Outsourcing Law & Business Journal™ – January 2012

1.   Change Mismanagement. “Change happens.”  Sometimes it happens elegantly, with all parties agreeing.  But change can be mismanaged, resulting in legal disputes on pricing, service level performance, duty to perform and impact on performance milestones.  Change mismanagement happens too. For the complete article, click here.

2.   Humor.

Change in change management, n.  (1)  new agreement to plug the gaps where old agreement was not followed; (2)  renegotiation after the power struggle.

Demand Management, n.  (1)  microeconomic strategy for optimizing resource consumption by making business users plan, schedule, pay and pertpetually re-evaluate their needs for resources; (2)  ferreting out, exposing and holding to shame (and account) the ungovernable “free riders” in the enterprise.

3.  Conferences.

March 7-9, 2012, 16th Annual North American Shared Services & Outsourcing Week, Orlando, Florida. In 2011 we brought you the ‘revolution’ of shared services – 2012 is all about delivering The Next Level of Value by Accelerating Global Growth & Delivering Business Insights to the Board. Over 100 thought leaders and companies including AOL, Volvo, Deloitte, DHL, Monster.com, Salsesforce.com, Hyatt, Molson Coors, Philips, BAE Systems, Intel, Perason, BP, P&G, UBS, Citigroup, WPP Group, Yahoo!, DHL and HP will present their inspiring talks and roundtables to drive global growth and root shared services firmly into the boardroom agenda. If you want to challenge your captive and outsourced operations to influence business outcomes, or endorse the IMPACT shared services can have on the success and progress of a business as a whole, then this event is a must attend for you. To register, visit their website.

March 15, 2012, Global Services Conference 2012, New York, New York. Global Services Conference 2012 will focus on how to build and sustain excellence in services. This strategy is the key to enterprise services, enterprise transformation, and aligning that transformation to drive competitive advantage to companies. Companies are looking to access data and knowledge in a better way and to leverage the maturity of the services organization that has been in place to drive better business value. For more information, visit their website.

May 16 – 18, 2012, SSON presents the 12th Annual Shared Services Finance & Accounting, Dallas, Texas. This event covers the entire spectrum of Finance & Accounting challenges in Shared Services from Process Design, Governance, Benchmarks, Metrics, and Audits through to Training and Change Management.  Each speaker will be diving straight into the specifics of their case studies offering timelines, metrics, results and lessons learned for you to take back to your own office.  For more information, visit their website.

May 21 – 23, 2012, SSON’s 11th HR Shared Services & Outsourcing  Summit, Chicago, Illinois. Creating the foundation for strategic human capital management through HR shared services, this event will will cover HR Shared Services challenges in Process Design, IT integration, Standardization, Benchmarks, Metrics, and Harmonization through to Training and Change Management.  Topics include Globalization, Inhouse-vs. Outsourcing, Growth Opportunities and more.   To register, visit their website.

June 24 – 26, 2012, SSON 6th Annual Shared Services Exchange, Pinehurst, North Carolina. For the 6th year in a row, the Shared Services Exchange will be the elite event for shared services executives who are looking to develop new strategy, solve challenges and source partners that will allow them to create efficiency and drive more value out of their shared services centers.  Efficiency is still on the minds of these executives as they search for solutions to create consistency across multiple business functions and develop hybrid strategies that utilize outsourcing and captive centers—all while sustaining centers as a core business strategy.  This event will continue IQPC Exchange’s ongoing tradition of offering cutting-edge, strategic networking and learning opportunities for senior level shared services executives.  For more information, click here.