Open structures, outsourcing and offshoring

In today’s more connected business world, our responsibilities do not end at the edge of our internal organization charts. We are increasingly integrated with outsource and supply chain partners.

There are some predictable people management pitfalls in outsourcing and other forms of working across organizational boundaries. Typical symptoms of problems include low levels of trust (from both sides), micro-management of outsourced partners, high levels of escalation and a failure to get the best out of external partner employees.

We need to:

• Integrate with suppliers, outsourcing partners and customers across distance, cultures, timezones and organizational boundaries
• Develop an open culture that is easy for others to work with
• Cooperate with internal and external colleagues around the world
• Benefit from an “open source” approach to collaborative development
• Engage multiple stakeholders in virtual networks to get things done
• Ensure our environmental, commercial and ethical standards are maintained throughout our supply chain

Companies have invested in open IT projects to enable the rapid sharing of information throughout their supply chain, but few have invested in making their corporate culture or way of working equally open.

Predictable pitfalls in managing outsource relationships can lead to distrust, delay and micro-management that stop us from realizing the full benefits of outsourcing.

The additional challenges of outsourcing to an offshore location can include managing cultural, timezone and language differences as well as the commercial relationship.

If you need to integrate with suppliers, partners and customers, to be open and easy to work with and to assure quality and standards are maintained you need to call us first