{"id":1396,"date":"2012-03-13T14:56:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/source-to-stay_031312\/"},"modified":"2012-03-13T14:56:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-13T14:56:00","slug":"source-to-stay_031312","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/source-to-stay_031312\/","title":{"rendered":"Source to stay?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em>The world of sourcing advisory has gone through unprecedented change over the last couple of years. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The days of enterprise buyers dropping millions to view their favored (and less favored) providers strut the catwalk and have their contracts hammered out by some baseball-bat wielding former ITO salesman are rapidly fading into the past. \u00a0That ship has, thankfully, sailed.<\/p>\n

However, a new ship is now dropping anchor in the sourcing harbor, promising riches beyond your wildest dreams to re-vamp your shared service centers, re-craft your entire\u00a0governance\u00a0framework and ensure those outsourcing engagements fit\u00a0seamlessly\u00a0into the overall mix. \u00a0But are these new-found riches all they appear to be, or another crafty way for consultants to sneak that MBA bus back into the visitor’s\u00a0car park? \u00a0Who better than Deb Kops<\/a> to investigate further…<\/p>\n

Source to stay<\/span><\/p>\n

The aggressive push of the big name management consultancies and the Big Whatever into sourcing advisory is in many respects a good thing.<\/strong> These organizations bring a wealth of resource\u2014from an acute understanding of corporate strategy, incredibly deep domain knowledge, regulatory requirements, organizational design and development, and all shades of expertise in between\u2026plus strong ties to the c-suite (the power of which should never be underestimated when hiring a consultant). After all, the sourcing decision encompasses so much more than a market study, a location analysis, writing a good RFP and implementing a rigorous selection process.<\/p>\n

But to any shared services and outsourcing conference these days and you\u2019ll hear many of these white shoe guys express a decided preference for shared services as a model. And the traditional sourcing transaction firms are now following close behind, echoing the same refrain.<\/p>\n

The guidance from the podium sounds something like this\u2014\u201cBe safe and smart. Alternative delivery models are tricky no matter what. Consider outsourcing but only after you\u2019ve fixed, consolidated into captive centers, and operated until stable. Then think about outsourcing that transactional stuff to a provider to tap into transaction pricing\/gain flexibility\/leverage investment\/free up management bandwidth.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the implicit message? \u201cOutsourcing is risky. Outsourcing is not the first step on the journey. If you want to fix the mess, do it yourself (with our help). Outsourcing is not transformational. Outsourcing is a commodity\u2014pursue it only after you ring out every penny of cost, then throw it over the transom to a specialist factory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, shared services very well may be the right answer for many of current crop of organizations investigating or evolving alternative delivery models. First, despite what the pundits say, Western companies are reacting to pressure (or at least thinking twice) to keep jobs onshore and in-house\u2014ergo a captive. Second, what value outsourcing or a simple shared services implementation is capable of delivering at this point in time is pretty well understood. And some organizations are now getting comfortable revisiting their strategies with the view that the trick is no longer fixing the factory, but getting closer to the business\u2014perceiving shared services as the better ticket. But these trends alone cannot account for the noise from the consultancy bully pulpit, and the number of firms renaming outsourcing advisory \u201cshared services\u201d or \u201cglobal business\u201d or \u201centerprise advisory\u201d, putting the \u201cO\u201d word in awfully fine print.<\/p>\n

Why the push for shared services rather than outsourcing from some of the biggest \u00a0consulting names in the industry?\u00a0 It might be driven by the fact that, post the 2008 recession, major corporations invited in consultants by the tens of thousands, asking them to broadly transform their enterprises post a 2008 near death experience. And these good folk, rather than the more deal-oriented outsourcing advisors, had a superb opening to evaluate sourcing as one out of many in a transformation bags of tricks, building up legions of consultants on engagements.<\/p>\n

