Next in the” Vitasek on Vested” series for SSON: Don’t Fall into the Activity Trap There are many “perverse incentives” in buyer-supplier relationships that can disrupt or even doom outsource relationships, but perhaps none of them are as perverse and downright dangerous as the one I call the Activity Trap… Published online on 22 July […]
12 Ailments
SSON — July 2014
Are You Embedding Perverse Incentives in Your Outsourcing Agreement? Article by Kate Vitasek posted on SSON 7 July 2014 Incentives are usually considered a good thing, right? They encourage engagement, investment, and innovation. Then why has the topic of “perverse incentives” gotten so much traction? For one thing, the economist Steven D. Levitt (and Stephen J. […]
Avoiding the Dishonesty Germ
When Dan Ariely writes about the importance of “establishing rules that can safeguard ourselves from ourselves,” I immediately think about how resonant that thought is with the Vested mindset. After all, Vested’s Five Rules are designed to transform business relationships and provide effective safeguards to counter the various ailments that can plague those relationships, such […]
Avoid the Good Idea Graveyard
The Good Idea Graveyard is that sad place where all those good ideas go that somehow seem to get lost in the shuffle, not prioritized, or were never really understood in the first place. Dr. Marla Gottschalk, an industrial/organizational psychologist, in a recent LinkedIn article Where Did Those Great Ideas Go?, reminded me of my […]
Avoid Chaos — Don’t Cherry-pick the Rules!
Maybe you saw the “Doberhuahau” Audi car commercial during the Super Bowl. If you are like me – you laughed at it and shared the YouTube link to with those who missed it. But sometimes the more you look at the things, the more it helps you learn. On the surface, the commercial is quite […]
Mean It When You Measure It
I often teach, talk and write about the 10 Ailments that can disrupt, derail or even destroy an outsource or business relationship—and many of these ailments relate either directly or indirectly to the foibles of measuring performance. A recent post by Paul Michelman on the HBR Blog Network stresses the necessity of getting the metrics […]
Global Delivery Report — August 2012
Published on August 21: 10 Outsourcing Ailments – and How to Cure Them
Outsource Magazine – Honestly Dishonest – July, 2012
This month’s Outsource Magazine column: Honestly dishonest… If you follow this column you know I am a fan of some of the behavioral and transaction cost economists, including John Nash and Oliver Williamson. This month I am adding Dan Ariely to my list of big thinkers…
Material Handling & Logistics, June 2012
Identify Your 3PL Pain Threshold Tom Andel June 20th, 2012 One of the most unstable elements in a marriage is control. Too much of it kills spontaneity but too little leads to financial and emotional chaos. The same can be said of a business marriage—as in your relationships with logistics service providers…
On SSON: Vested-A Business Model for the 21st Century
From my latest article on the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network: In my last article I talked about the ailments and perverse incentives that can disrupt or destroy an outsourcing deal. I also briefly introduced our research at the University of Tennessee developed into a concept we have coined “Vested Outsourcing.” This article focuses on […]
