Outcome-based agreements

From pain to mutual gain

In a fast-changing economic climate, organisations need a new style of supplier engagement targeted at successful outcomes and shared benefit.

More than ever, organisations need to squeeze all the value they can from their investments in IT systems and services. For CIOs under pressure to cut costs, it must be tempting to squeeze at least some of those savings from their suppliers. The typically adversarial nature of such contract negotiations may conjure up scenes from Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.

While such battles may be appropriate for some commodity-level contracts, a combative approach can be damaging when it comes to the kind of projects you hope will deliver business goals in a revived fnancial environment.

I’ve been convinced for several years that the key to the success of such strategic contracts is a new kind of engagement – outcome-based agreements (OBAs).

Download the 'Outcome Based Agreements' PDF [163 KB]

David Rosewell leads the value governance practice in business consulting. Based in London, he specialises in getting public and private sector organisations to think about ‘the why’ as well as ‘the what’ to ensure the delivery of successful business outcomes.