Getting the Best Deal from Outsourcing

I really wanted to understand why and how something like this could happen, and after interviewing our negotiation team, I found the answer was that they basically ran out of time to work out these details because the contract had to be inked in a certain timeframe. But because they didn't prioritize their outsourcing objectives early and often during the negotiation process, they lost focus on what was really important. When they ran out of time on the negotiation, lower priority elements received the same focus as the high priority elements. You are evaluating vendors, and it seems all is progressing nicely; you have developed scope, service level agreements, and the request for proposal is out the door. Now, let me implore you to stop for a moment. This is where the proverbial rubber meets the road. You are about to negotiate the actual final agreement with a selected provider and now is the time to pause and think about how the relationship will really work when the contract ink dries.