Outsource Magazine Issue 25 - (Page 91)

feature trust in OutsOurcing TrusT Me… I’M an OuTsOurcer For outsourcing to be a true partnership, there has to be a good degree of trust. But how far can – and does – this trust extend? And how do we define “trust” anyway? Bharat Vagadia, Op2i Dr Bharat Vagadia is Director Op2i, Founder of Governance Director, Board Director of the NOA and author of Strategic outsourcing: the alchemy to business transformation; Outsourcing to India – a legal handbook; and Developing robust strategies in complex multi-stakeholder environments. N ot a day goes by without trust being mentioned as a critical factor in outsourcing relationships. Analysts and certainly vendors have proclaimed the partnership approach as the Holy Grail of outsourcing for many years now. Organisations have created jobs with “partnership”, or “relationship” manager in their job title, yet when you talk to most people in the industry, nobody can define exactly what trust means; why it is important; and how you nurture trust to deliver return on investment, which is more than just liking the other person or company... In this brief article, I wanted to explore the role of trust in outsourcing relationships and hopefully provide a more holistic, as well as a more realistic, view of trust. Clearly I cannot do justice to the subject in just a few pages; nevertheless, I have tried to distil the key messages from a decade of experience and many years researching the interplay of trust and legal contracts in outsourcing ❛ In the end you want a suffIcIent RetuRn on Investment (RoI) fRom youR Investment In tRust – It Is a calculated Investment, not somethIng you do blIndly ❜ relationships conducted for my PhD. The first image that trust creates for most is that of a marriage: trust is said to be the central pillar of a marriage; creating the environment for love to blossom, for affection to grow, for a shared vision to be created of the future. Or is it the other way round: you need these components for trust to be nurtured? What is ironic in the marriage example is how the joint understanding between the two partners needs to be cemented by vows and a marriage certificate, with significant costs attached should this commitment be broken – it seems that trust cannot appear to exist without some formal agreement binding the two. Keeping to the marriage theme, an interesting observation is that, empirically, arranged marriages appear to last longer than love marriages. An arranged marriage is one in which wider (institutional) factors are considered in a much more rational and considered manner, where multiple stakeholders are consulted, where the commitment and bonds are much broader than just the two individuals, and in many cases includes the joint families and sometimes significant investments not only in the wedding ceremony, but in exchanging gifts, dowry etc. The ethos in an arranged marriage is that trust and love will grow over time, as long as you are firmly committed to the bonds that have been created, observe the sacred vows and realise that breaking the marriage is more than just breaking the agreement between the two individuals. Consendre mod eugait alit luptati sisisisit augait num iusti facidunt ipsumsan el eraestrud exerat ad onulla cor ing eumsandre ex elit “Trust, but verify.” – Ronald Reagan atetue tet ulla feu feum niamconEm ea commodiam ad tem dolortio Utat lum quisim et, quissi.Volobore m iurero dolobore. www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk ● ●● ●● 91 http://www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outsource Magazine Issue 25

News & Commentary
Making Contact
Taking the Chair
Clinical Outsourcing Strategies
New Worlds
To Share Or Not To Share?
Trends in Outsourcing Governance
The Next Big Idea
Smart Intelligence
Taking the ChairCracking the Wip
NOA Round-Up
Predicting Success
It’s Not The Contract.
Get Productive
Rigorously Agile
Good Relations
Knowledge Sustainability
Racking Up The Wins
Trust Me... I’m an Outsourcer
Head-to-Head
Top Ten
The Legal view
HfS Round-Up
Online Round-Up
Inside Source
The Last Word

Outsource Magazine Issue 25