While everyone has outsourced or out-tasked some function, the process of getting started in outsourcing requires multiple and overlapping disciplines. Getting started means selecting a team to perform various roles at different phases, identifying needs and constraints, assessing options, planning for the evolution of needs over a life cycle and solicitation of competitive bids.
Vitality of Transitions
Getting started also means completion of the selection and contracting procedures so that existing business functions (and possibly in-scope employees, real estate and other infrastructures) can be “transitioned” to the service provider. Exemplified by the adage, “Many a slip between cup and lip,” transitions are the stage with the greatest risk. Accordingly, transition planning is vital to successful inception of service delivery by the service provider.
A “Best Practice” Perspective
In a larger sense, business process management (“BPM”) involves getting started on a fresh basis every day. The needs of customers, the availability of resources and pricing of markets are dynamic. Effective participants in outsourcing adopt a “best practice” of treating every day as a new beginning, with a question how dynamically to optimize resource utilization and allocation for the enterprise’s ongoing competitive success. Getting started includes daily assessment of the suitability of processes to meet changing markets for the enterprise customer.
