10Apr 07
Benefits of offshoring to New Zealand
Posted by Steven Deare @ 13:43 4 comments
Ever outsourced to a vendor with fantastic technical capability, but major management issues?
That's the case for National Transport Insurance chief information officer Martin Moore. He provided an interesting reference for services vendor RHE & Associates -- National Transport Insurance's outsourcing partner -- at a conference recently with these comments:
"This company we're working with, fantastic technical people. Smart as white rats. They're fantastic. They really know their stuff. Really bright, fantastic guys."
RHE was also a good "cultural fit" for his company, according to Moore.
"Still, their management team, couldn't manage a pig to get dirty," he told participants at the event.
It seems the problem, according to Moore, is RHE has no consistent process to support staff who take on management roles.
National Transport Insurance had been forced to over-compensate for these failings by bringing on its own management staff prior to dealings with RHE.
In the same presentation, Moore revealed National Transport Insurance initially awarded RHE Australia an outsourcing contract, only later to learn the vendor had "insufficient capability".
National Transport Insurance then informed RHE the end was near but that spurred some quick-thinking from the latter -- RHE New Zealand, it turned out, did have the required capability. The vendor then convinced National Transport Insurance that its Kiwi arm could do the job, and the deal was thus transferred across the Tasman. A classic case of offshoring.
Perhaps RHE New Zealand could give its Aussie cousins a tip or two on managing upwards, sideways etc.
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I'd like to know if this is an NZ parent or not. I have noticed a pattern of NZ service providers opening a presence in Australia and failing miserably. In three instances, the NZ parent has taken over operations to save the business. In all cases, there were brilliant technical people during the sales cycle followed by sub standard delivery and no Management capbility.