The increasingly globalised and competitive business environment means that companies are looking for new ways to improve cost efficiency and leverage global opportunities.
Arrk is a leading provider of outsourcing services, particularly those involving global sourcing and offshore relocation, and has developed a set of tools and techniques to help customers evaluate and assess the opportunity and risks.
Arrk consultants will work with organisations to develop a thorough assessment of the potential for global sourcing, considering for example; costs and benefits, risks, process changes, cultural differences, implementation planning and internal change management issues.
Using a series of facilitated workshops and interviews, Arrk consultants will undertake an opportunity assessment and risk analysis for each functional area under consideration. The final output will be a strategic report, which will indicate the scale of the opportunity and provide recommended next steps. This is often used as the basis for a business case.
Many companies opt to conduct their entire vendor selection process using internal staff, basically because this is seen as a low cost option - in reality the opposite is true. Whilst the opportunity for reducing costs by global sourcing is often large so too is the risk if the outsourcing process fails.
Arrk consultants supplement their niche skills and experience in offshore management with a powerful toolset and methodology. This covers activities like vendor pre-qualification, preparation of ITTs, evaluation of ITT responses and conducting offshore due-diligence activities. This latter activity encompasses operational and financial matters and utilises consultants from Arrk UK and Arrk India working side by side with the customer.
Following vendor selection Arrk assists customers with contract negotiations. If conducted well and shrewdly it will provide a foundation for a long-term mutually beneficial working partnership; conducted poorly and inadequately it will ensure that the relationship quickly runs into difficulties, and may end badly.
Finally, Arrk's practical experience in delivering pilot projects and bringing customers and vendors together will ultimately bring huge benefits to this phase. Arrk will set the foundations for the relationship beyond the pilot exercise, plus proactively undertake skills transfer so that our customers build the necessary internal expertise.
Establishing the right sourcing strategy and selecting the right vendor(s) is only part of the equation. Managing global outsourcing relationships is complex and difficult. It requires not only a solid understanding of the issues but also the experience and judgement to apply that knowledge effectively.
At Arrk we believe that the value realised from any offshore outsourcing relationship will be determined by the way in which the three core vendor management threads of service quality, cost and risk are executed. Areas to be addressed include for example: performance (KPI) management, relationship governance, knowledge management, protection of IPR, data protection and exit strategies.