The outsourcing advisory firm Alsbridge just published an interesting research note that takes the view of the supplier rather than buyer.

As anyone who reads any outsourcing research knows, most advice is geared to the buyer – how to get the best deal, what supplier to select, how to exit a contract, and so on. Everything seems to be designed for the buyer and I guess that’s understandable as they hold the purse strings. Who cares about the poor old supplier?

Well Alsbridge went out and spoke to a whole bunch of suppliers about some of their issues in the marketplace at present and they got some interesting results. You can read the research note for yourself here, but I want to just flag up one comment they made as I think it is very perspicacious.

When asked what suppliers want most from the relationships with their clients, the key issue they responded with was that the client and supplier should have both mutual respect and mutual responsibility.

These comments are important and worth focusing on. The typical ‘hardball’ approach to vendor selection does not encourage respect. In fact, the selection process is more often than not adversarial rather than respectful. The question of a client having to take some responsibility for the quality of their own programme management is another critical comment. How many times has outsourcing gone wrong, not because of a hopeless supplier, but because the company buying the service just can’t interact with the supplier?

I hope Alsbridge take some time to focus on this single issue alone in their next supplier research project because it is an area worth exploring in more detail.