You Don't Have to be Large to be Complex - An IBM Outsourcing Case Study

This study describes an outsourcing deal between a European retail company and IBM. The study describes the retail company's objectives and challenges and the vendor selection process leading to IBM winning the engagement, which was signed in January 2005.

This customer case clearly shows that smaller companies can be as complex as larger organizations, and that service providers often need to deal with the smaller companies in the same manner as they deal with the larger companies. In this case, the ability to offer a complex solution, including partners, and not the least the ability to understand and respond to the client's financial requirements won IBM the deal. In fact, at the end of the day, the financial arrangements probably clinched it.

"Service vendors are often excellent at structuring engagements that will fulfill the technology and business process needs of their clients, but they are less comfortable when it comes to including options for how to construct payment and finance terms that reflect the financial realities of the customer," said Marianne Kolding, associate vice president, European Services. "In a market where everyone is looking for competitive differentiators, it is interesting how often this aspect is overlooked in the engagement process."