successful Outsourcing relationship

One practically inevitable fact of life is that when drafting contract terms for complex projects and services, the less clear your understanding is of the requirements of the project, the greater the chance of poor contractor performance behaviours. Two cases…

Articles on the subject of a successful outsourcing partnership tend to deal with the timeline in segments – some will talk about essentials at the inception stage, while others will wax lyrical about ways to keep your supplier on your…

In a recent LinkedIn post, Joshua Reddaway‬, Director, Work and Pensions VFM and Head of Practice (Commercial and Contracting) at the UK National Audit Office‬ (NAO) talked about the new NAO report they had released on the government’s handling of…

When the NAO produces an analysis of key aspects of major project relationships, it is always worth taking note. The NAO report titled ‘Survival Guide to Challenging Costs in Major Projects’ is no exception. The UK government is working on…

Problems can arise at any point within a major strategic partner service delivery relationship. Life with a strategic partner is very much like a marriage – after the first year or so, when the honeymoon period has become but a happy…

Outsourcing challenges, what can we learn from the recent NAO report into the seven-year contract NHS England entered into with Capita in 2015 and worth a reported £330m? The contract was to deliver the transformation of primary care support services for…

With Brexit, local elections, superpower posturing and international poisoning scandals to push the news media forward, the troubles caused by Carillion will seem like a long time ago to most. But, for the company’s employees, its suppliers whose businesses relied…

This is the penultimate paper in our series of articles on the ‘intelligent supplier’ and it focuses on service area domain expertise. We have aimed to provide you with insights into the traits of these supplier organisations so you can…

Welcome to this, the seventh of nine articles in our in-depth series looking into the make-up, indicators and behaviours of an intelligent supplier – the practically innovative partner for your complex service delivery relationships. On reflection, I recognise that client…

Driving really strong and collaborative behaviours between you and your supplier for complex services is a great achievement. Your competence in managing external providers to help accelerate the achievement of your business objectives will be seen and measured as driving…

There are few things more important to the prospects for your projects than the need for you to find a strategic partner that reflects your own ‘commitment to the cause’ (a critical friend supplier) – an ‘Intelligent Supplier’ and an…

With the recent announcement from the BBC that the NHS’s major complex projects management and procurement support force – the Strategic Project Team (SPT) – will be “closed down”, questions are now being asked and lessons must be learned in…

The NAO have reported that “A third of major government projects due to deliver in the next five years are rated as in doubt or unachievable unless action is taken to improve delivery” NAO Controller and Auditor Amyas Morse believes…

In recent years we have recognised that there has been a marked shift in the way UK supplier managers have been interacting with their provider partners. Where in the past those looking to outsource may have been more focused on…