Working Effectively With Applications Outsourcers

Even though their overall satisfaction levels are high, clients' satisfaction with individual aspects of applications outsourcing providers' performance vary, according to an analysis of client reference interviews conducted during our Q1 2007 Forrester Wave™ evaluation of North American applications outsourcing. Many clients remain frustrated by mismatched expectations about how and when suppliers will bring value to the relationship. In particular, they view suppliers as being too passive — clients felt that they had to push the outsourcers into providing improvements. Outsourcing clients can learn from these references and adopt an active oversight to counteract this inherent passivity. But they must be prepared to work extra hard to overcome the inherent weaknesses of outsourcing suppliers.