Collaboration, and the need to get serious about it at all levels of the supply chain, was a key word heard frequently in the meeting rooms and hallways at last week’s CSCMP conference in San Diego. For the second straight year I joined Dan Gilmore, the editor of Supply Chain Digest, as a “guest contributor” […]
From the Blog
“Outsourced” Gets Outsourcing So Wrong It’s Not Even Funny
NBC’s new sitcom “Outsourced” premiered Thursday night. It’s supposed to be a comedy about outsourcing, specifically about a U.S. company that outsources its call center operation to India. The problem is it gets outsourcing so wrong it’s not even funny. During the show’s 22 minutes – minus the eight minutes of advertising from the likes of […]
No-Dread Collaboration
Rob Preston, editor of InformationWeek, has an interesting take on “Why Some People ‘Dread’ Collaboration.” He points out that a primary reason people “dread” collaborating is due to the amount of time and energy it consumes and that they often feel pestered and pressured to use tools they think they can solve on their own. Now […]
Outsourcing’s Different Box
I read an excellent post this month from Peter Bregman on the Harvard Business Review blog site, “If You Want to Be Original, Start from a Different Box.” It’s an excellent twist on the old think-outside-the-box refrain. Bregman, CEO of the global management consulting firm Bregman Partners Inc., speaks, writes and consults on leadership. He […]
Is Outsourcing Really a Partnership?
Companies that are new to outsourcing, and even those highly experienced with it, like to say their relationship is a partnership. I suppose it’s good for public consumption and public relations to consider all of the businesses and people a company works with as partners, and maybe in some way they really believe they are […]
Vesting in Back to School
It’s the end of August and that means the back to school dance is in full swing. This is special for me because my five-year old is entering kindergarten this year and because my sister-in-law is a kindergarten teacher. How quickly we get away from the basics as we progress through academia and compete for […]
Take This Job And …
The case of the Jet Blue flight attendant who left his job in spectacular fashion this month after losing it big time in a confrontation with an obnoxious passenger has become the stuff of legend. Steven Slater has become an instant folk hero among his former colleagues and for all those frequent-flyers who must deal […]
The Imp of the Perverse in Outsourcing
The old saying, “If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all,” could easily apply to outsourcing incentives: If there weren’t any perverse incentives in a contract, there likely wouldn’t be any incentives at all! Incentives play a critical role in in Vested Outsourcing, namely in identifying and achieving the win-win […]
Flight of Fancy? Synchronicity and Outsourcing
Watching the Blue Angels do their amazing and death-defying feats in the cloudy skies above Seattle last week, I was awestruck, marveling at the fearless synchronization on display. Which lead me of course to muse about what could happen if that kind of synchronization was the rule rather than the exception in outsourcing. The Blue […]
Collaborate for Value
I’ve been thinking about the term “negotiation” quite a lot lately and what it means for outsourcing in general and Vested Outsourcing in particular. For instance, I’ve questioned whether negotiation is really the right word to use when talking about creating a vested relationship. In a recent post I advised that parties shouldn’t negotiate, they […]
