Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

To better understand Europe's maturing outsourcing market, Forrester asked a group of end user companies how satisfied they were with their outsourcing providers. Forrester interviewed 18 client companies in Europe to uncover best practices for driving outsourcing satisfaction. Despite the fact that outsourcers were broadly meeting their clients' service level agreements (SLAs), many respondents described outsourcing relationships as difficult and uncomfortable. We identified two key reasons for the issues separating satisfied and dissatisfied customers: the level of innovation and the flexibility of services that they felt they were being offered. In the less successful relationships, a hard commercial process had often left the vendor with no room to deliver and still remain profitable, or there was a complete mismatch of culture or expectations — in spite of growing recognition of the importance of cultural fit. For both sides, best practices that promote successful outsourcing contracts include understanding how to measure and manage "soft" issues like culture and innovation and building a mutually beneficial relationship that doesn't stand or fall by the letter of the contract.

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