Now it’s one thing to use “mature” to indicate experience.  A couple of months ago I quoted a client who referred to himself and his peers “growing up” as sourcing practitioners.  However, the word can also imply stasis, or as my dictionary defines it, “Having reached full natural growth or development.”  I have a problem with applying this definition to the global sourcing market.  

In the early days of “offshore outsourcing” the focus was on reducing labor costs.  Nearly twenty years have gone by, however, and many companies still approach it in the same way.  These companies are mature in the sense that they’re good at reducing headcount and leveraging offshore labor rates.  But, their thinking about global sourcing has hardly matured at all.

The clients I work with, on the other hand, have moved or are in the process of moving beyond this ostensibly mature phase of development.  For example, a client I’ve known for four years recently took the number two position in the IS organization of a Fortune 500 company. 

This person has been involved in global sourcing for more than a decade.  His new company, too, has long experience in outsourcing, and by all accounts has done well at leveraging offshore labor rates.  Using the accepted definition one could stay that both have reached a high level of sourcing maturity.  But that’s not how he sees things.

As part of his new role the client inherited a large well established vendor management group, which is another indicator of sourcing maturity.  However, his view of the group was that it was stuck in a procurement mind-set – IT labor as offices supplies. 

As he puts it, some of the staff members were “paper pushers” who lacked the necessary skills for what he has in mind.  That is, to reduce the current number of vendors and create strategic partnerships with a small but select group of Tier-1 companies with deep industry experience.

To this end he is eliminating positions, hiring new staff, and introducing vendor management training.  He’s looking to develop individuals with an understanding of technology and how it applies to the business.  Above all he wants people who can manage relationships, and he’s creating a career path for them in the process.

Interestingly, in moving the global sourcing model forward he understands that higher costs are part of the equation – “…so that vendor partners can meet their margin goals.”  He is also exploring risk/reward opportunities – initiatives where there is measurable impact on the bottom line.

The point of all this is that here is an “experienced” outsourcing practitioner who is redefining what it means to be “mature” in the best sense of the word, i.e., experience.  As one matures one learns, as one learns one gets better at what one does, and so it goes.  There is no end state, instead there is continuous evolution.

Being at an age where maturity often means that things start going downhill, I prefer this definition.