Outsourcing

If you are looking to renegotiate your outsourcing relationship, you are not alone: Outsourcing contract renegotiations are on the rise. Around 75% of all existing outsourcing relationships are renegotiated at some point during their lifetime according to Gartner Research.  And…

An increasing number of organisations and institutions are exploring the benefits of moving from their large single-supplier outsourcing relationships to the multi-supplier variety. Gavin Hall has outlined that in his experience, which reflects our own, the enhanced value and specialist expertise,…

While the theory behind outcome-based pricing models is nothing new, the penchant for establishing relationships specifically based on driving true added value is certainly growing in popularity with both vendors and clients. The reasons for this are simple. With suppliers…

This is the final article in a series of seven that reviewed the twenty issues highlighted by the National Audit Office (NAO) in their latest report on emerging best practice in commercial and contract management. Our articles have grouped these…

Reports suggest that it has not been a good year for global outsourcing giant Capita. What with the company’s first profit warning in September, reported project issues and what seems to be a weakening market across some of its core…

A parliamentary enquiry into how the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) achieves value for money was recently undertaken, after which its Chief Executive, Malcolm Harrison, candidly suggested that due to a lack of appropriate focus initial expectations of the CCS had…

Rupert Soames, the CEO of Serco (and grandson of Winston Churchill), recently gave evidence to PACAC (the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee). This was part of an enquiry into the work of the civil service as a result of…

In November the National Audit Office (NAO) released a new report on contract management, and because we found it so insightful we’ve decided to dedicate a few articles to the subject and to the findings of the report. This particular…

The 1st December marked the end of almost a decade of partnership between Somerset County Council and IBM. This much discussed and questioned relationship which formed the collaborative entity Southwest One is now over, but the questions keep coming in…

Radiotherapy is crucial to the treatment of up to 40% of all cancer patients. However, it’s recently been reported that deaths may well have resulted from radiotherapy equipment upgrade delays experienced across the NHS. It seems that radiotherapy assets –…

If your outsourcer’s shares had taken quite a beating, with the company’s value dropping by a quarter or more over a matter of days, you might be encouraged to start asking questions of those in the know as to whether…

It has never been more important to ensure that your complex service delivery (outsourcing) relationships succeed. But how can this be achieved in an environment where it seems so commonplace that external service providers fail to achieve expected business outcomes.…

Traditional Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) looks to reduce costs for a client by migrating their more repetitive tasks to resources located in more cost-effective regions of the world. We are talking about outsourcing to the likes of India (where around…

The collapse of UnitingCare – the multi-million pound collaboration between an NHS consortium and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG to provide ‘older people’s and adult community services’ in the region – has had an unprecedented impact on the sector. It has…

With the recent announcement from the BBC that the NHS’s major complex projects management and procurement support force – the Strategic Project Team (SPT) – will be “closed down”, questions are now being asked and lessons must be learned in…

The NAO have reported that “A third of major government projects due to deliver in the next five years are rated as in doubt or unachievable unless action is taken to improve delivery” NAO Controller and Auditor Amyas Morse believes…

Service integration and management (SIAM) has continued to be something of a buzz-acronym in managed service and outsourcing circles. The way it’s talked about, you might be forgiven for thinking that it’s a silver bullet which in one fell swoop…

In their ongoing drive to reduce costs while attempting to improve services, the government has long believed shared services to be the answer. Annual savings in the region of 20% are commonly cited by those using shared services centres to…

In recent years we have recognised that there has been a marked shift in the way UK supplier managers have been interacting with their provider partners. Where in the past those looking to outsource may have been more focused on…

If you were offered an opportunity to save your council tens of millions of pounds you might be tempted. The question is, what time and resources would you invest into scrutinising the shared services deal? How much due diligence would…

Despite sticking to the letter of their contract, we see £500m of Atos contracts under review by Whitehall. Time and again you will hear us discussing the benefits of a well-worded contract, of the need for it to be clear,…

In the face of growing perceived threats to security and defence the e-Borders project was conceived to “create a joined-up modernised intelligence-led border control and security framework” tracking passengers as they travelled to our shores by air, rail or sea,…

Currently doing the rounds are rumours that 2016 could see a significant drop in demand for outsourcing services in the UK. Instinctively, when you see headlines like this, it’s reasonable to apply a degree of scepticism to such talk, but…

A mutual decision has been taken between The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CPCCG) and UnitingCare to end their five-year, £800m health services contract, after just eight months. It’s the latest in a long line of major outsourcing relationships…

2015 was a tumultuous year for the outsourcing industry. Somerset Council finally decided to end the remaining elements of their ten-year contract with strategic partner Southwest One, two years early. Cornwall Council won their case against BT to terminate their…

Photo credit: Dick Thomas Johnson Ever since the first accounts emerged of the situation Southwest One found itself in, we’ve been keen to understand precisely how such a promising, value-adding venture could encounter the magnitude of challenges that it’s faced…

With the New Year comes new challenges for Cornwall Council as it starts to regroup after its dispute with BT, over their 10-year £300m outsourcing contract, came to a dramatic end before Christmas. But what led these two parties, so…

In December of 2014, we waxed lyrical about the importance of an ICF Team. We even went as far as to say that it’s the number one lesson that organisations would do well to learn in 2015. Truthfully, we haven’t…

When faced with the task of sourcing a new provider for an important and complex project, there are many points that need to be seriously considered. However, in our experience, there is one key area in particular that is consistently…

Far too many outsourced relationships fail to achieve the expectations of at least one of the parties involved in the process. And, no doubt, this was a driver behind the creation of the first International Standard for outsourcing – ISO…

A date has been set for Cornwall Council to meet BT in the High Court. On 1 December 2015, both sides will have the opportunity to explain just why the ten-year £300m outsourcing contract that bound them together was ended…

When a civil servant in the Ministry of Justice spotted some discrepancies in Serco’s paperwork during routine contract renewal processes, nobody could have quite imagined what impact this was going to have – both on the UK Government and Serco.…

When the reportedtroubles started for Serco in the spring of 2013 the snowball effect seemed to have had a serious impact on its business. With the media questioning the company’s culture and character, the high-profile legal questions that were being…

When the tagging scandal of 2013 hit Serco, it was reported that nobody could have believed that this organisation could fall so far and so fast. Awareness of the ‘overcharging’ story is now so widespread that we don’t need to…

Much has been written about Serco of late. It’s an interesting story for the news media, and those in the outsourcing world, because it’s a tale of success and loss, legal issues and leadership changes alongside the question of whether…

Image courtesy of Rafael Matsunaga Serco has been going through a bit of a rough patch recently, to say the least. Since Rupert Soames took over last year, with plans to clear the decks and see the once dominant outsourcing company…

We often emphasise the importance of effective due diligence before entering any outsourcing contract – in our work with clients and their strategic partners, and in our articles about optimising those relationships. As we all know, appropriate pre-contractual due diligence…

Factoring in supply chains, there are 5.4 million people employed in the public services sector in the UK, generating an estimated £113.5bn in revenue in 2012/13 (or 7.2% of UK GDP). It is, therefore, surprising that for a sector in…

Does it matter if the average member of the public trusts the border control agency in charge of immigration into our country? What about trust in those running local GP surgeries or some of our NHS services? Then there are…

In an ideal world, the relationship you have with your outsourced strategic partners should be a collaborative one. Working together you will better be able to identify how to improve operating practice, reduce service fees and recognise where best to…