Successful offshoring requires tightly integrated joint-teams that blend Customer/supplier, onshore/offshore as one seamless unit. If you’re already working with Arrk we should have at least drilled this into you by now! Nevertheless, one of the problems we often experience is Customers who have a real hang-up about the need to maintain an arms-length, competitive relationship with their suppliers. Although this attitude almost always rears its ugly head when the procurement or legal teams get involved, for some companies this anti-collaborative culture seems ubiquitous. We believe that such companies will find it very difficult to gain optimal value from offshoring.

Let us be clear. It is not that we don’t think that crystal-clear roles and responsibilities, detailed fact-based reporting and management and regular service quality reviews are important – quite the opposite. They are essential for healthy joint-teams.

The problem occurs when ill-conceived contracts set in an uncooperative, untrusting environment start to drive behaviours and attitudes amongst both Customer and suppliers teams. Goals start to deviate and people take sides, as individual organisations start to manage their individual commercial risk. Joint goals evaporate and the focus shifts from collaborative working to the taking of positions.

Not only does this damage relationships, knowledge management and productivity but it will also create a culture that will stifle creativity and innovation. Most creativity and ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking requires people to take individual or corporate risk. In an environment where there is a background context of adversarial risk management people simply clam up. As an aside it is our view that this culture, unfortunately only too prevalent in large mature UK companies, is a major source of competitive disadvantage for those businesses that suffer from it.