Focus and communication key to outsourcing success

Businesses want ideas, innovation and trust from outsourcing providers

A new report on outsourcing argues that successful providers deliver a focused portfolio of services, and engage with clients to help them develop innovative solutions.

The two traits achieved the best client satisfaction scores in a study of 500 outsourcing contracts in the UK undertaken by business advisory firm EquaTerra. The contracts were held by over 160 of the top IT spending organisations.

The total annual value of the contracts included in the study was in excess of £10bn, and accounted for two-thirds of the total UK outsourcing market in terms of annual contract value.

All commercial sectors were represented in the study, as was the public sector, including both central and local government organisations.

"End users are now looking for IT partners that will advise, push back with ideas and innovate," said Martyn Hart, chairman of the National Outsourcing Association.

"As IT continues to become more central to businesses operations, those suppliers that can offer a higher-value service will see increasing success."

The study highlighted Capgemini, Cognizant and Computacenter as the three providers that satisfied their customers the most, while the most disappointing services were provided by HP's EDS, Verizon Business and CSC.

Other important performance indicators for customers include service, price and flexibility.

Indian providers fared much less well than they did last year. The top five rated providers for customer satisfaction in the 2008 edition of the study included four Indian and only one European company. This year, four of the top five rated providers are European, while just one is Indian.