The Financial Services Specialists

"Now and beyond the current crisis it will be essential for businesses to work with an increasing number of partners and suppliers to secure their futures and deliver on their customer propositions".

Many will argue over the breadth, depth and longevity of the latest financial crisis. Few will argue that fundamental change will be required for the future prosperity of businesses that are fortunate enough to emerge from the recession. For the vast majority of businesses, success is dependent upon a portfolio of strategic partners or suppliers. Management of the ever-increasing portfolio of outsourced services has emerged as the latest core competence for such businesses. Many are considering how best to establish sourcing centres of excellence, to align deals with business strategy as well as embed effective commercial, service and relationship management across the organisation.

To meet the demands of the multi-source challenge we have made a significant investment in "Sourcing Framework" - a systemised model of good/best practice that allows a client to tailor a solution that meets their specific needs. It allows them to embed the organisational: capability, processes, tools and techniques that are required to optimise the management of their portfolio of outsourced services over time.

 

At Bluerock, we believe in efficient and effective client ‘enablement' - equipping our clients with the tools, techniques and expertise to embed essential change as rapidly as is practical. "Sourcing Framework" epitomises this philosophy, allowing clients to control the depth and breadth of deployment, integrating with their own good practices and solutions to maximise the value from investments.

"Sourcing Framework" comprises:

• Deal life-cycle management - an extension of the model promoted by the National Outsourcing Association (NOA). This model was developed by Nigel Roxburgh (Founder Director of the NOA and Bluerock Sourcing Associate Director). The life-cycle defines the critical processes from strategy through implementation, operational management and review for individual deals. At each step in the process, sample standards and templates from our ‘library' can be directly linked to the model, once these have been suitably tailored to meet client-specific requirements.

• Organisational competencies - provides definitions of the critical roles and competencies required by client organisations to effectively manage their portfolio of outsourced services. This model is aligned to the NOA Pathway training programme. This programme enables sourcing staff to receive formal qualifications, from foundation through to sourcing MBA.

• Portfolio management - provides a model of the additional processes and supporting analysis techniques that are required to ensure the alignment of the collective set of outsourced relationships with their business strategy and target operating model.

• Library - to help clients rapidly address gaps to support critical processes and deliverables, we have provided a library of commonly required: document / deliverable templates, standards, tools and techniques to support various aspects of sourcing management.

• Electronic collaborative framework - exploiting the Nimbus Control process modelling system, we are able to offer a real-time operational solution for all of the above that allows client and potentially supplier staff to share and maintain their best practices and performance management information, collaborating in their ongoing development and use.

Bluerock consider the Sourcing Framework addresses a true gap in the market, providing a solution that can be tailored and implemented quickly and cost effectively. By exploiting Sourcing Framework we can provide a solution that is right for an individual client, with options for the way in which this is delivered - including the use of our real-time collaboration environment. Furthermore, if required, clients can choose whether or not to receive good/best practice updates as part of an annual maintenance agreement and service.