Enterprise customers and their service providers can each be categorized by their respective “maturity levels” in adopting and implementing the outsourcing model.
For the enterprise customer, some critical maturity factors include:
- multi-sourcing management;
- alignment of procurement with business objectives, and other internal corporate governance policy and procedures;
- service level management;
- dynamic change management in response to changing markets;
- relationship governance, including partnership and alliance planning and integration support.
For service providers, some critical maturity factors include:
- process stability;
- process management for optimization; and
- relationship governance.
For each, an ability to adapt to changing legal and business environments are a measure of the capacity to conduct business globally.
There are a number of “capability maturity” models, the most famous of which was adopted by the Carnegie-Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute. These models can be complex.
To avoid surprises and disputes, decisionmakers on both sides should understand their own and the other party’s maturity levels in relation to the outsourcing process.