Smarter Outsourcing: An executive guide to understanding, planning and exploiting successful outsourcing relationships

Technology v. business process outsourcing

Whatever the structure or business model of an enterprise, it inevitably has some form of front and back office. With more sophisticated and larger companies this has now subdivided further into a front, middle and back office. All of these departments may have had a significant amount of technology investment pumped into them over the years. The level of IT investment tends to vary from sector to sector: a financial institution is likely to have invested far more heavily than a manufacturing business, for example.

When looking at how the front, middle and back office functions are sourced, the first stage is to envisage them not in pure technology terms. Instead, the CEO and board should consider how ...