While getting answers to these questions is important, even more fundamental questions exist and should be addressed as a company develops it's sourcing strategy including:

• Can benchmarking ever work?
• Can complex, client specific or unique services ever be accurately compared against the market?
• Indeed, why bother at all with benchmarking?

The arguments in favor of contractual benchmarking provisions run something like this. Outsourcing arrangements are typically long-term service agreements based on an exclusive or semi-exclusive service relationship. The market capability and the market price may change significantly during the term, yet the usual competitive market pressures don’t apply due to the exclusivity, so benchmarking is often the only lever which clients can pull to ensure they are not trapped in an out of date arrangement which costs too much and delivers too little.

A good benchmark often identifies specific ‘pain points’ in a client supplier relationship and/or uncovers the ‘root cause’ of known problems while providing detailed information on which to base solutions. Solutions might be as simple as lowering price or adjusting service level metrics if they are found to be inadequate or out of alignment with the market. In other situations, benchmarking might lead to the renegotiation of some or all of the agreement causing pain between the supplier and client. In either event the objective is clear, to drive beneficial change into the relationship and make the deal and contract stronger as a result.

Arguments against the use of contractual benchmarks typically run as follows. Benchmarking clauses are toothless in most cases because properly comparable data is not available with which to make definitive financial or service level assessments – outsourcing service and price is too dependent on the unique characteristics of the client environment, including legacy environments, company-specific processes and policies, and indeed specific contract terms. The proof of this, the skeptics would argue, is that benchmarking provisions have hardly ever been successfully invoked. Indeed, seldom does a commercially competent supplier agree for the findings of benchmarking to trigger any more than a review in any event. If you want to make sure your deal stays up-to-date, say the skeptics do it by keeping the contract term relatively short and give yourself the opportunity to re-tender the services - competition is the only benchmark that counts.

Which view is right? My view is that, on balance, having benchmarking provisions in the contract is better than not having them. Firstly, despite historic shortcomings when used properly they can result in a stronger relationship and contractual agreement between the parties.

Secondly, even if they are seldom used, benchmark clauses act as contractual leverage should the client ever need it. And clients in long-term outsourcing relationships should have all the levers they can available to them to ensure that expected value is in fact delivered over time.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, the capability of benchmarking companies has improved in the last few years. Benchmarking is not the purely financial numbers game that it once was. Traditional cost benchmarking tended to be not very useful in the context of outsourcing deals, where market pricing was the most important measure, because this information could only be obtained through data gathering relating to actual deals, was problematic for traditional benchmarking organizations. But a small new group of specialist outsourcing consultants and benchmarking firms has now emerged with applicable deal-based data which can be applied effectively to outsourcing deals under consideration.

This has made the biggest difference – comparable data on outsourcing deals is now available, and clients should make use of it. If benchmarking can be made to work, then it can deliver real value during the buying and the contract renewal process.

In summary, benchmarking makes more sense today than it has in past years. When used properly, benchmarking clauses do more than provide contractual leverage for clients. Good benchmarks can drive beneficial change into a client’s supplier relationships and contractual agreements.

Business leadership training and executive management training programs which empower leaders and give them tools, techniques and principles for presenting the vitality and inspirational elements of their visions will usually produce more successful leaders.

How can organizational leadership training help you develop vision statements and enable your missions to achieve the most demanding business improvement and executive management goals?

You'll know how effective the visionary modules of your organizational leadership training and development efforts have been when your actions begin to payoff in producing these three fundamental imperatives:

1. You provide your followers with a compelling yet desirable vision of their possibilities which ensure their endeavors will result in achievements of lasting value;
2. You write your envisioned mission in clear, plain language so that your associates are able to run with and carry its meaning forward to others;
3. Your use the vision to indicate an appointed, yet significant time in the future and even though it appears to be delayed in coming, it will eventually become your reality.

Are You Becoming the Visionary Leader Others Need you to be?

"To be or not to be, that is the question." - William Shakespeare

The challenge facing your organizational leadership training program is simply this - your business leadership or executive management training must prepare you to robustly serve the growth needs of your people by:

• Helping them shape their desires, dreams and destinies
• Enabling them to transcend their doubts, fears or anxiety of change,
• Empowering them to achieve the tangible, essential realistic products of the vision

You can best demonstrate your wisdom as well as your visionary leadership skills by physically and psychologically engaging your key partners and stakeholders in the development and expansion of your vision statements.

Your visioning process would involve those important people by employing their intellectual inputs of judgment, knowledge and imagination coupled with the emotional capital of their willingness, commitment and confidence.

Well-designed organizational leadership training courses can transform your latent talents into visionary leadership excellence. Business leadership training workshops or executive management training programs which feature elements of visioning and visionary leadership are worth their weight in gold.

In today's knowledge-driven, global economy, your job title and duties in the workplace compel you to take action within the boundaries of a vision. This means you must be an effective professional leader who delivers 3 outcomes:

1. Do you weave tapestries of creative vision-based patterns [through your idea formation and opportunity-spotting exercises]?
2. How well do you sew and knit together the threads of themes, concepts and principles found within your particular base of knowledge [through mapping, modeling, or organizing the team's journey or group's adventure]?
3. What do you do that connects you to and gets you working with the inner motives, personal values and aspirations of your followers, partners and your stakeholders to forge committed, enthusiastic networks of powerful influence and competencies [through your efforts of coordinating, communicating, directing]?

