A case study of success factors in outsourcing partnership formation and management

Different kinds of collaboration modes between companies are becoming a mainstream practice. One of such modes is an outsourcing partnership where one company transfers part of its business to another company and after that the companies continue collaboration in a partnership mode. This research focuses on such kind of relationships and factors that affect the successful outcome of the said relationships. Understanding the success factors is crucial for getting the best out of the collaboration and for avoiding the possible difficulties. The relationship success factors found in the literature are presented and discussed. Typical to the previous research is that the success factors are usually seen from only one company point of view in a mature relationship. In this study we present results from an outsourcing partnership case where the relationship success factors were collected from both parties of the relationship, although the results are presented from the customer company viewpoint. The resulting factors are divided in two: the ones concerning the formation phase of the relationship and the ones concerning the mature relationship. The relationship success factors found in this study support the findings from previous research of relationships and also bring forth some new ideas of what kind of factors are needed to take into account in an outsourcing partnership.