Outsourcing and Strategic Alignment

Every business in the world, has the main objective to earn more money. This primary objective can be achieved in many ways. Furthermore, it must be scheduled. The company should fix an objective for every period of time, which is usually fixed in one year.

The second question is, how can the company win more money along the next years. We need a plan, a DAFO, an HR management... But we also need to know what other objectives the company has to achieve to grow and win more money. Everything is important, but we need to know what are we going to focus on and bring it to concrete numbers. For example:

• We want to reach 100.000 internet clients
• We want to open 10 new offices
• We plan to increase our presence in Social Media: 1M followers in Facebook and 10K in Twitter.
• Our online channel must bring at least 30% of our incomes.

These concrete numbers will allow us to know if we have reached or not our objectives.

IT department must take on count this list, to power up the company capabilities to reach the strategic objectives. So, IT Department must make his own list. For example

• We plan to improve our virtual shop ==> This will help to reach the first and fourth objective.
• We want to change our Data Centre ==> This is not directly aligned with any company's strategic objective. But IT has his own objectives, and changing the Data Centre can be necessary. It will finally help all the company's objectives.

Finally, the reason of this article is to explain how can an outsourcing impact in all those objectives. As bigger is the outsourced service, more important is to take on count the strategic alignment.

An IT outsourcing services company, is a company as well. It needs to earn money to survive, as we do. But this can be done in many ways, as we have seen. We need to be sure that the way that our company wants to earn money, is as much aligned with our strategic plan as possible. Must be aligned with IT strategic plan, and also with company's objectives.

A non-aligned big outsourcing contract is the worst issue that an IT Department can hold. Imagine these situations:

• While IT is trying to finish the online shop project scope, the services company is negotiating the software ownership.
• When IT wants to review some old documents, services company wants to be paid for writing them new.

Yes, they seem stupid examples. Seems impossible. But, believe me, this could happen even with the most well-known IT services companies in the world. And this makes the problem even bigger.

A deep knowledge of the outsourcing company and their managers is recommended. Visit their offices, see how their people work, ask other clients, and look straight in their eyes.

You could also take on count some other recommendations:

Outsourcing with confidence
How aligning with the organization's strategy ensures outsourcing success
Two Keys to Successful Strategic Outsourcing: People & Alignment

And finally, don't be afraid to make a ruling. If you have a bad outsourcing, if that IT services company that has been working for you for a long time, is not aligned with your needs, then you must change. This is one of the strongest outsourcing benefits: You can do it. Don't miss the opportunity.