As the delta widens, customers' blood begins to boil. Companies that outsource are often unpleasantly surprised to find that their vendor isn't working on their projects-somebody else is. Customers complain that vendors aren't upfront about this and that subcontractors, unfamiliar with contract provisions and customer expectations, don't always deliver the required service in the expected way. One safeguard is to build subcontractor approval rights into contracts and to specify that key, mission-critical projects or systems be handled only by the primary vendor. Another key pitfall, and one to which 10-year deals are highly susceptible, is scope shift.
Business needs change from year to year, let alone decade to decade.
It's impossible to anticipate needs several years out when negotiating an agreement. Customers can find themselves butting heads with their vendors a few years into the deal, wishing they had defined change management procedures or built flexibility amendments into the contract. Over the past few years, outsourcing has become a tougher trade to ply. Customers are more sophisticated, demanding flexible contracts, performance penalties, end-user surveys, benchmarking audits and rights to approve or reject vendor personnel and subcontractors. But outsourcing remains a buyer-beware venture for several reasons.