But the question that still confounds is: "Why is change so hard to effectively and efficiently implement in the work environment?" People can accept changes, like those that arise from a BPM deployment, but most of the time getting change to stick in an organization is only possible after months of pain and agony. Many senior executives will admit that asking their employees to go to the dentist for a root canal without any form of pain killer is easier than obtaining buy-in from their employees when changing processes or procedures.

Why is change so difficult? The answer lies in how people are innately hardwired and how that hardwiring affects how they accept and buy in to that change. How people are hardwired to respond when faced with change can be objectively measured, however, and organizations may use this measurable data to achieve better results.

Aspects of Change

People usually respond to change in different ways based on their personality. In particular, there are four aspects of change that can be adapted to fit the needs of individual employees:

1. Idea acceptance
2. Thought processing
3. Speed of change
4. Amount of information

By taking these areas into consideration, it is possible to design a plan for implementing change that will please everyone in an organization.

1. Idea Acceptance

There are basically two types of ways people will accept the ideas that create change in an organization. Some individuals prefer to hear all of the options available, evaluate them and then decide on the best course of action. Others need to have their thumbprint on ideas to take ownership in them before they can embrace the design of change.

The two perspectives on idea acceptance are a direct function of someone’s personality. Those who do want to hear all the options can be passively resistant to the change agenda if they believe that the agenda is being forced on them without a chance to adequately evaluate all options. Those who need to put their thumbprint on an agenda will be actively aggressive in fighting the change if they do not believe they have a vested interest in how the agenda was created.

Strategy: Create the agenda for change with several options, with a specific timetable for when the ideal option must be decided on. Once the best course of action is decided, allow enough wiggle room in the agenda to allow others to take ownership (thumbprint) on the area for which they have personal responsibility.

2. Thought Processing

People process or synthesize thought either internally or externally. Internal thought processors do best when they have time to internalize ideas and concepts, while external thought processors do best when they can verbally kick issues around.

If an internal thinker has not had the necessary time to absorb and think through a new change agenda, they will be resistant to that change. Conversely, external or verbal thinkers need time to openly discuss the issue to create their level of buy-in. If a new program is being introduced and the verbal thinkers have not had time to discuss the plan openly, resistance will occur because the verbal thinker will feel that they are not being recognized as an important cog in the change machine.

Strategy: Publish the program for change (with the various options) in advance of the meeting so internal thinkers can synthesize this information and come prepared with their best input. Should the agenda change due to new items introduced at the meeting, provide the internal thinkers some time to properly digest this information prior to deciding on a course of action. Verbal thinkers will adjust to new information as it is introduced during a meeting – just as long as they can verbalize the new data.

3. Speed of Change

By their innate nature, some people embrace quick change and thus, enjoy environments that are constantly changing. These are the people who want to juggle many things at the same time and, to some degree, enjoy the pressure of a changing workplace. Others want change introduced in phases so they can completely understand all of the steps involved in the change. These individuals are more likely to process their work in a particular, sequentially driven order because they enjoy having a plan and following every step of that plan.

Jugglers like the idea of change because it introduces an element of unpredictability into their workplace. They do not need to know all of the steps involved in the plan – just the basics of what the plan involves and how fast the change can be implemented. Those who are more sequentially wired like knowing the plan, all steps of the plan and being able to follow that plan as it is laid out. They thrive on the predictability of their environment. When change is introduced quickly, without time for them to digest and follow the plan, push-back will occur; they will do things in the manner they are most accustomed to and fight the new way or the change being introduced.

Strategy: Change can be implemented within an organization that takes into consideration both factors mentioned above. After the ideal plan of action has been developed, it should be introduced in stages. Phased-in change will allow those who want time to adjust and follow the plan to prepare for the change. This approach will actually create faster change within the organization as well (satisfying those who want it now). It will be faster because it will reduce the amount of push-back created by those who want to follow the plan by reducing the amount of pressure they feel during the change process.

4. Amount of Information Needed to Accept Change

The last factor to consider in change is how much information a person needs to be comfortable with the new way of doing work within the organization. Some people simply want the critical highlights of information. They are comfortable with the executive summary outlining the important points of information – just the basics. Others want a good degree of proven information and data as to why the change is being introduced, why it is necessary, and who the subject matter experts are to support the reasoning for why the change is needed and should be implemented.

Strategy: Provide the outline for the new program as an executive summary. Under each of the critical points, explain the reason why the change makes sense for the organization. Also, outline the pros and cons of the change; this will show that all aspects of the new program have been evaluated. That simple format will provide the information people desire to buy in effectively to the change the organization seeks.

Meet All Needs

All people will accept change. Catering to the needs of each member of an organization by meeting their needs for accepting and buying-in to the change – based on their unique hardwiring – will allow for change to be introduced, accepted and implemented in the shortest time possible. By understanding how people are hardwired, every organization can accomplish change, without all of the usual accompanying headaches.