Outsource Magazine Issue 29 - (Page 114)

THE BACK END THE LAST WORD cash, we’re going to fall over ourselves as an organisation to come on board? No: we’re going to do what’s right for us at the right time, and if in any of those areas we decide, down the line, on an outsourcing we will approach you. Not the other way round. I know from my peers that this is a common problem at present. Providers are suffering from squeezed margins and increasing competition (so higher cost-per-bid). So they’re looking to pillage – sorry, “upsell” their existing customers. But we’re partners, not cash cows. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mind the occasional pitch – but to be corralled again and again, as I was last week, with eager sales execs looking to get me on their respective hooks smacks of the kind of desperation which puts relationships in jeopardy. I’m not even the right person to be pitching half the time. Behaving like that won’t win our provider a single extra penny of business and has cast a cloud in my mind over our relationship. Bluntly it’s pissed me off. And I know I’m not alone. I’m Not Buying It! Last week I flew out to the Philippines for my quarterly round of backslapping, troop-motivating, trouble-shooting and glassraising – it’s a tough job but somebody has to do it – at our Manila delivery centre. We’re a couple of (good) years into what is certainly one of the best deals I’ve worked on in a frighteningly long career. Pretty much everything is where it should be, the teething problems have been resolved long ago, all’s groovy. So why did I fly back with a nasty taste in my mouth? It’s because while I was there I was treated – for the first time by this provider I must add – to what a few of my colleagues have already suffered: the dreaded up-sell. Hard, intrusive, uncomfortable – like the dentist’s drill in Marathon Man. We are already a huge contributor to this organisation’s bottom line. But that’s irrelevant to the issue. What is relevant is that our outsourcing strategy is the result of years of experimentation, debate, failure, heartbreak and eventual success, and the countless person-hours – person-years really – that have gone into, and come out of that. We’re doing what we’re doing, when we’re doing it, because it’s right for us – and we’ve thought loooooooooooong and hard about it. So for our provider to begin pushing new services on us with all the subtlety and sensitivity of an overgrown toddler is worse than irritating: it’s actually really damn rude. Do these people really think that just because they have a really compelling new proposition for recruitment, or procurement, or facilities management, or order-to- OPINION Mr T arget Would you like to contribute an interesting, provocative – and, if you wish, anonymous – piece to The Last Word? Or would you like to respond to this particular column? Why not drop a line to the editor at jamie.liddell@ outsourcemagazine.co.uk to discuss your thoughts? Consendre mod eugait alit luptati sisisisit augait num iusti facidunt ipsumsan el eraestrud exerat ad onulla cor ing eumsandre ex elit “Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.” – Benjamin Franklin atetue tet ulla feu feum niamconEm ea commodiam ad tem dolortio Utat lum quisim et, quissi.Volobore m iurero dolobore. 114 ●●● ● www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk http://www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outsource Magazine Issue 29

Call Me Maybe?
Optimising Your supplier Portfolio
Application Development Outsourcing
Are You Fat?
The Future of BPO
Digital by Default
The Face of Finance
Procuring Excellence
The Importance of Being Secure
NOA Round-Up
Steering the Flow
Changing Shape
Legal Transformation
Getting to the Real-Life Win-Win
What’s the Point of Outsourcing?
outsourceXplores
Head-to-Head
The Legal View
Top Ten
NelsonHall Round-Up
The Oral Review
Online Round-Up
Inside Source
The Last Word

Outsource Magazine Issue 29