Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another. The term outsourcing, which came from the phrase outside resourcing, originated no later than 1981. The concept, which The Economist says has "made its presence felt since the time of the Second World War", often involves the contracting out of a business process, operational, and/or non-core functions, such as manufacturing, facility management, call center/call center support.
An invoice, bill or tab is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction and indicating the products, quantities, and agreed-upon prices for products or services the seller had provided the buyer.
Atos is a European multinational information technology (IT) service and consulting company with headquarters in Bezons, France, and offices worldwide. It specialises in hi-tech transactional services, unified communications, cloud, big data and cybersecurity services. Atos operates worldwide under the brands Atos, Atos|Syntel, Atos Consulting, Atos Healthcare, Atos Worldgrid, Groupe Bull, Canopy, Maven Wave, and Unify.
Output-based aid (OBA) refers to development aid strategies that link the delivery of public services in developing countries to targeted performance-related subsidies. OBA subsidies are offered in transport construction, education, water and sanitation systems, and healthcare among other sectors where positive externalities exceed cost recovery exclusively from private markets.
Managed services is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions, ostensibly for the purpose of improved operations and reduced budgetary expenditures through the reduction of directly-employed staff. It is an alternative to the break/fix or on-demand outsourcing model where the service provider performs on-demand services and bills the customer only for the work done.
One of the most dynamic and fastest growing sectors in the Philippines is the information technology–business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry. The industry is composed of eight sub-sectors, namely, knowledge process outsourcing and back offices, animation, call centers, software development, game development, engineering design, and medical transcription. The IT-BPO industry plays a major role in the country's growth and development.
Mitie Group PLC is a British strategic outsourcing and energy services company. It provides infrastructure consultancy, facilities management, property management, energy and healthcare services. It has a head office at The Shard in London and more than 200 smaller offices throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Business process outsourcing to India refers to the business process outsourcing services in the outsourcing industry in India, catering mainly to Western operations of multinational corporations (MNCs).
Legal outsourcing, also known as legal process outsourcing (LPO), refers to the practice of a law firm or corporation obtaining legal support services from an outside law firm or legal support services company. When the LPO provider is based in another country, the practice is called offshoring and involves the practice of outsourcing any activity except those where personal presence or contact is required, e.g. appearances in court and face-to-face negotiations. When the LPO provider is based in the same country, the practice of outsourcing includes agency work and other services requiring a physical presence, such as court appearances. This process is one of the incidents of the larger movement towards outsourcing. The most commonly offered services have been agency work, document review, legal research and writing, drafting of pleadings and briefs, and patent services.
Kent Reliance is a banking services provider and trading name of OneSavings Bank plc, based in Kent, England. It was founded in 1898 as the Chatham & District Reliance Building Society, changing its name to the Kent Reliance Building Society in 1986 following the merger with the Herne Bay Building Society.
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) is the foremost intelligence and investigative agency for labour exploitation in the UK. Its role is to work in partnership with police and other law enforcement agencies such as the National Crime Agency to protect vulnerable and exploited workers and disrupt and dismantle serious and organised crime.
Spotless Group Holdings is an Australian listed company that provides integrated facility services in Australia and New Zealand through a number of house brands. The company, established in 1957, has experienced remarkable growth, currently boasting a workforce of over 36,000 dedicated professionals. Notably, its history has been shaped significantly by strategic acquisitions, which have played a pivotal role in propelling its expansion.
Mouchel Group, originally known as L. G. Mouchel & Partners Ltd, was an infrastructure and business services company headquartered in Woking, United Kingdom. It provided advisory, design, project delivery and managed services associated with infrastructure and business services across the highways and transportation, local government, emergency services, property, health, education and utility markets across the world.
VFS Global, formerly known as "Visa Facilitation Services Global" is an outsourcing and technology services company for governments and diplomatic missions worldwide. The company manages visa and passport issuance-related administrative and non-discretionary tasks for its client governments. The company began as a "side project" at a luxury Swiss travel group Kuoni in 2001 by chief executive Zubin Karkaria. In 2016, Kuoni was acquired by EQT Partners, a global private equity firm headquartered in Stockholm. By that time, Kuoni had three business segments — global travel distribution, global travel services, and VFS Global, which showed the highest growth rate among all segments. Formerly based in India, the company is now headquartered in Dubai with offices in 147 countries. In 2018, VFS processed more than 25 million visa applications, often containing passport details and financial histories, on behalf of the British Home Office and 61 other governments.
Multisourcing is the concept of working with multiple suppliers who are also competitors. Large-scale buyers, such as the U.S. federal government, may want to feel assured that there is more than one supplier for an item.
Cycle to Work scheme is a UK Government tax exemption initiative introduced in the Finance Act 1999 to promote healthier journeys to work and to reduce environmental pollution. It allows employers to loan cycles and cyclists' safety equipment to employees as a tax-free benefit. The exemption was one of a series of measures introduced under the Government's Green Transport Plan. A Cycle to Work scheme does not require the prior approval of HMRC.
Impact sourcing, also known as socially responsible outsourcing, refers to an arm of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. It employs people at the base of the pyramid or socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals as principal workers in BPO centers to provide high-quality, information-based services to domestic and international clients. The traditional BPO sector is typically associated with high-end, high-contact functions like call centers, which require significant education and language literacy levels. The impact sourcing sector focuses on utilizing workers from poor and vulnerable communities to perform functions with lower and moderate skill requirements such as scanning documents, data-entry work, data verification and cleaning, video tagging, and microwork.
Corruption in Italy is a major problem. In Transparency International's annual surveys, Italy has consistently been regarded as one of the most corrupt countries in the Eurozone. Political corruption remains a major problem particularly in Lombardy, Campania and Sicily where corruption perception is at a high level. Political parties are ranked the most corrupt institution in Italy, closely followed by public officials and Parliament, according to Transparency International. But in the 2013 Global Corruption Barometer report, Italy is in 17th position in front of the United Kingdom (18th), Switzerland (21st) and the United States (22nd).
Washio was an American on-demand laundry cleaning and delivery service. The company was founded in 2013 by Jordan Metzner, Bob Wall, and Juan Dulanto, and raised $17 million in funding. Washio shut down operations on August 30, 2016. Shortly afterward, its assets were purchased by its former competitor, Rinse.
The 1997 United Kingdom budget was delivered by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on 2 July 1997. It was the first budget to be presented by Brown during his tenure as Chancellor, and the first Labour budget to be presented since April 1979. The 1997 budget marked a significant change of direction in economic policy following Labour's election win in May 1997. Among the measures announced were a five-year plan to reduce the budget deficit, a £5.2bn windfall tax on recently privatised utilities which was to fund Labour's planned Welfare to Work scheme, and a reduction in VAT on fuel. The budget was welcomed by business, which viewed it as fiscally responsible, but it was greeted less warmly by the UK's utility providers.
