In this series we have discussed different techniques for ensuring business engagement from the outset, defining your business case through what it should contain to facing the risks of change, ensuring that the proposed service adopted fits the purpose for organisation and way of working, and how to conduct vendor engagement during the process. This is the final article in the series, and here we will consider how you define the aspects of success to give a maintainable return on investment.

Measuring success: the weakest linkHaving considered all the different complexities of the programme, defined the scope, selected and appointed the supplier, the final focus is evidencing the realisation of the business case post implementation. Surprisingly, this was the second weakest score in our survey for all private sector organisations and the highest for all public sector bodies. This links to the success criteria weakness we highlighted earlier in our survey (as mentioned in our 'How to ensure your scope is fit for purpose' blog) and suggests that more time needs to be spent on determining the measures of success at the outset of the process.

Highlighting this weakness is a challenge to the provider community, to deliver added value in the governance of the services over time by providing you with a view on how they are delivering on the original business case and even enhancing the organisational benefits over time. Our more mature programmes around the world are focused on ensuring an improvement in key business outcomes, which means this type of reporting is expected as a minimum.

The three keys to successI can already hear you saying, 'yes this sounds great, but I don’t have the time to all this series has outlined'. In a perfect world, with infinite time and resources we’d love every client adopted this as their ideal approach. Back to reality and work pressures mean that certain areas inevitably get compromised. As a result we are often asked what we see as key stages in this process that should always be followed regardless of the context, and  three things stand out above all others:

1. Ensuring strong stakeholder engagement with the broadest group possible from the outset in order to understand the varied needs and wants and to maximise the buy in for services once procured.

2. Working with the same group, to define the measures of success (the time, cost, quality and risk measures we defined earlier).

3. Creating extensive supplier engagement to ensure that suppliers understand the first 2 areas in detail and can provide the best possible solution and commercial offering to meet your needs and success measures.

As a provider we are always happy support an organisation’s investigations when they start out, conducting an open and transparent exploration of the options available to them, as we know that the quality of the solution developed will be better for both parties. We look forward to seeing more and more organisations engaging in increasingly flexible procurements practices, and if you would like to evaluate the benefits a well-designed outsourced recruitment programme can deliver for your organisation please do get in touch. We'd be happy to support you to explore your own success criteria before you try a new solution.

AUTHOR

Jon Mannall
EMEA Managing Director and Global Head of Sales, Solutions and Innovation, Hays Talent Solutions
Jonathan is the EMEA Managing Director and Global Head of Sales, Solution and Innovation for Hays Talent Solutions, having joined Hays in 2011. Previous roles held at Hays included Client Director, Service Delivery Director and Head of Sales for the UK. He is now responsible for leading the approach to engaging and securing new clients and to ensuring that the products and services offered by Hays Talent Solutions continue to meet the changing needs of our global, regional and local customers. For more information about Hays Talent Solutions, visit our website. 

Prior to joining Hays, and after completing his Masters in Philosophy and Management, Jon worked in the RPO and MSP sector for 10 years with a range of Financial Services, Public Sector, IT & Telecommunications, and Insurance clients in Sales and Operations Director roles.