How to approach outsourcing like a strategic business deal*
Today, companies across virtually all industries are under pressure to maintain or develop a competitive advantage in an increasingly global economy by improving service levels, lowering costs, and harnessing innovation.
Many viable sourcing alternatives exist. Firms can outsource IT (ITO) or business processes (BPO) or create an internal shared services model. They can pursue sourcing strategies on-shore, near-shore, or off-shore. They can embrace alternative business models such as joint ventures or pursue additional strategies such as in-sourcing, especially as the global sourcing industry matures.
Navigating the complexity of today’s sourcing options requires that organizations apply the same rigor necessary for all strategic business deals to the evaluation, management and execution of any outsourcing commitment. Outsourcing decisions have far reaching implications to the growth of the organization, requiring new strategies and approaches to help ensure success.
If this is your situation
- You want to evaluate whether outsourcing, off-shoring, or shared services is the right option based on your business objectives
- You need to understand what the key considerations are when developing a sourcing deal to ensure that the needs of all stakeholders—including shareholders, suppliers, customers, and employees—are being met
- You need to assess the risks—regulatory, operational, compliance—associated with each sourcing option
- You want to evaluate what to outsource, what vendor to select, where the work could be performed, and what the savings will be
- You need to negotiate the contract that best protects your interests and want to know what should be included in the SLA
- You want to transfer knowledge and processes without disrupting operations
- You want to make sure your existing relationship is working optimally and that service levels are being met
- You would like to re-negotiate the terms of your existing contract without sacrificing service levels
- You are considering bringing service back in-house.
How PricewaterhouseCoopers can help you
Our Advisory practice helps organizations optimize their sourcing decision-making. Our experienced professionals provide end-to-end advice across diverse sourcing models and alternatives including business process outsourcing (BPO), IT outsourcing (ITO), and shared services. By assembling our unique talents in tax, information technology, finance, and human resources, we’ve helped the world’s largest companies transform sourcing into a core strategic function and improve the overall value of outsourcing and shared services to their organization.
We can help you better manage risk, speed time-to-benefits, and improve shareholder value.
Services we provide include the following:
- Align: How to evaluate risk and reward in a sourcing strategy*
- Assess: How to build a sourcing business model to meet short-term and long-term goals*
- Design: How to incentivize and embed the value of real partnership in every outsourcing and shared services decision*
- Build: How to construct an implementation plan that aligns the objectives of all stakeholders*
- Implement: How to effectively manage change*
- Optimize: How to achieve continued success through proper sourcing governance*
