The Calamity Clients Awards, 2008

Due to popular demand, we're adding an additional category to the 2008 Horses awards for Awful Outsourcing:  "The Calamity Clients".  Yes, it's not always vendors which are responsible for outsourcing calamity – it often takes two to tango, and this is the vendor's chance to counter-punch. 

As there are several well-trodden paths towards calamitous outsourcing, we will be distributing several awards across the following non-specialist areas:

The Multisourcing-mayhem maestro

Did your client get a bit too clever and decide to multi-source to everyone under-the-sun with no idea how to manage the pandemonium?  Then nominate your little multi-source maestro…

Governance-goulash

No idea what they're doing?  They think a service level is a button in the elevator?  Oh dear…

The Bring-it-Back buccaneer

Client trying to bring back half the stuff they tasked you with from day-one… ended up re-hiring half the department?  

HRO-hellraiser

Your HRO client thinks HRO stands for "Hell-Raising Outsourcing"?  Their HR execs spending their entire existence trying to hang you out to dry?  You're not alone…

The Pricing-poker protagonist

Getting squeezed by some CFO who thinks contract negotiation is like procuring a Persian rug?  You suspect he spent his youth pulling off the legs from spiders…one-by-one?  Your margins getting a closer shave than Roger and Tiger combined?    You know what to do….