Outsourcing - A practical approach to both sides of the contract

Overview

Outsourcing is the shift of service supply from an in-house regime to a third-party regime with a consequent need to reconfigure the interface and governance to secure the confidence and service levels.

• Understanding what an outsourcing governance framework is and how to implement one
• Why would we want to do this?
• How do we arrange the relationship and governance to make it a successful collaboration?
• How do we keep it up to date?

This course provides insights into how we can arrange to minimise the on-cost, to all participants, of fractured agreements. If the original agreements, created in the heat of a desire to 'get the show on the road', failed to specify the exit strategies and behaviours then these may have to be negotiated in a stressed environment. This course gives insights into how to handle the situation if it arises - even better, how to avoid this problem.

Delegates attending this course will be able to understand, develop, implement and manage their organization's outsource relationships by:

• Understanding how to delineate the service boundaries
• Knowing how to create the RFP to elicit the appropriate information
• Having a clear view of the due diligence requirements
• Being able to create a refined operational contract with appropriate legal added value
• Confidently forging a practical governance regime between the parties
• Knowing how to handle the transition and transformation phases
• Understanding the warning signs of 'things going wrong'
• Having an agreed process to handle reconfiguration, or graceful discard, of the contract
• Clearly understanding how to handle the extension, or not, of the contract

Target Audience

This course is aimed at both the client and the supplier sides of the outsourcing relationship:

• Executives who expect to supervise an outsource relationship
• Managers who inherit an existing contract
• Executives and Managers who are considering that some services might be outsourced
• Managers tasked with generating an outsource relationship

Approach

The course is an active learning experience that includes an introduction to the different styles of service outsourcing, implementation essentials and syndicate exercises through a case-study. The course is delivered by outsourcing professionals who have current experience of all sizes of outsourcing contract on both the client and supply side and in many lines of business.

It is expected that delegates will be able to show an appropriate level of experience and business maturity.

Contents

• Introduction/foundation
• Understanding the scope of the outsourcing 'problem' and how to 'bound' the problem
• Governance by principles
• The shape and form of the contract
• How to assure that Management can operate the contract
• Setting up the scoring systems
• Handling the RFP and scoring the responses
• Due diligence - a two sided affair
• Final selection process
• Financials and reputational considerations
• Culture and sizes of the parties
• Service and operation level agreements and financial aspects of SLA governance
• Handling third party contracts and novations
• Negotiation pitfalls and technique overview
• People - retention or otherwise
• Management reculture-reskill and lower level re-education requirements
• Contract schedules - deep detail
• Transition
• 'Settling in'/Remediation and optimizing the reporting regime
• Transformation
• Maintaining the perceived advantages
• Increase/change of scope
• Handing perceived loss of control
• Steady state and daily routine
• Skill loss
• Renegotiation/termination/extension and introducing a new player
• Behaviour of the parties in an exit situation

Duration

Foundation - 1 day (Monday)

This provides an overview the whole outsourcing cycle, its pitfalls and solution approaches. This is intended for executives and senior managers.

Practitioner - 3 Days (Tuesday to Thursday)

The Practitioner is for those who expect to actively engage in or be responsible for the implementation of an outsourced regime.

Locations

Our courses are available at various locations in the UK, Ireland, Europe, the Americas, Asia, Australasia and South Africa. We can also deliver the training on-site at your company, or arrange suitable venues to suit your requirements.