You can work hard to find the right vendor. You can budget properly and obsessively structure the right contract.

But, you’re still not guaranteed a successful outsourcing experience.
Stuff happens. And, given the complexity and uncertainties involved with an outsourcing partnership, it’s not uncommon for challenges to arise.

The Outsourcing Institute has found over the years that the five most common problems associated with the outsourcing process tend to be: Time, expertise, bandwidth, budget and access to service providers.
Which ones did the respondents cite as their most common problem? Overall, time and expertise were each singled out by 44% of the respondents.

However, when looking at the companies based on size, only the smallest group—fewer than 500 people—selected time as their biggest challenge.

Budget constraints were clearly selected as the third biggest challenge, followed by bandwidth, and of course access to service providers.

So, what’s the solution? How can outsourcers better guarantee a successful partnership?

Mahipal Komatreddy, vice president of engineering for Transport Edge, a division of WFS Corp., says the key to forging a successful outsourcing partnership is spelling out in detail exactly what you want and expect. This is especially important to him, since he farms out critical software development to a company in India. He says the advantages are cost, the high-quality skill set and the time difference, since the workers are doing their thing while his staff sleeps.
But, he adds, “Don’t give work outside unless you know what it is and how long it takes.”

Then, write detailed business requirements, functional requirements and architectural requirements. “We take a lot of pains to spell out what we want,” he stresses. Komatreddy’s staff then does all of the testing in-house.

Al Garcia, the vice president of information technology at Comac Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boston-based Iron Mountain, says the buyer and seller must treat the relationship like a marriage. This means each party must choose a partner they respect and with whom they share similar values. And make sure you and your partner understand that the goal is for both parties to make a profit. “Divorces are ugly,” he warns.

Adds Komatreddy: “Make sure you establish the working relationship with the vendor. Communicate on a daily basis. Communication, communication, communication.”