Sourcing Responsibility Assessment Tool

At Forrester, we see a lot of focus on the standardization of application and infrastructure service outsourcing agreements, particularly related to service-level agreements (SLAs), contract terms and conditions, and pricing model definitions. Yet when we look at the details — especially at responsibilities for the service delivery and management processes — there is still a wide variety of approaches. Service responsibilities are comprehensively defined with regard to service scope description and obligations for most service outsourcing contracts, while process responsibilities are often incomplete, totally missing, or are defined after the fact. Sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals should ensure that clients have a clear vision about both service and process responsibilities in their outsourcing engagements. This assessment helps to identify the right service responsibilities based on the internal capabilities and the business and strategic importance of the services, functions, and processes, which are important in an outsourcing relationship. For an in-depth discussion about outsourcing relationship responsibilities, see the "Identify The Right Responsibilities For Your Outsourcing Relationship" report.