The service provider finally assumes control

Typically, a month or six weeks after the service provider assumes control a certain ’calm’ descends upon most members of the retained management and the transferred staff. However, difficult or easy the transition may have been, the majority of the client’s former employees could be excused for thinking that the situation is ’returning to normal’. Given the circumstances they can be forgiven for being optimistic that job security, in particular, will be the norm from now on. Why not be optimistic? The ongoing service will be carried out by people who were there before outsourcing was ever considered, and with fewer staff and specialists on hand the service must be efficient now and should remain so in the foreseeable future!

For those people that have transferred to the service provider there is the additional possibility that they have joined an organization that will achieve above average growth in the coming decades. Consequently the transferees from a non-core function will, on average, obtain greater rewards, job satisfaction and security than those who have not been outsourced. However, most of these rewards will only be available if they are able to achieve continuous improvement for the clients they work for. They are employed purely to provide a service and because that service represents their new employer’s core business it must be continually improved. The attitude adopted by the most up-to-date and creative providers is that they have to keep their clients’ service competitive and that can only be done by continuous improvements to the way they produce these services. Transferred employees are required to find new ways of making improvements and savings which in turn, in theory at least, puts pressure on their own chances of long-term employment. Any fears in this direction are, however, counteracted by the potential for taking on other clients’ work and the prospects for transferees to become specialists in their own right.

Those employees who have been transferred in a risk/reward partnership arrangement will need to understand quickly what they are committed to. From the start of the ongoing period to the end of the contract, and probably beyond it, the service must be continually refined, updated and improved by:

• continuous improvement programmes

• customer service improvement measures

• quality control programmes

• service performance reports and evaluation

• continued staff counselling, training and development.

Towards the end of a typical transition, both parties usually become convinced they have too little time available to do justice to the relative importance of the projects being developed. The provider may be able to bring in additional key specialists on a temporary basis but the client is rarely in a position to make up lost ground so easily. The moral of the story is that the client usually needs to plan for the transition earlier and more efficiently than the provider just to arrive at the winning post at the same time.

Finally, it is worth stating that the wise client manages and massages the contract until it comes to an end. It is of vital importance that every opportunity is taken to assist the provider to improve the service, but it is equally important that steps are taken to keep the provider ’on its toes’. To achieve both these ends the following are worth considering:

• involving end users in monitoring service delivery against targets;

• working continuously on improving the relationship with all the provider’s staff;

• building in the right to review the relationship and contract at various stages along the way;

• making sure that you maintain the right to invite tenders for new consultancy and outsourcing work.