Control of Business Process Outsourcing Relationships

The better service levels and cost-savings have made business process outsourcing (BPO) one of the fastest-growing business practices. The greatest challenge of BPO is of ‘control’. Managers are accustomed to having direct control over the resources to deliver the results for which they are accountable. With BPO, these controls are in the hands of the provider. How the control issue is handled can mean the difference between adequate results and high performing outsourcing that delivers beyond expectations. This paper explores ‘how’ control modes are implemented during business process outsourcing relationships and investigates ‘why’ stakeholders implement particular combinations of control modes.