Keith Pallesen, the sourcing consultant for GMAC
Mortgage, has identified a seven-step checklist to serve as an outline
for successful outsourcing. According to him, these steps should
be same, irrespective of what you are outsourcing, or how big or
small the organization is. It is only the level of detail that may
vary. "Outsourcing is an art, not a science," he insists.
Identify your needs. Identify the salient elements
like quality, deadlines, problem resolution etc. that means
success and failure to your organization. You don't select the
right vendor but the right vendor that meets your needs.
Develop a Request for Proposal (RFP). This
step, also known as solicitation process, can either be competitive
or single sourced. If you are in a position to accurately define
your needs and there are several service providers in the market,
then the competition is an appropriate soliciattion method.
However, if your your need is strategic in nature and cannot
be clearly defined or there are very few service providers around
you, then, a single source solicitation can be beneficial. It
is in this step that you give out in details, the terms and
conditions, the scope of work, the evaluation criteria and the
importance of evaluation criteria and the anticipated pricing
structure.
Selection process. Now, put the proposal
on two papers - those that address everything you want should
go to "in" sheet and those that are incomplete go
into "out". Then analyze the technical aspects before
looking at the costs. After all, you don't want to be biased
on costs upfront. Do you? Now, rank the technical results based
on the metrics you established when you created the requirements.
Now you analyze the cost that you need to bear.
Selection Process. At this point, you seriously
consider some of the best of the proposals that you have received.
If more than one proposals are fulfilling the criteria, you
go through your Best and Final Offer process. Yan should also
follow-up and seek clarifications. This is especially critical
when you want to outsource services that are hard to quantify.
Contract execution. This is the time when
you sign the deal. Then, it's time to move onto the next project.
Administrative funtionc. Now, since the project
is underway, you should be demanding for reports on how the
project is progressing. Try for bi-weekly or monthly report.
Solve the problems that are delaying the project.
Close-out. This is the last stage when the
outsourcing arrangement is totally completed. At this point,
ask for a final repor which should contain everything the two
parties discussed over the period of the contract. Retain this
report as you might need it for the next deal with another vendor.
