Why Design Thinking can save the outsourcing industry
Last updated: July 14, 2024 Read in fullscreen view
Recommended for you
- 07 Jul 2024
Top Fintech Companies in Vietnam Driving Innovation Across Digital Banking & Investment 28/44 - 05 Aug 2025 Why Doesn’t South Korea Outsource Its IT Projects Like Other Developed Countries? 10/83
- 15 Oct 2022 Project-based team model for one-off and pilot software development projects 10/730
- 24 Nov 2025 Top Blockchain Companies in Vietnam 10/27
- 03 Oct 2020 Outsourcing Your MVP Development - Streamlined Solutions for future 9/400
- 21 Aug 2025 Top 30 Oldest IT Outsourcing Companies in Vietnam 7/89
- 29 Nov 2021 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Partnership Agreements 7/470
- 31 Oct 2025 The True ROI of Software Development Outsourcing for Tech Startups 7/58
- 24 Nov 2021 What is the Actual Cost of Hiring Cheap Developers? 6/348
- 22 Mar 2022 8 Mistakes Marketing Agencies or Consulting Firms Make When Outsourcing Web Development 6/324
- 10 May 2021 Project Audit and Second Opinion Services 6/236
- 12 May 2021 The Real Cost Between Outsourcing IT vs In-House: A Quick Comparison 5/401
- 25 Sep 2025 A Practical Guide to Secure Online Work for Outsourced Teams 5/56
- 05 Jan 2022 What Outsourcing Engagement Model is Right For You? 5/290
- 11 Mar 2023 Common Pain Points in Software Development Outsourcing 5/227
- 09 Jan 2021 How can outsourcing enable business agility? 4/178
- 14 Dec 2021 The Top 10 Problems with Outsourcing Implementation and How to Solve Them 4/376
- 02 May 2021 Outsourcing Software Development: Avoid 8 Mistakes 4/89
- 16 Dec 2021 Why outsource Python development of your project? 3/444
- 12 Jan 2023 Top 10 Trustworthy IT Outsourcing Companies in Vietnam 3/262
- 01 Jan 2023 Why is Vietnam the Top IT Outsourcing Destination of 2023? 3/202
- 19 Mar 2021 Selective Outsourcing of IT Functions - a new trend in business outsourcing 3/495
- 21 Oct 2021 Advantages and Disadvantages of IT Outsourcing 3/321
- 01 Jan 2023 4 New IT Outsourcing Pricing Models to consider in 2023 3/323
- 01 Jan 2024 12 reasons for software development outsourcing 3/146
- 20 Dec 2021 What is Hybrid Mobile App Development? 3/313
- 06 Dec 2024 Steps For Integrating Sustainable Practices Into Business Operations 3/114
- 01 Jan 2024 Software Outsourcing Questions for 2024 3/145
- 01 Jan 2024 Tech Partnerships: Choosing the Right Software Outsourcing Firm in Vietnam 3/165
- 08 Oct 2024 Vietnam: The Rising Star in Global Outsourcing – Trends and Costs for 2025 3/289
- 07 Nov 2024 Outsourcing Crisis Looming: Will Trump's Policies Transform the Global IT Landscape? 3/157
- 03 Nov 2021 7 phases of Odoo Implementation and Development: Can they be outsourced? 2/357
- 21 Oct 2022 Outsourcing Billable Rate 2/244
- 01 Oct 2022 Vietnam is a favorite supply of IT outsourcing services to Japan 2/230
- 06 Oct 2021 Intellectual property issues with outsourcing software development 2/364
- 17 Oct 2020 How Outsourcing can Improve Time Management for Better Business 2/184
- 10 May 2021 What are things you should look for in a good IT outsourcing company? 2/405
- 28 Oct 2022 Expect the unexpected in 2023 - How Outsourcing Can Help? 2/184
- 01 Jan 2023 Software Development Outsourcing Trends to Watch Out for in 2023 2/268
- 04 Jan 2021 VIETNAM AS A BIG ATTRACTIVE DESTINATION IN THE FIELD OF OUTSOURCING 2/276
- 08 Feb 2022 Software Development: Fixed Cost or Opportunity Cost? 2/444
- 01 Sep 2019 Outsourcing Software To Vietnam: Facts, benefits and limitations 2/392
- 09 Sep 2022 Close Collaboration and Communication Can Overcome the Challenges of Distributed Teams 1/129
