Last week, we’ve joined the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP), the global, standard-setting organization and advocate for the outsourcing profession.

IAOP helps companies increase their outsourcing success rate, improve their outsourcing ROI and expand the opportunities for outsourcing across their businesses.

We all want the same thing basically – better outsourcing relationships.

In addition, our VP of products and marketing, Jim Cyb, was selected as a member of the Executive Advisory Committee for IAOP’s Tools & Technologies Innovation Chapter. The idea is to facilitate and share best practices with IAOP members on topics such as how to use tools and technologies to optimize performance in outsourcing relationships.

Matt Shocklee, IAOP Global Ambassador, said that “Blazent is joining the IAOP community at a time when governance in outsourcing has become recognized as a key ingredient to achieving stakeholders’ business value. Blazent has been an extremely successful solutions provider for IT outsourcers and the IAOP community will benefit from their experience.”

We couldn’t agree more. More than ever before, it is now widely recognized that outsourcing relationships must be governed to be successful. Defined expectations and constantly verified performance are a must, not a “nice to have.” Without them, outsourcing relationships become strained, as both sides are unsure that they are being treated fairly by the other side.

Visibility in outsourcing relationships is extremely important, both to the service providers and to their customers. Becoming a member of IAOP, where  service providers and end-user customers come together, is very much in line with Blazent’s vision to provide all sides of the outsourcing relationship with a single, shared version of the truth.

For a real-life example of the impact governance can have on a strained infrastructure outsourcing relationship, check out this webinar, hosted by the IAOP.