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

Using intermediaries for early benchmarking

While perception is a useful tool, as a CEO or board member you are ultimately interested in results – both in absolute terms and relative to those achieved elsewhere. In quantifying these, third-party advisers often have a pivotal role to play.

One of the most important elements of a third-party adviser’s value is the expectation that he or she has been exposed at detailed level to a wide variety of transactions, and is therefore able to provide sound and practicable benchmarking of what is available and achievable in terms of service levels, pricing and governance. This means the adviser’s input can dramatically reduce the level of external and market discovery that the client needs to undertake ahead ...