Managing Your Outsourced IT Services Provider: How to Unleash the Full Potential of Your Global Workforce

CHAPTER 4

The Operational Parameters of IT Service Providers

For a business to survive, growth is an imperative, not an option. Nearly all IT SPOs have a common thread that binds them together and makes them different from companies producing material goods: they sell services. These services have the following characteristics:

• They are always designed to fit a broader customer base and are tailored for customers based on their individual needs.
• Most services rely on human resources, which means that, in the majority of cases, customers buy skills and competency resources from the IT SPO.

The idea that companies must always value their customers has become so common that managers, especially in IT SPOs, rarely question it. Nevertheless, those ...