Jolie Newman
Jolie Newman & Associates
+1-407-677-8404
jolie.newman@equaterra.com  
Claude Castracane
Vantage Partners
+1-617-354-6090
NEW SERVICE TO HELP GLOBAL 2000 COMPANIES MANAGE OUTSOURCING RELATIONSHIPS
HOUSTON and BOSTON (October 7, 2003) — EquaTerra, the world’s first Sourcing Lifecycle Management™ company, and Vantage Partners, the foremost organization helping corporations negotiate and manage complex business relationships, today announced the ground breaking Outsourcing Relationship Management (ORM) Diagnostic, an assessment service offering. The Diagnostic was developed in recognition of the difficulties that outsourcing buyers face managing their sourcing agreements and overall portfolio of sourced products and services. The Diagnostic is designed to uncover key relationship management challenges related to organizational design and effectiveness, relationship alignment, and the efficacy of processes, skill sets, resource deployment, and decision rights.
According to EquaTerra and Vantage Partners, outsourcing buyers who don’t implement an appropriate and effective management operating model risk losing up to 20 percent of the deal’s potential. Said David Karabinos, EquaTerra’s Chief Operating Officer, “The complexity and scope of today’s outsourcing deals make them extremely difficult to manage over a prolonged period of time. Key staff changes, contracting for BPO, market shifts, altered business requirements, evolving technology and many other factors make many outsourcing contracts less meaningful over time. Conducting an ORM Diagnostic periodically during the lifecycle of the transaction helps ensure that deal value is maximized throughout the entire course of the relationship.”
Danny Ertel, a founding partner of Vantage Partners, added, “Prime candidates for the ORM Diagnostic include those companies that are not seeing the expected value from their outsourcing relationship, those that have experienced considerable change in intent or staff turnover during the course of the outsourcing engagement, and those that are getting pushback about outsourcing, or pricing, from their operating divisions. These are all clear signs that something has gone awry in the relationship between the buyer and the provider. The ORM Diagnostic provides outsourcing buyers with a complete assessment of their relationship with their service provider and helps them determine ways to collaboratively fix the problems.”
The ORM Diagnostic assesses not only the “alignment” between the buyer and the service provider, i.e. are the activities of both parties consistent with the business intent of the outsourcing relationship? It also assesses the entire relationship, across three key dimensions:
Management and Operating Model Evaluation – This diagnostic helps buyers determine if they have the most effective relationship management operating model in place by reviewing service delivery, financial management, contract administration, and governance processes, tools, methods, best practices and skill sets.
Contract Benchmark – With this diagnostic, buyers are better able to evaluate if their deal continues to be competitive. It helps answer questions such as: Is the financial agreement in line with current market pricing?; Are budgets and investments below or above the norm?; Are the service level agreements (SLAs) comparable to market standards?; Is the anticipated ROI falling below, meeting or exceeding that of similar agreements?, and; Does my current contract have the flexibility to allow for necessary scope changes over the lifecycle of the deal?
Relationship Alignment Analysis – This component of EquaTerra’s and Vantage Partners’ ORM Diagnostic is the most efficient and comprehensive alignment assessment in the market today. Here, the Diagnostic examines the current state of expectation alignment, objectives and behaviors between key stakeholder groups within both the buyer and service provider organizations. It helps determine if the sponsoring executives from both organizations have aligned intentions and strategic objectives; whether or not operational priorities are aligned between the client’s sponsoring executives and operating staff; and whether the client relationship managers and service provider account managers have similar priorities and expectations.
The ORM Diagnostic is part of an exclusive joint venture between EquaTerra and Vantage Partners to develop the industry’s only comprehensive solution for effectively and systematically managing relationships with outsourcing service providers. NexGenRM, announced in July 2003, is their joint offering to implement for outsourcing buyers an operating model essential to successfully manage multiple service delivery relationships. NexGenRM helps clients put in place an effective relationship management process in a fraction of the time and cost it would take for an organization to develop its own operating model and processes, and equip its staff with the necessary tools and skills to successfully execute against its operating model.

About EquaTerra
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, EquaTerra, the first Sourcing Lifecycle Management™ company, helps its clients achieve maximum value from their outsourcing relationships. The firm offers four distinct service lines that align with each client’s unique requirements: Knowledge & Education, Assessments & Planning, Outsource & Insource and Relationship Management. For more information, please go to: www.equaterra.com.

About Vantage Partners
Vantage Partners helps the world's leading companies to effectively negotiate, build and manage their most critical relationships. A spin-off of the Harvard Negotiation Project, Vantage brings over twenty years of research and hands-on experience consulting to Alliance, Sales, and Sourcing & Procurement groups in a wide range of industries throughout the world. Vantage authored publications include best selling management books such as Getting to Yes and Difficult Conversations, along with articles in management periodicals such as the Harvard Business Review and Sloan Management Review. For more information, please go to: www.vantagepartners.com