Author: The Information Badger

Clients always want more and more for less money. Who doesn’t!

In an era of globalisation, social media, automation, speedy technological developments and fragile economics, this is certainly not going away anytime soon. Indeed, the need for enterprises to be modern, efficient and ‘digital’ is more profound than it’s ever been. Comfortable but cumbersome business processes and ways of delivering services to customers are being rattled to the core, not least by millennials who’ve grown up with technology at their fingertips and expect services to be available anytime, anywhere, any place….and immediately. Change is happening at pace, and earlier this week, triggered by comment from a friend and Capita’s recent well-publicised difficulties, the Badger wondered if outsourcing is now ‘old-fashioned’ and thus ripe for overhaul as a concept.

Over the last couple of decades many organisations have used outsourcing to reduce costs, increase operational efficiency and improve service quality. Service providers bent over backwards to help and rubbed their hands with glee given the multi-year nature of the contracts. However, outsourcing is now a mature concept and service providers face the same challenges as their clients plus the need to deliver the profits they expected. The Badger’s experience has been that modest, compact and focused outsources are more successful for the client and the service provider than major, wide-ranging, and often transformational ones with big headline contract values. These days there’s a view that many outsource service providers struggle to achieve their financial objectives from the latter, and Capita’s recent difficulties – and Serco’s before that – certainly provides some support for this view.

So, is outsourcing an ‘old-fashioned’ concept? No. Like all concepts it has its place. It isn’t, however, the panacea it was once often perceived to be, or indeed the gravy train that service providers expected. With digitisation, artificial intelligence, speedy technological developments, and IT commoditisation, the concept of outsourcing is now seeing more pressure with some client organisations consciously taking services back under their own direct control. Recent events with Capita (and Carillion) seem to have raised the scepticism and scrutiny of politicians, government authorities, stock market analysts, and the media. Scepticism that ‘all is what it seems’ with companies with a large portfolio of major outsource contracts is common. Any company with major outsource contracts can, regardless of the merits or otherwise, therefore find itself appearing in gossip circles as the next potential Capita!

The Badger’s nose is twitching. Why? Because ‘Things are never what they seem to be’. Outsourcing is under pressure and it seems unlikely that we’ve heard the last of wobbles on major outsource contracts.

The Badger, like many, has been following TSB’s recent very public IT difficulties in moving from the Lloyd’s banking systems to new banking platforms that have their roots in TSB’s parent, Banco Sabadell of Spain. The reasons and economics for the move are well documented in the media, and a quick Google will provide you with all the background. TSB told its customers well in advance that its banking systems would be out of action for a weekend for the move to happen. When the Badger heard this, there was a big twitch of the nose and a surge in the Badger’s business and IT delivery instincts!

Right from the early planning stage there was never any doubt that this was going to be a large, complex and business critical endeavour that must be a success for TSB. Well, to say the move has been calamitous is an understatement! It’s been an expensive mess and a public relations and customer service disaster. Almost two weeks after the migration the bank is still struggling to regularise its services, and TSB executives have been called to explain what’s happened to a parliamentary committee.

The media is, of course, full of commentary on what went wrong, with lots of the normal ‘an insider says’ snippets. If you’ve worked in IT you’ll already relate to snippets like ‘inadequate testing’, ‘architecture of the new platform not up to it’ and so on. You’ll also know that technical staff in IT often work their socks off and go well beyond the call of duty when it comes to these types of move. The Badger’s nose didn’t twitch because of the inevitable technical and data complexities of the migration. It twitched because moves of this business significance require extremely high levels of confidence in a) business and IT readiness, b) the approach to handling failure, and c) enhanced post-live customer service mechanisms before taking the formal ‘Go’ decision. An enterprise’s business imperatives can often get in the way of objectivity and create a climate and momentum where no one wants to say they aren’t ready.

The Badger has seen many formal ‘Go-live readiness processes’ that haven’t been as business and IT comprehensive, rigorous, or evidentially based as they should be. If the readiness and decision-making process and the associated internal climate  were flawed – and events certainly raise questions in this respect – then there’s likely to have been a wide-ranging leadership and judgement failure at multiple corporate, business, service and IT levels within TSB and Banco Sabadell regardless of specific IT technical issues.  Time will tell, but no doubt TSB’s move from Lloyds will become a case study on MBA courses in due course. And in case you’re wondering…the Badger is not a TSB customer!

Have you ever reflected on the path of your career and realised that in your formative years someone senior not only saw capabilities in you that you didn’t know you had, but also provided an opportunity for those capabilities to blossom that you did not expect? Have those capabilities been the bedrock of your working life and personal development ever since? If you can relate positively to these questions, then you’re likely to have experienced some success in your chosen career. Why? Because at a formative point early in your career you overcame your trepidation and fear of failure to take the opportunity that presented itself, and you’re likely to have retained that ‘I’ve never done that before, but I’ll give it a go’ attitude ever since.

The Information Badger’s formative point was at a photocopier producing handouts for a presentation. The company CEO, who the Badger had met a few times in meetings, walked by, said hello, then paused and enquired about the Badger’s current assignment. After being told the CEO grinned broadly and said the Badger’s talents were better suited to a leadership role on a major project widely known to be in severe difficulty. The Badger had no previous relevant experience, was somewhat taken aback, and cautiously voiced some concern about failing. The CEO chuckled and just said:

‘My dear boy, we are all frightened of failure, but just think how good you and the rest of us will feel if you succeed’.

The Badger joined the failing project the next day – in at the deep end with responsibility, accountability and authority never previously held. The Badger didn’t look back! The capabilities the CEO saw, and the Badger had no self-awareness of, blossomed generating great personal satisfaction, real career direction and benefits for the company.

The CEO’s words are remembered to this day. Why? Because they’re founded on insight, experience, and an understanding of what makes people tick. The latter is key because everyone has protective ‘I’ve never done that before and I can’t do it’ psychological wiring as a first response. Everyone has an inner fear of failure. If you’re able to recognise and overcome this, then you’re likely to ultimately maximise your personal and career success.

Everyone is different, of course, and success comes in many forms, but if you’re presented with something that’s out of your comfort zone then just remember that you’re wired to think you can’t do it! Parents often use the saying ‘There’s no such word as can’t, try!’ with their young children. Always strive to use this mantra as the starting point for your thought processes when presented with an opportunity beyond your comfort zone or experience. Remember…you’ll never really know your own capabilities, even if others can see them, unless you overcome your fears.