Outsourcing
Any organisation needs to spend its money in such a way to ensure it buys the right goods and services at the right prices and that they are delivered at the right time. In other words an organisation needs to manage its supply chain procurement risk.
The Benefits of Outsourcing
Organisations have of course always bought goods and services from external vendors.
But over the past few years many have seen the cost and risk benefits of creating strategic purchasing alliances with vendors to deliver non-core aspects of their business and allow them to concentrate on their own core business – ie the activities which differentiate them from other organisations.
Outsourcing is the strategic sourcing model for transferring responsibility for goods or services to a specialist external service provider. It can include services such as ICT, cleaning, warehousing, catering, call centres. Business process outsourcing involves the taking over and running of business processes such as HR, finance, real estate, procurement. Offshoring and near-shoring are where outsourcing leverages the global market and uses highly skilled work forces from regions with low costs of living for service delivery, such as India, China and Eastern Europe.
Aim specialists are experts in all forms of outsourcing and strategic procurement, as well as handling the business change that normally comes about, particularly if staff transfer is part of the deal.
Our approach though is multi-sourcing, which recognises that there are alternative ways of achieving sourcing objectives – one being outsourcing. So we confirm that outsourcing is the best sourcing decision, that the service is a good candidate for outsourcing and that the organisation is ready for it.
A badly planned, transitioned or managed outsourcing deal can literally lead to disaster.
We have extensive experience at running full lifecycle outsourcing projects in both private and public sectors and will help you avoid the pitfalls to make outsourcing a success.
Our public sector experience has involved us running procurements under the EU Services and Supplies Directives and through the OGC Gateway Review proccess. Key activities involve:
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Readiness/feasibility for outsourcing
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Business case
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Tender process
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Supplier evaluation, selection and contract award
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Service transition
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Supplier management and service review
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Contract extension, re-let or termination/exit.
