Building a comprehensive model for managing outsourced services and providers has been a key enabler to ensure delivery of IT services. However, the most successful engagements were the ones where senior management at both parties demonstrated buy-in to the collaborative principles we established.

We saw a clear demonstration of this with one of our strategic engagements where the Client Account executive did not fully adopt the practices. In this case, we needed to make a change at the senior level in order to improve outcomes.

Case in point, we had a dispute related to the various roles on a P1/Sev1 bridge call. In IT, these are critical and need to run efficiently so that services can be restored quickly. Here it became evident that the provider tried to diffuse the process in such a way that they would not be held accountable for any delays in resolving the incident. The new client executive intuitively understood the relationship side of the agreement and quickly worked with us to ensure the necessary clarification to the process. That was it. We never needed to discuss it again.