- 13 Jan 2023 What are the Hourly Rates in Offshore Software Development? 1/223
- 03 Jan 2023 IT Outsourcing Costs: Is outsourcing really cost-effective? 1/185
- 31 Dec 2021 Outsourcing Software Development to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 1/289
- 21 Aug 2022 Forbes: IT Outsourcing Hotspot: Vietnam, A Small But Mighty Powerhouse 1/240
- 15 Aug 2021 TIGO Rate Formula - Things the partners should know 1/418
- 08 Aug 2021 Why Nearshore Software Development is better than In-House Development? 1/174
- 13 Oct 2021 Why Outsourcing Software Development Services Is Gaining Traction With Non-Technical Leaders? 1/299
- 02 Mar 2021 Estimate the Cost of Software Development 1/312
- 01 Mar 2022 Top 5 reasons why outsourcing to Vietnam is a smart move 1/262
- 01 Apr 2021 IT Outsourcing to vietnam: Why It Is A Good Choice? 1/258
- 01 Jan 2024 What The World Is Flat Means to IT Outsourcing 1/157
- 02 Nov 2023 What are the pros and cons of iIT outsourcing? 1/184
- 17 Jan 2024 What are the benefits and challenges of using multi-sourcing or single-sourcing strategies? 1/157
- 10 Jan 2024 Facts Chart: Reasons for outsourcing 1/132
- 11 Mar 2024 Why You Should Hire Odoo Developers from Vietnam to Customize Your ERP System 1/89
- 04 Apr 2024 Unlock Vietnamese-Japanese outsourcing potential 1/214
- 01 Jan 2024 Hiring Tech Talents in Asia: An Overview of Skills, Costs, and Potential 1/148
- 28 Oct 2025 The Future of Real Estate: Key Trends and Essential Lessons in Digital Transformation 1/10
- 01 May 2023 Streamline Your Business with Outsourcing 1/168
- 01 Jun 2025 10 Sustainable & Unique IT Outsourcing Companies in Vietnam 1/58
- 01 Feb 2023 [InfoWorld] Is your outsourcer agile enough? /182
- 01 Jan 2023 Top Software Development Challenges in 2023 /275
- 08 Jan 2024 Outsourcing on an As-Needed Basis /144
- 15 Nov 2023 IT Staff Augmentation Types and the Best Choice for Your Business /155
- 12 Oct 2021 Vietnam outsourcing path - the silk road connecting ASEAN with the developed countries (EU, US, Japan...) /282
- 19 Oct 2020 The hidden costs of outsourcing software development /434
- 03 Nov 2022 Top questions and answers you must know before ask for software outsourcing /264
- 16 Mar 2021 Outsource Data Engineering Services - TIGO Streamlined Solutions /234
- 10 Mar 2021 The 7 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid Before Outsourcing a Web Development Project /224
- 25 Nov 2021 Low-Cost Software Development: Buy Nice or Buy Twice? /278
- 01 Jan 2023 Top 5 IT outsourcing countries in 2023 /254
Most of the outsourcing industry is still trying to figure out what’s possible beyond doing labor arbitrage really well – because that’s what we do. Sorry, but there I said it – we officially have an identity crisis.
We’re trying to forge a new identity for ourselves and re-imagine what our careers, our services and our platforms could be like if we only figured out how we can define, prioritize and realize business outcomes that are valuable, as opposed to merely keeping the same old factory ticking over at the lowest possible cost.
Sexy robotics software, analytics tools, BPaaS platforms and artificial intelligence can only be effective and impactful once enterprises have re-designed their processes in a way that drives them towards their desired business outcomes. This has always been the case with (now legacy) ERP implementations, where thousands of clients have blown billions of dollars on enterprise software they simply never could mold effectively to their businesses. They weren’t finding problems to solve, they were creating new ones they didn’t need in the first place.
