"The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year" John Foster Dulles
Almost every business has critical third party suppliers upon which it relies. Increasingly many businesses are built with outsourced functions fulfilling major parts of their value chain. The most successful achieve a co-operative relationship with their suppliers backed up by mechanisms to ensure the required service, and value, are delivered. But this is often not the case and significant costs can leak out in increased relationship management overheads and service delivery issues. Often major risks exist at the suppliers that are unknown until they impact supplier and buyer alike. Kingston Smith Consulting is one of the few firms able to both identify the root cause of issues with third parties and offer the expertise and commercial skills necessary to deliver pragmatic and sustainable solutions. Our services include:
Outsourcing of functions within organisations is an activity which has grown in recent years with more firms outsourcing, to various degrees, segments of their operational value chain. This can range from parts of the manufacturing process, distribution and call centres through to technology, HR and accounting. In many cases it has been a great learning curve for both the organisation doing the outsourcing and the service provider and the most successful relationships have been between those organisations that have treated these relationships as longer term partnerships rather than pure buyer/seller relationships. The overriding principle that the client company can outsource some of its activities but remains responsible to its clients and regulators for their delivery is paramount. It is our view that the day to day operational relationship must remain between the client company employees and their counterparts in the service provider. However there is an important, and increasing, level of governance around outsourced relationships which must be in place and be clearly demonstrated as good business practice and in many cases for regulatory reasons.
We are able to offer a compelling proposition covering a wide range of outsourcing activities from the initial decision making process, through selection and implementation to ongoing management, governance and controls using our highly experienced team of industry practitioners.
