Service providers need a cadre of employees at all levels to support the growing and evolving initiatives of global enterprise customers. These careers depend upon many factors, including
- the target industry being served;
- the types of managed services being provided;
- the locations of service performance and receipt of the services; and
- the character of the service provider’s relationship to the enterprise customer and customers and suppliers in the enterprise customer’s supply chain.
The Role of Geography in Job Descriptions
“Onshore” services, provided personally where the customer is located, cluster around contact-based functions such as:
- development of new services;
- marketing and sales;
- customer account liaison and relationship management; and
- liaison to service delivery staff.
“Offshore” services, performed in a location distant from the customer’s offices, cluster around back office and middle office functions. Such functions may cover include any task or role that can be performed remotely using telecommunications and information technology.
Knowledge Process Management: Morphing into the Customer’s Right Brain
As outsourcing moves up the value chain to knowledge process management (“KPM”), individuals performing “offshore” KPM services will require advanced training in the business strategies, legal environment and compliance obligations of enterprise customers. In short, the individuals providing KPM services will be experts in the particular fields of knowledge, such as medicine, stock market analysis, law or accounting. As KPM reaches new levels, KPO service providers could develop business judgment to advise enterprise customers on matters of business judgment. At such advanced levels, KPM could result in tectonic shifts in the way international business is done. Codes of ethics will be necessary to protect against abuses of confidential information and conflicts of interest.
Human Capital in Service Provisioning
Innovation in human resources is driven by cross-border outsourcing. As a result of international outsourcing, employees and employers are being increasingly challenged to develop innovative human capital programs that create global standards of quality, collaboration of teams across borders and evolving process-driven job descriptions.
Impact of Laws and Different Jurisdictions
The law governing the employment relationship is determined by the place where the employee performs the services. Even for service careers that require frequent travel to inspect service delivery centers or customer operations, one country’s laws must be chosen to govern the employment relationship. Before entering into any employment relationship, the prospective employee must consider the impact of the local laws upon such issues as employment at will, non-competition covenants, intellectual property rights and regulation of changes in the employment relationship.