It’s not enough to set a series of standard service level agreement (SLAs) for your outsourcer and hope for the best, according to Forum members who met recently to share each other’s approaches to data centre management and outsourcing.

Relationships with outsourced suppliers - especially those based offshore - must be very ‘hands on’ with IT chiefs literally going the extra mile to make sure relationships are maintained. Participants all agreed that regular visits, teleconferences and calls all go towards forging better links with partners based abroad. IT directors also made it clear that outsourced partners need to feel ‘part of the brand’ and that it is important to communicate a company’s culture, value-set and personality to make foreign workers feel connected and engaged.

Explaining some of the tactics used to build supplier relationships, one IT chief from a major retailer said: “You can’t just give an outsourcer a set of SLAs and expect them to get on with it. You have to be prepared to physically show them your business, take them round your warehouses and take them onto your shop floors. We deal in perishable products and seeing the products helps the outsourcer understand what impact they can have on time-to-market. The better they understand your business the better service you receive.”

Forum members can download the full report from this meeting here.