Just like any new relationship, this new partnership with your outsourcing provider requires some adjustment, some new skills and a commitment to communication.  After the outsourcing contract is signed, the real work begins.

It's not that companies can't handle these outsourcing governance relationships. Companies typically manage many very important ongoing relationships with employees, contractors, suppliers and customers. Every successful company has dedicated significant energy to managing these relationships. Each of these relationships is supported by an organizational structure, established processes, management methodologies and a supporting information infrastructure. Employees have the HR department, consultants have corporate sponsors, suppliers have procurement, and customers have sales and marketing.

If there was a wave of critical resignations in your east coast office, there would be no question as to who in the organization must be notified. The local human resources (HR) manager would be the first to know and would immediately escalate the issue to the senior HR executive. There are policies and systems in place to manage this smoothly. If the situation were customer defections instead of employee resignations, the people, processes and systems involved would be equally clear.

Now, think about your outsourcing providers. If something goes wrong with your outsourcing relationship, what happens? Is the escalation path clear? Is there one senior executive with ultimate responsible for the health of the relationship? What is your outsourcing governance policy? Do you have one? If not, can you simply substitute your HR policy or your customer retention strategy? Of course not, the relationship you have with your outsourcing provider is very different.

Outsourcing providers are unique. They aren't employees, although in many cases, they do the work that employees used to do. They aren't just suppliers; they are involved in day-to-day operations. They aren’t contractors; you don’t get to dictate how they’re doing the work.  They're new and different, and you must change your ways if this new relationship is going to work.

Fortunately, your existing relationships provide the framework for the adjustments required for outsourcing governance. Just like employees, contractors, suppliers and customers, your outsourcing providers need a supporting organizational structure, management methodologies and information infrastructure.

To successfully manage your outsourcing relationships you must:

- Make outsourcing governance a distinct responsibility;

- Clearly define your outsourcing governance and relationship management methodology;

- Utilize effective tools to manage the relationship with your outsourcing providers.

Chief Sourcing Officer (CSO)

The organizational chart of a company that makes significant use of outsourcing should clearly identify the senior executive responsible for outsourcing governance. This executive should have a team that is dedicated to the new disciplines of outsourcing governance and relationship management. As a signal to the growing need for expertise in this area, a new trade group, the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP), has launched a certification program for outsourcing professionals. The analyst community has also called for greater focus on this discipline, with Gartner predicting the emergence of the CSO.

Management Methods

An outsourcing governance methodology is no different than any other methodology, policy or strategy. There is no right answer. Do you manage to service level agreements SLAs or operational metrics? Do you make providers compete with each other or trust that a single provider is doing the best job possible? How much do you need to know about the details of your providers' operations? Do you deal only with the CEO of your provider or interact directly with the employees that are doing your work? What works depends on what is being outsourced and how critical it is to your company's primary goals. The key is that your outsourcing management methodology is clearly defined and diligently implemented.

Tools

The moment you outsourced, you destroyed your information infrastructure. I’ll say that again.  The moment you outsourced, you destroyed your information infrastructure.  You now have new people, new locations and new needs. Large portions of outsourcing transition budgets are dedicated to getting basic operational systems up and running again. Unfortunately, though, the systems needed to manage the outsourcing governance are rarely addressed in the initial strategy. Just like your customer relationship management system manages your customer relationships, you need an appropriate set of tools to manage the unique needs of your outsourcing relationships.

Making it Work

Now that you've made the investment in outsourcing, you need to invest the time and energy in outsourcing governance to keep your relationship with our provider successful. Don't allow it to get to the point where you need Dr. Phil or, worse,  head for divorce.

The keys to a healthy relationship are to make outsourcing governance part of your org chart, clearly define your outsourcing relationship management methodology and utilize effective tools to manage your global network of outsourcing service providers.

Matt Chittle is a veteran of outsourcing and business

transformation. Formerly with Accenture, he is now VP of

Product Management at

outsourcing governance software tool provider

Janeeva Inc.

He can be reached at matt.chittle@janeeva.com.

Commitment

The commitment to the purpose, objectives and work values of an organization provides a better sense of direction towards the work. It is very much essential that the team members understand clearly how their roles will help the organization to achieve their objectives. Thus the tasks performed by the team members can be aligned with the team productivity which in turn will help the organization to align their objectives. Hence for all these activities the main criterion which is required by the organization is that of the commitment that helps the organization to achieve their success. It is the commitment that helps the individual to put their personal needs aside and work towards the teams The goals are set up based on the corporate priorities, and on the other hand the team rules are set based on the values of both company and the individuals. The conflict is been resolved by aligning the purpose, values and the goals are coordinated and out of which acceptable solutions are driven.

To enhance the commitment levels of the individuals the leaders can consider the idea of developing vision, mission and values that are in line with the organization so that there is simplicity in the achievement of the organizational objectives. Once these goals have been framed and a common purpose is been shared the goals can be measured and then they can be checked on their improvement levels, then celebrate the team success and the achievement of the different milestones.

Contribution

The signs of an effective team are directly dependant on the skills which are the members. Working teams require people who are very much strong in their technical and interpersonal skills and they must always have the zeal to learn new things. It is important to note that there should be few leaders in a team who supervise the work. Confidence and the trust which the leaders have in their team reflect upon the energy flow of the team. In order to pool in the confidence in the team it is important that the leader can highlight on the talent, experience and the accomplishments which are achieved by the team members. There is another way that can enhance the employee productivity is the empowerment of the employees. It is very much essential that the employee’s performance needs to be evaluated and how well do they support the contribution of the others.
Developing good teams is one of the top priorities of many leaders. There are many benefits of good team building relationships increased productivity, flexible working systems and even employee empowerment. There is one thing which you need to know is that the leaders need to have clear picture of the traits whichthe high performance work teams need to have in common.

Rintu Basu is the only NLP and Hypnotic Persuasion Trainer in the UK. His latest venture is developing NLP in Scotland through good quality public NLP training courses. Find out more about NLP Techniques at the website.