Exactly. The point is that whether you outsource or not, the deal is with BA. If BA have screwed up their vendor management, then it is for BA to deal with the situation. The customer should not have to be in a situation to even be aware there's any outsourcing, the product they have purchased is from BA, not from someone else.

A case of lazy, incompetent and Teflon-shouldered vendor management. It was already a risky thing to use third parties in this way offloading direct day to day customer interface, and now to have BS publicly respond directly in this way seems bizarre.

It used to be the mantra from the outsourcery brigade that offloading your non-core services was good, allowing you to concentrate on your day to day core business, on the service or goods that you're selling to your customers. All well and good. But whether the lounge catering is a core part of your business is contentious: I would strongly suggest that due to the direct liaison between the third party and BA's customers, that it probably oversteps the mark.

The way this is going would suggest it ain't going to end well. BA will have a contract with BS that will be very hard to break without serious financial and reputational consequences, much of the financials going to lawyers who won't be dining out in the CCR that's for sure. So there will be little appetite (did you see what I did there?) to break it. Any changes to the contract will be resisted as you can guarantee that the tender process was appraised primarily on price and not on quality.

While I can imagine there being some interesting conversations at a high level between BA and BS sans tea and biscuits, I don't expect anything much to change on the slop front. After all, they've already had months to do something tangible and failed.

In other news, the lawyers, accountants and MBAs working on the outsourcing contract with BS are long gone, and after many hours of self-indulgent back slapping, are enjoying their rich pickings and bonus cheques from a job well done. They'll be well into the next money-for-old-rope outsourcing project, and you can bet a reference to the DM article won't be on their CVs.