A key thing to understand about any outsourcing endeavor is that once the decision is made to outsource the work, the work definitely is not done. In fact the real work at each end of the outsourcing equation is just beginning, particularly in a Vested Outsourcing relationship. Establishing a proper, flexible governance framework, setting systems […]
From the Blog
Don’t Negotiate! Collaborate for the Win-Win
It seems there is never a simple negotiation. The term “negotiation” itself connotes that the parties involved have differences of opinions and are sitting across the table from each other discussing positions and trade-offs. Some even view negotiations as a pejorative euphemism – something that should be approached with suspicion or trepidation. A necessary evil […]
Try A Little Transportation Collaboration
Earlier this year I wrote about courage, patience, trust and loyalty in logistics, based on a shipper’s gutsy decision on transportation rates. Adrian Gonzalez originally brought this up in an ARC Logistics Viewpoints newsletter/blog post in February. He talked about how a Fortune 500 company could have saved a stack of money in transportation costs by […]
Vested Outsourcing Trends Up
I’m often amused by yearly trend lists. For one thing, there’s so many of them in the outsourcing and supply chain sector. With all those trends trending along and multiplying each year, what happens to the previous year’s trends? Or the trends from the year before? Are they no longer trends? Do they go to […]
Making Everyone Whole
I wanted to share some recent wisdom from Jim Womack, founder and chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute, and a chief maven for the Lean concept. He sends out emails on a regular basis, and one in particular, “Making Everyone Whole” talks about the difficulty that organizations often experience in trying to create lean value […]
Getting to We Follows Getting to Yes
Many of you probably remember the bestselling book Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury, and its influential take on negotiation and cooperation. I’m thinking about this book today in a couple of respects. First, it was published about 20 years ago at about the same time that modern outsourcing began to […]
Cut If You Must, But Do it Credibly
I was reading the Harvard Business Review’s Daily Stat and discovered that a mere 10 percent of cost-reduction programs sustain their results after three years, according to research from McKinsey. Sometimes there’s no accounting for cost-accounting when it doesn’t really account for all the costs involved in an enterprise. That can really stress complex supply […]
Collaborate – and Innovate – or Else!
Collaboration and innovation are essential pillars of Vested Outsourcing; they are more than just lip service and group hugs, however. Collaboration requires attitudes, strategies and structures that encourage and reward effective innovation. By the same token innovation requires a high degree of innovative collaboration. Some recent posts from the Horses for Sources blog/website underscore this […]
The Gorilla vs. the Elephant, Part 2: The Elephant
Last time, I talked about those 800-pound gorilla companies that can and do use their market position to browbeat their outsourcing partners to get the lowest-cost contracts and to otherwise achieve their own strategic objectives. It’s a classic case of Vested Outsourcing’s Ailment 1, Penny Wise and Pound Foolish, which might gain some short term […]
The Gorilla vs. the Elephant, Part 1: The Gorilla
A gorilla usually gets what it wants, or thinks it wants because, well, it’s a gorilla; but the process of gorilla-hood means a lot of things in the way get destroyed. Sooner or later if you are in involved in negotiating outsourcing and logistics contracts you’ll probably deal with the big company, the proverbial 800-pound […]
