Top 5 Reasons Why Outsourcing Flunks!

In my earlier blog, I shared about my views about outsourcing being all-pervasive.

I have been involved with tech outsourcing for more than 15 years, and have seen excellent value additions to a business through an outsourcing partnership and have also witnessed it failing. Based on my conversations with CXOs over the years, here are some of the reasons which I have realized contribute to a failed outsourcing partnership –

Choice of partner – In this case, the fault is on both sides. CEOs are not clear about their objectives for outsourcing and hence are unable to properly evaluate a potential partner and the partner’s ability to scale up. Outsourcing companies, on the other hand, overestimate their capabilities of handling a technology and project, or make false promises to bag the project, only to see the relationship fail soon after.

Unrealistic expectations – Irrespective of how many people you deploy, it will still take 9 months for the baby to be born

We vs They – The folks working on your project, though geographically separated are part of your team. The faster they are integrated with your team, the quicker you start achieving your outsourcing objectives.

Blame game – If something goes wrong, it is always the partner’s fault. That is not always the case. CEOs typically do not want to introspect on whether they personally or their team contributed to a failed relationship.

Communication – Over communication or the lack of it. Some CXOs want to tightly control the outsourced team and end up spending more time than necessary in communicating with them, leading to their bandwidth getting drained. Others, may not communicate at all, keeping the team guessing on whether they are on the right path or not.

Do these sound familiar? Are there more reasons?