It’s a well-known fact that when the interests of parties in an outsourcing arrangement are not aligned – either because the original business assumptions changed over time or because they were never truly aligned in the first place – the deal is not mutually beneficial and one party won’t get the anticipated return on investment. However, most companies don’t understand how to structure and sustain a win-win deal.
Kate Vitasek’s book, Vested Outsourcing, describes the kind of relationship where all parties are truly vested in behaving in a manner that ensures they all look out for… Read the rest
If you’ve had the privilege of speaking with Kate Vitasek or listening to one of her presentations on Vested Outsourcing, you’ve heard the excitement in her voice. And rightfully so. Judging by reactions to her book, she’s on the cusp of changing the way outsourcing works.
Vitasek truly believes that “together” is better. Vested Outsourcing describes a win-win partnership – the kind of relationship where all parties are truly vested in behaving in a manner that ensures they all look out for each other’s best interests. It’s something that is rare today. Although many companies claim to… Read the rest
For more than 10 years, it has been my privilege – and my fascination – to interview the world’s leadings service providers and analysts about their predictions as to how outsourcing will change in the coming year.
Years ago, the articles started with an overview of how accurate the prior year’s predictions turned out to be. Except for the growth predictions, the predictions were often not on the mark – except for two years where the industry observers predicted massive change – one due to the beginnings of BPO and the other was the year everyone talked about the impact… Read the rest
Every now and then I find out something about outsourcing that really surprises me. That’s what happened recently when I learned the status of an outsourcing relationship I’ve followed for several years. I bet the service provider in this relationship was just as surprised as I when the deal was turned on its head.
The buyer outsourced its total IT infrastructure and application development and maintenance to a leading service provider more than a decade ago. They renewed the contract early, and they added scope. The provider achieved the targeted cost savings and productivity improvements. When I’ve talked with the… Read the rest
I’ve blogged before about some of the lessons learned from mistakes made in outsourcing relationships that caused the parties to achieve less value than they anticipated. But as another blogger commented, last week, why not also learn from those who got it right, those who found keys to success. That’s definitely the most valuable approach. So this blog presents a perspective shared by those who got it right.
When I’ve asked hundreds of outsourcing buyers over the past decade to share a characteristic that is key to keeping their interests aligned over the long term, one of the… Read the rest
There’s a growing recognition that an outsourcing initiative is a journey. Executives of some of the world’s leading companies have said that to me when I interviewed them about the successes and challenges in their outsourcing arrangements.
A question I’ve asked when interviewing literally hundreds of outsourcing execs is what they would do differently the second time around if they had an opportunity to start over (from the initial negotiation phase).
It’s hard to believe, but a few (very few) say they wouldn’t do anything differently and that everything went smoothly and according to plan. Many reply that they actually… Read the rest
Two words: cloud and SaaS. They’re a common thread in discussions for outsourcing plans these days because the advantages these technology-access models present to buyers are truly significant. Both are increasingly marketed as outsourced services. But are they really outsourcing? If so, are these models causing companies to overlook crucial aspects of outsourcing arrangements? Or is outsourcing morphing to simply “sourcing” – commoditized services that really don’t involve a relationship factor, governance frameworks, and other complexities?
In other words, is the notion of what constitutes “outsourcing” changing? To find the answer to this question, I invited four experts to a… Read the rest
Recent Comments
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