4 Key Questions in the Relationship Compass

1. How Deep Should the Relationship Be?
• What is the strategic importance of this process now and in the future?
• How complex is this process?
• How much change do you anticipate in this process over the life of the contract?
• How interdependent is this process with other processes in the firm?
2. How Broad Should the Relationship Be?
• Is the value in this process created through specialized expertise or through technology and repeatable routines?
• How tightly interconnected are the activities within the process?
• To what extent do you want to change this entire process?
• To what extent does your own firm have the management bandwidth to manage multiple providers?
• To what extent do you need a provider with market power to get the benefits you’re seeking?
3. Whose Way of Working Should We Use?
   To what extent are we seeking each of these objectives:
• Learning from the provider
• Rapid implementation of standardized capabilities
• Redirection of management focus to other areas
• Access to new technology
• Scale-driven cost reduction through standardization and centralization
• A process that operates at the level of best accepted practice, in contrast to a highly customized or leading edge process
4. Whose Assets Should We Use? (Physical Assets, People, Technology Tools)
   Does the organization or the outsourcing provider (OP) have:
• Better access to advantaged assets–lower cost, higher quality, or both
• A lower cost to acquire assets
• Unique expertise in acquiring and managing assets
• More opportunity to share assets with others to improve costs and handle fluctuating demand
• Better ability to invest to maintain or improve asset quality
• In addition, how important and difficult is it to integrate these assets with the organization?

Source:
Business Process Outsourcing Big Bang: Creating Value in an Expanding Universe
by Susan Cantrell
Accenture

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