A Team Approach to Outsourcing
outsourcing, management May 25, 2010
The success of an outsourcing relationship depends in large part on the facility's staff who will be in direct contact with, and managing, the service provider.
The facilities staff should be trained how to manage and told what is expected of them. They need to support the outsourcing initiative and its goals, and not let their own internal or personal goals get in the way.
For example, your staff's goal may be to demonstrate their own value, and so ends up over-managing the service provider or competing with the service provider's team to get credit for initiatives or service delivery. The key performance indicators, service levels and the penalty/reward systems may be inadvertently designed to create this misalignment.
That sort of internal competition will not foster a successful outsourcing partnership. Instead, your team needs to support the outsourcing service provider to ensure that the provider is successful. After all, when the provider screws up, everyone screws up — including the facility manager responsible for the overall outsourcing arrangement. It's not possible to simply blame the service provider; they've become an extension of you.
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