But, as a former consultant, I can\u2019t help wondering whether this trend also results from the need to grow consulting revenue, making it engagements sticky as possible. Is it merely a coincidence that shared services is actually tout the right model for the majority of \u00a0organizations given their maturity at this point in time–or could it be a manifestation of enlightened self interest on the part of consultants–what I glibly am calling \u201csource to stay.\u201d After all, if full-on outsourcing becomes the model of choice at the beginning of the sourcing journey, chances are pretty high that consultants will be cut out of the equation early unless the buyer has resource or expertise issues, or is looking to for an insurance policy in the event something goes wrong. With providers now equipped with cookbooks full of methodologies, choosing the outsourcing route usually reduces sourcing consultants\u2019 fee earning potential. That means a material difference in fee magnitude\u2014a hundred thousand or two as opposed to engagements closer to the million mark and more.<\/p>\n

\"Deborah<\/a><\/p>\n

Deborah Kops, Research Fellow, HfS Research (click for bio)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I\u2019m not saying that \u00a0consultants push shared services rather than outsourcing merely because they are concerned about growing wallet share and feeding their legions of junior associates. A good consultant\u2014and we are gifted with many in this industry\u2014understands what the client needs to achieve through a sourcing strategy, and helps him understand the benefits and challenges associated with each option accordingly. But when the consultants are falling over each other to differentiate themselves as business services globalizers and enterprises extenders, while the traditional outsourcing advisors are actively rebranding themselves as shared services advisors, it suggests that the \u201cO\u201d word may be falling off the table.<\/p>\n

The Bottom-line: Buyers must identify the right model for their particular organizations, and not fall prey to source to stay<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Be honest about speed to implementation.<\/strong> If you want to move fast and have the skills to outsource, you can move the dial more rapidly. Shared services implementation often moves at a tortoise\u2019s pace as compared to tapping into the existing infrastructure and network of a provider. But if time is on your side, perhaps a first foray into shared services is optimal given other considerations.<\/li>\n
  • Evaluate how your organization will best take on the change culturally.<\/strong> If the organization will not take kindly to, or have much trust in, third party delivery of any stripe, outsourcing might be better staged later in model evolution.<\/li>\n
  • Gauge the value of a commercial relationship in moving the dial.<\/strong> Some organizations are better off moving right to outsourcing because the formality of a contract gives them the discipline they need to make any sort of change.<\/li>\n
  • Be honest about what the rub is in outsourcing.<\/strong> Assuming you select the right provider, getting to better for the business is rarely the problem. \u00a0Given the evolution of providers, it\u2019s not the quality of the delivery, it\u2019s the business\u2019s ability to adopt new ways of working and get over their loss of control. Recalcitrant business lines don\u2019t discriminate\u2014they\u2019ll resist both outsourcing and shared services.<\/li>\n
  • Think about whether your organization is more comfortable as builder or buyer.<\/strong> My research indicates that buyer companies are better managing providers as part of a supply chain, while builder companies like to make change internally, seizing any opportunity to innovate by inventing and implementing new models.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    At the outset of any sourcing advisory engagement, it\u2019s important to be very clear about what you want out of it\u2014a true design exercise, air cover to underwrite the decision, handholding through the process, or deep expertise (and arms and legs) from strategy through implementation. Pushing a one size \u201cfix-it-first-internally-than-flip-it-over-the-transom-to-a-provider-when-there-are-a-few-more-pennies-to-wring-out\u201d approach is like prescribing heart surgery without first assessing the patient\u2019s history and symptoms. Consulting expertise can be critical to making the right decision, but the best consultants never source to stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The world of sourcing advisory has gone through unprecedented change over the last couple of years. \u00a0 The days of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,51,81,86,832],"tags":[303],"organization":[],"ppma_author":[19],"class_list":["post-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-process-outsourcing-bpo","category-cloud-computing","category-it-outsourcing-it-services","category-outsourcing-advisors","category-sourcing-best-practises","tag-enterprise-irregulars"],"yoast_head":"\nSource to stay? - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/source-to-stay_031312\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Source to stay? 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