Is trust part of your outsourcing contract?
Fuelled by the dearth of ICT skills in the South African market, outsourcing continues to gain momentum. A maturing industry, it has a number of best practices, like service and operating level agreements (SLAs and OLAs), that provide companies with some assurance that outsource service providers will meet agreed objectives. A more important question for many companies, however, is whether the outsourcer can be trusted at a more intrinsic level, to keep the best interests of the company in mind, delivering real business value.
Says Jaroslav Cerny, Managing Director of RDB Consulting, a company that offers professional database and operating system support, consulting, project management, solutions architecture and more: "Trust is an important component of any outsourcing agreement, but its one that can only be built over time. There are, however, a few practical considerations that will assist companies to choose an outsourcing partner that can and will deliver a solution that adds value to the organisation.
"Chief among these are an assessment of the experience and expertise of the outsourcing company and resources it allocates to the project; the company’s track record; the commitment of its management in terms of participating in, and overseeing the project; the effort the company makes to understand your business and processes; and its ability to introduce constant improvement."