It’s the same with the next wave of As-a-Service solutions – they will fail without the right approach to designing processes that produce the desired results. Without Design Thinking, enterprises are really just retrofitting expensive solutions into legacy processes and likely wasting a whole load of time, resources and money. It all starts with Design Thinking.
New HfS research into the Ideals of As-a-Service, which canvassed the viewpoints of 178 major enterprise operations executives, points to the rise of Design Thinking and the cultivation of creative ideas, as critical to more than four-out-of- ten enterprises today, in terms of having immediate impact in their quest to reach an As-a-Service end-state, second only the investments in analytics tools and skills:
HfS’ Design Thinking Outcomes Continuum aligns traditional concepts with the realities of today’s services industry
In today’s whirl of constant information and social media, it is much easier to visualize how effective enterprises will be running their operations in another five-to-ten years. However, developing a realistic strategy to get there is an immense challenge – and threat – for most enterprises mired in decades of legacy processes and systems.
We all know we need to get smarter with digitizing and automating legacy processes in order to access meaningful data to grow the business and be less reliant on inefficient labor. Plus, an increasing majority of us know we need to explore the possibilities capabilities of self-learning and artificial intelligence, to augment our existing knowledge labor. Today’s challenge isn’t only identifying what the future of operations should look like, it’s developing and adhering to a collaborative and entirely new way of re-imagining processes in order to explore what’s possible and execute against that.
Being successful in the As-a-Service Economy requires ambitious service providers to make fundamental changes to their whole approach to service design and delivery. At the heart of this evolution is a shift to service solutions being designed with real business context, as opposed to simply “looking at a process”. This involves a genuine focus on approaching and interpreting a client’s challenges, identifying and experimenting with opportunities, and ultimately evolving these approaches into the service delivery.
HfS believes that traditional capabilities, such as Six Sigma-based process design and execution, while essential to delivering the efficiency benefits of the traditional sourcing, are today standard, commodity-based capabilities embedded into any standard service model move to an As-a-Service delivery environment.
We believe that a new methodology must be front and center that imbues the full spectrum of human-centric design ethos. This methodology, commonly dubbed “Design Thinking” by several industry stakeholders, is based upon a more responsive relationship between the service buyer and the provider, one that is open, empathetic, experimental and yet efficient. We have seen Design Thinking come to organizational prominence in recent months at IBM, Infosys and Wipro, to name a few service providers, and at the offering or project level in many others. This makes sense to us, because without this more open and innovative approach, it will be difficult to build solutions to meet the challenges and opportunities of the “As-a-Service Economy” such as increasing consumerization of technology and a more virtualized workforce.
As our new survey data illustrates above, we firmly believe 2015 to be the year in which Design Thinking comes to the forefront of the sourcing and services market. It will be the time during which service provider leadership teams are sent to design camps, and a whole new set of conferences and workshops feature Design Thinking as their theme of the moment. Some of that may be hype or even unnecessary, but at the root of it, the arrival of Design Thinking into the mainstream of IT and BPO services makes sense to us as a way to re-imagine more effective process-based solutions for this increasingly digitized As-a-Service world.
There is no one best way to apply Design Thinking, but there are useful starting points, and we believe the HfS Design Thinking for Outcomes Continuum to be a valuable and meaningful way to think about how to solve problems in designing services for the As-a-Service Economy.
The Bottom-line: Design Thinking for outcomes is a real methodology that enterprises can understand and embrace today, not in five years’ time
While we believe Design Thinking will take root in IT and business services in 2015 as a methodology to enable further innovation, at the end of the day it is still just another tool. What you make of it depends on the intent and practices of its users, whether individuals or organizations.
This approach will not be easy for some legacy service providers who cannot yet see how the world is changing. For those service providers and their enterprise clients who can see that thriving in the As-a-Service Economy requires new approaches and capabilities, we see a real potential to use Design Thinking in the move from the present into the future.
Getting new digital processes and services right from the perspective of their end users is critical. Design Thinking, which is about context and empathy for the user, can facilitate this focus. It will be an integral part of the emerging As-a-Service provider offerings, many of whom are already rapidly emerging to redefine the market.
Explore more on these topics
Guest Blogging: The Definitive Guide
Top Trending Topics
Share This
Link copied!
Recently Updated News