It was cost cutting time in most companies due to a crash in the financial markets. Big companies were looking at outsourcing operations, technology and other routine jobs to vendor organizations to cut people related costs. While this led to a lot of issues relating to processes not being defined properly, information security and training, companies were going ahead as it was the need of the hour.
Kaushik, who loved to compare everything to Bridge stated the conversation, “Outsourcing is like selecting a Bridge partner. One should not select a vendor but select a business partner and develop a long-term partnership.” Kingo, who always had a different point of view made his point clear – “The need of the hour is cutting costs. Get the cheapest vendor and move on”
Padma and Prabha agreed with Kaushik. We should develop a partnership. Developing a partnership involves understanding all processes, working on problems together and not breaking off on the occurrence of the first issue. A lot of emphasis has to be laid on documentation and training. It will take time to get a partnership going and once everything is streamlined, the results will follow.
Kaushik elaborated, “Padma and myself have always believed in this as partners. We have documented our system with proper version control and discuss every deal where we have had problems and make changes to bidding system, carding or any other play technique as required.” Padma added, “The essence of every good partnership is continuous improvement. If there is proper trust in the partnership that both sides are working to improve the partnership, it will result in positive development.
Prabha, who was silent all along opened up, “Apart from the points mentioned by Padma, there has to be mutual respect for each other. Organizations have to respect their vendors for their skills and share their plans so that partners can ramp up resources based on the plan. Mutual respect automatically builds trust resulting in good partnership”
Kingo was keen that both people in a Bridge partnership or in a vendor partnership must enjoy playing working together. This is the most critical aspect of any relationship. Once the joy of working together Is confirmed, everything else will fall in place
Tailpiece. Goofy was intently listening to the talk and we believe in supporting each other. If one of us starts barking, all of us start barking. I had a wry smile at this comment.
