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Special Report: APAC first," he said. He added a warning: "Some service providers are very good at flying in and flying out—you want to see the delivery team, not just the sales team." His comments were echoed by Eden Britt, head of talent acquisition for consumer banking at Standard Chartered Bank, who pointed out that in APAC most providers do not actually provide full coverage of the region. "My advice is that the implementation team needs to be very strong, but there is still a lot of risk depending on who you get and how that works out," Britt said. Kylie Baullo, senior director at ADP, suggested one way of double- checking on the delivery team was to go onsite to see how the service would actually be delivered, while Clark stressed the importance of allocating a budget to the actual process of managing the engagement. "You cannot outsource accountability," Baullo said, adding that his company usually advises clients to allocate between 8 percent and 12 percent of the contract value for governance. "The deals that we've seen where people have been successful and that have really driven benefits are those done by organisations that really invested in a strong governance team. That might not necessarily mean using the people who did that well before, because managing an external service provider is different from managing an in-house team. You need to have people that have a different mindset, people that are used to managing more output rather than input." That governance model helps build trust, added Baullo. "I think when you are looking at local, regional, and global projects that you are rolling out, it's very easy to lose sight and get focussed on the day-to-day and not build that relationship. Successful outsourcing arrangements that I've worked with are those focussing heavily on that trust at each level of the organisation." Getting the buy-in of the new HRO program on the ground is extremely important for the program to be rolled out successfully, as best practices in the United States or European Union cannot just be "imported" into China or India. "Organisations that have been successful in rolling out global HRO, have also looked at how that feels to the countries and ensured that the information and knowledge sharing that goes from the global head office through to the region and the countries themselves is very open, at multiple levels of the organisation, and is frequently updated. The depth and openness of the communication strategy is one of the key success factors I've seen," Baullo explained. To start implementing an outsourcing rollout, she suggested, providers and practitioners should focus on a country that has a willingness to change. "You can spend a lot of time trying to get that internal buy-in, but it's very difficult to have other countries follow if you start with your most difficult country," she explained. Britt also favored a phased approach, rather than going in with "a big bang," pointing out that the HR department will need case studies demonstrating where visible differences have been achieved, which it can then use as success stories to get further buy-in. From selecting the right outsourcing partner to keeping the "romance" alive and avoiding "lovers' quarrels," HRO deals have often been compared to long-term marriages, where both sides need to be willing to make adjustments. "Like a marriage, you need to not let the romance out of your relationship. You're signing a contract and divorce could be expensive if it doesn't work, so you have to figure out how to make it work," said Mary Sue Rogers, general manager of global HR, learning, and recruiting at IBM. "But like all marriages, sometimes things can get stale," she added. "A lesson learned from both of us, IBM and Avon [see page 35 for more], we were done with all the transitions, in steady state operations, we were hitting all the service level targets, all the ticks in the boxes were good, but there was a general 'not happy' feeling. We needed to pay more attention to that feeling on both sides. "Two or three years into the relationship there needs to be new investment on both sides. It doesn't necessarily mean money, but it means time, energy, and passion to be able to keep things on the right scale." Clark pointed out that Asia offers its own challenges to HRO providers. Some organizations find it very difficult to loosen control, especially in Asia, he said, adding, "they still like to micro-manage the service provider. "As a result, these types of organizations find it very hard to realize the true benefits of an outsourcing provider," he said. Abby Loy, executive director of Taylor's Education Group, which has been outsourcing with Talent2, added that to succeed, vendors need to provide more Asia-centric services based on the region's requirements. Although that could be said of any engagement, it hold particularly true when vendors from the west go east. SUMMER 2011 | www.hroglobal.com [9]

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