ABSTRACT
For better or worse, telecommunications outsourcing decisions affect an organization’s level of service, costs, and innovation for years. Few business trends have had as much starkly contradictory press. For example, outsourcing has been praised for delivering:
• Lower costs • Faster ramp-up times for projects • Higher levels of expertise • Enhanced career paths for technically oriented individuals who have
“no place to go” in an organization whose business mission has nothing to do with telecommunications
Alternatively, outsourcing has been vilified as the agent of:
• Higher costs • Resistance to change (maintain
status quo
rather than innovate) • Inadequately trained technical staff (training cuts the service provid-
er’s bottom line) • Indifference to the customer’s culture (service provider has inflexible
procedures and is not responsive to a dynamic, rapidly changing business environment)
Like any good partnership, the success of outsourcing depends on the culture and technology fit between service provider and customer. The following discussions outline the major factors that should be considered when entering into or renegotiating a telecommunications outsourcing agreement.
