Originally Posted by
Howard Long
Welcome, people, to the joys of outsourcing.
Generally, outsourcers promise the world in presales, then the bean counters get involved, the outsourcers are cut to the bone, ergo they deliver the absolute minimum covered by the contract. And if you want anything more you will have to pay though the nose as you can be sure it'll be a fundamental change to the contract requiring renegotiation.
Howard - it seems you are very slightly jauniced by the outsourcing experience!
We outsourced the obvious stuff like cleaning, but also the catering at the main site. I wasn't directly involved in acquiring or managing the service providers, but noted that while the cleaning service needed routine chivvying, catering went more or less smoothly - I think because the staff are more involved (than cleaners) and understand the key performance targets. A major area of change involving provision of "faith-based" menus went through well, I think because a pathway for the introduction of modifications had been discussed and formalised in the original aggreement.
I recognise that BA's catering volumes are very significantly higher than ours, and the airlines requirements are substantially different: but in principle I can't see why an outsourcing process needs to
quite so conflict-ridden as you suggest.
On the other hand, I've been through the T5 Flounge a couple of times in the last weeks and I note quite an increase in plain-clothes badge-wearing management types. Observing..