Outsourcing Dilemma: The Search for Competitiveness, The

The service provider’s pre-contract risks and concerns

Service providers must also consider the risks involved. Rightly or wrongly they all believe that they take on most of the risk once the functions under consideration become their responsibility. But they are all very much aware that their risk can start very soon after the very first contact with the potential client because they are obliged to put considerable effort into various presentations to the client for which they are unlikely to be paid. They do this preliminary work in the full knowledge that the client is not certain to outsource, and even if it does, the work may go to another provider.

The commercial risks involved in acting as an outsourcing service provider are many and ...