Alsbridge Reveals How Wisdom of Your Line Managers Can Save Your Bacon

Alsbridge’s insights on sourcing it right the first time

Award winning benchmarking, sourcing and transformation advisory firm, Alsbridge, Inc., today released a report “The Wisdom of Your Line Managers Can Save Your Bacon,” which emphasizes how line managers’ wisdom can make the difference between success and failure when heading out into the brave new world of sourcing or M&A.  

“Mergers and acquisitions, sourcing for services and product maintenance – all are viable means of advancing the company strategy faster and with broadened expertise,” says Ben Trowbridge, Chairman and CEO, Alsbridge Inc. “However you choose to engage partners for core or commodity services, do yourself a favor and engage the levels of your employee base who know those operations best.”

Even if an executive leader came through the operational ranks to reach their esteemed position, they must realize that they are no longer in touch with the challenges and success factors associated with those operations.  Analysis and recommendations on how to sustain, improve or innovate business operations are best left to the line managers and subject matter experts who live them every day.

Executive leadership is in place to maintain a cross-company perspective, and with consideration of shareholders, committed financial performance, the marketplace, industry trends, etc.; to set the direction for the company’s future success.  They cannot and should not relinquish any portion of that responsibility to a consensus driven decision making process because lower level management will never have the 50,000 foot view necessary to make the tough calls.  In the same vein; however, the executive levels will never have the 500 foot view that reveals operational roadblocks, work arounds, improvement opportunities and people issues that affect every change program at that level. 

Commercial history bears out the premise that innovation, quality, process efficiency and thus, cost reduction ideation is best generated at the middle management level and below; analyzed in many well-known books and journals on the subject.  The rationalization of those ideas and determination of funding sources for the winners is best carried out at the senior management or executive levels.  When considering engaging a partner as a process improvement or transformation strategy, trust the professional talent available to you and pull expertise from deep in the organization to gather perspectives before making a commitment. 

For further details on how your line managers can help you source it right the first time, download the complete report The Wisdom of Your Line Managers Can SaveYour Bacon.

About Alsbridge Inc.

Alsbridge provides world class sourcing advisory and benchmarking services for the CIO, CFO and CPO. We’ve helped hundreds of companies reduce costs and get more value from their vendors.  Our experienced consultants leverage proprietary tools and information databases to identify and engage the optimal vendors for your situation, negotiate best practice terms at fair market prices, and improve the way you work with your vendors.  Alsbridge clients utilize the most cost effective and value added sources globally for IT infrastructure services, hardware and maintenance, network services, software and maintenance, application support and development, business processes and cloud services. Alsbridge was ranked the #1 outsourcing advisor in the world by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) based on the value delivered to clients.  This commitment to delivering value to our clients has made Alsbridge a distinguished member of the 2010 Inc. 500 fastest growing privately held companies in America.