Amidst the outsourcing boom: Services firms grow by carrying out processes for others, but can they truly transform the model?

摘要

The major IT services firms know a hot market when they see it. In the 1990s, the golden opportunity was implementing enterprise software packages. More recently, the growth area for consulting services has been in business process outsourcing, or BPO. Rather than just helping companies install systems or giving advice on how to reengineer processes, BPO is the outsourcing of a business function to a services firm. BPO has been good for outfits ranging from smaller entities like Wipro, to IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and other established IT services firms.