Smarter Outsourcing: An executive guide to understanding, planning and exploiting successful outsourcing relationships

. . . and not overselling it

Deal-damaging drift can also occur on the supplier’s side. One old trick that is now widely discredited – but that is still attempted by some providers – is where the supplier’s sales team goes in and wins agreement in principle by overselling the deal in terms of its costs and benefits. They then leave it to their own negotiating and legal teams to backtrack on those promises and win back concessions.

This is not only an unethical way to conduct any business deal, forming a poor starting point for any long-term relationship based on mutual trust. It is also an approach that will delay the transaction, probably by several months – representing time during which the supplier is not receiving the revenue from the outsourcing ...