Project Experience

Business-to-business services…Identifying core competencies is critical in an era of outsourcing

Client Situation
The market for outsourcing services has increased dramatically as firms in diverse industries seek to enhance productivity by focusing on core competencies. As the market for outsourcing services has expanded, the competition among alternative providers of outsourcing services has intensified. Among the providers looking to ride the outsourcing wave are staffing firms, management consulting firms, technology firms with systems expertise, and firms looking to reduce their cost per transaction by performing "back office" functions for other firms within their own industry. In order to develop an attractive value proposition to compete in the outsourcing arena, the outsourcing service providers themselves must effectively define their own "core competencies." For a management consulting firm, the core competency might involve streamlining operations to enhance shareholder value; for a systems integration firm it might be determining and then implementing the most efficient information technology; for a staffing firm it might be selecting the best-qualified employees or providing superior training. Our client was interested in entering the market for outsourcing services, but sought greater detail on the core competencies of leading providers of outsourcing services in the financial transactions processing market.

Fuld Approach
We profiled ten best-in-class firms and evaluated their core competencies as well as how they effectively positioned these competencies to procure large outsourcing contracts.

Benefits and Implications
By identifying where competitor offerings were weak, and mapping these weaknesses against the unmet needs of potential clients, we identified a niche for our client to exploit.
For more information on core competencies, please contactlscanlon@fuld.com.