the reach of the global economy, it has extended the very boundaries of the firm. Outsourcing has become second nature to most companies, which today partner with specialists in design, IT and business process management (BPM) to market, reorganise and grow their businesses. 

In the private sector, the outsourcing market has soared, growing a compound 36 per cent year on year since 2015, according to the Arvato Outsourcing Index. In 2017, the total value of outsourcing contracts rose 9 per cent, reaching a three-year high of £4.93 billion. Yet the term “outsourcing” remains very much a dirty word, leading to the question has the sector outgrown the term? 

In its earliest incarnations, outsourcing meant contracting out work that was previously undertaken in-house. In the public consciousness, for that reason, it conjures images of redundancies, labour arbitrage, a lowering of labour standards and reduced accountability. 

For consumers, it recalls frustrating experiences of cost-cutting customer services and scripted call centre conversations. The stigma attached to the term is kept alive by successive public sector outsourcing scandals, even as the private sector makes efforts to learn from past mistakes. 

Companies in the private sector have strove to improve the quality of outsourced customer services, with many exchanging contracts with offshored call centres to outsourcers based in the UK. In 2017, mobile company EE announced that all its customer calls would be handled in the UK or Ireland, creating 1,000 new jobs at its sites in North Tyneside, Darlington, Plymouth and Merthyr Tydfil. Also in 2017, Vodafone announced plans to bring 2,100 customer service jobs back to the UK from South Africa, India and Egypt. 

Despite its visibility to consumers, customer services represents just a fraction of the services that are outsourced. Indeed, the sector has flourished because it is dominated by tech. The vast bulk of the outsourcing industry in the UK, 73 per cent in 2017, was comprised of information technology outsourcing (ITO) contracts. And that volume is doubling year on year. UK businesses spent more than twice as much on ITO outsourcing in 2017 (£3.82 billion) as they did in 2016 (£1.73 billion). The sector is evolving at a pace that means most companies will never have the expertise to undertake new hosting services, network infrastructure and application management in-house. 

The lean startup model has also radically reoriented the business environment. Companies of all sizes have responded to a market that rewards agility and accordingly are concentrating resources on their core competencies. For scrappy startups, especially, the support of specialist partners in compliance and legal services, human resources and payroll, accounting and IT not only spreads risk, but provides an opportunity to lean on external expertise. 

Increasingly, outsourced back offices are perceived as adding value, rather than cutting costs. In 2017, UK companies spent £1.80 billion on BPM deals, representing 26 per cent of all outsourced services. 

If any recent development is to challenge the former boundaries of the firm, it is online labour platforms. Sites such as Upwork, Peopleperhour and Freelancer give companies the ability to source independent work from skilled individuals on a flexible part-time basis. A recent Oxford Internet Institute report argues: “Online freelancing platforms are transforming work, organisations and their business models.” Similarly, Accenture has identified online labour platforms as part of a major trend that it says will significantly transform existing organisational forms and management models by 2022. 

Companies that provide automation services also, interestingly, fall within the outsourcing market. In a case study of just how diverse this market is, there are players from the BPM sector potentially posing a threat to parts of the ITO sector. For BMP, robotic process automation (RPA) represents a high growth area. 

RPA involves the programming of software robots, or bots, to mimic the way people use user interface applications, such as Excel spreadsheets and customer relations management programs, enabling companies to automate routine, repetitive data management tasks that administrators would otherwise do. The most obvious applications are in data management, but more advanced uses include email triage and payroll functions. 

When marketing RPA, companies tend to lean heavily upon this anthropomorphic parallel. “The messaging about RPA as a digital workforce is driven by the need for marketing traction and adoption,” David Brakoniecki, managing director of the process automation firm BP3 Global, notes. “A digital workforce of bots that can work 24 hours a day is a powerful analogy, with direct implications for some segments of the outsourcing industry.” 

We will not survive if we remain in the constricted space of doing as we are told, depending solely on cost-arbitrage

Mr Brakoniecki says the best ITO companies are already automating at least some of their clients’ processes and communicating this process as added value. Vishal Sikka, executive vice chairman of Infosys, the Indian IT and business consulting giant, told staff last year: “We will not survive if we remain in the constricted space of doing as we are told, depending solely on cost-arbitrage. If we don’t, we will be made obsolete by the tidal wave of automation and technology-fuelled transformation that is almost upon us.” 

BP3 Global’s Mr Brakoniecki observes: “Technology doesn’t stand still,” noting that in the not too distant future, RPA itself will become redundant as companies replace their legacy systems and user interface application with application programming interface software. Indeed, when machine-learning meets the mass market, outsourcing partners will be on hand to guide their clients through the digital transformation. 

By then, “outsourcing”, a term that already feels outdated, will seem entirely redundant. The firm of the future will be a “corporate marketplace”, Accenture argues, that combines on-demand labour platforms and online work management solutions. Whatever you call it, don’t call it outsourcing. 

Article source: https://www.raconteur.net/business/digital-evolution-outsourcing

Article source: http://roymogg.com/the-digital-evolution-of-outsourcing/

The inquiry into the cervical screening controversy that the Government is to set up on Tuesday will examine the outsourcing of services to laboratories in the United States.

It will also seek to establish the background to CervicalCheck’s failure to tell women what clinical audits of their screens had found and how much the HSE and Department of Health knew about this.

The inquiry, which is to be chaired by an independent health management expert from abroad, and to report to Minister for Health Simon Harris in June, will also talk to Vicky Phelan, whose legal case brought the controversy to public attention.

She settled a High Court action against a US laboratory used by CervicalCheck for €2.5 million at the end of April.

209 women affected

It subsequently emerged that 209 women had been affected by the screening scandal.

Mr Harris is expected to brief the Cabinet on Tuesday about his plans to mandate open disclosure for health service staff as part of new patient safety laws. It is understood he is hopeful the legislation could be introduced by the end of the year.

The Cabinet is also expected to discuss the re-establishment of a board to oversee the HSE and to consider the position of the HSE director general Tony O’Brien, who has faced calls to resign. He is due to leave his role at the start of July, a month earlier than expected.

On Monday night Mr O’Brien took issue with comments by the Minister of State at the Department of Health Jim Daly that he would step down from his post earlier than anticipated.

In a letter to the secretary general of the Department of Health Jim Breslin, Mr O’Brien maintained that the Minister’s remarks had been made with only “partial knowledge of discussions” that had been underway on the issue.

Mr O’Brien said Mr Daly’s comments on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics programme on Sunday had led to speculation and suggestions that he would be leaving his post of HSE director general four weeks early.

Mr O’Brien maintained he always planned to take leave at the end of June. His contract runs until the end of July.

On the programme Mr Daly said that Mr O’Brien would be leaving at the start of July as he would be taking accumulated annual leave.

The Fianna Fáil front bench is expected to consider on Tuesday a motion of no confidence that Sinn Féin is seeking to table on Mr O’Brien.

Meanwhile, the HSE said 7,678 women who contacted the helpline since April 28th had asked to be called back and so far 2,686 of those calls have been returned.

Article source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/cervical-screening-inquiry-to-look-into-outsourcing-to-us-labs-1.3487128

Article source: http://roymogg.com/cervical-screening-inquiry-to-look-into-outsourcing-to-us-labs/