Assignment:
TRAVEL MAGAZIE
Background:
In the first quarter of 2009, you and two other investors agreed to start-up a new travel magazine targeted at the middle-income population. Over the past six months, you have spent a great deal of time developing your Business Plan and Marketing Plan, setting up a corporation, and conducting research on the operating requirements for a magazine of this nature.
Unfortunately, the recession has taken a toll on one of your investing partners. Neither you nor your remaining partner has additional capital to contribute. And you do not wish to bring other parties to the table at this point. You have both agreed to scale back on your expenses and outsource whatever business processes make sense to help you restructure your cost requirements.
In order to make the magazine work, you will need to outsource a minimum of five business processes. Also you should have your magazine up and running within nine months in order for this venture to hold.
Assignment:
Make an executive summary document outlining the entire outsourcing / contracting process for those business processes you decide to outsource. Your analysis should include:
• An analysis on which business processes you would outsource versus those you would maintain in-house. You need to JUSTIFY your decision for each business process maintained in house or outsourced (e.g., accounting, editorial, photography, publishing, distribution, printing, layout, advertising, editing, articles, etc.)
• For those services you intend to outsource:
o Establish the preliminary performance targets / level of service that will be required from the selected vendors.
o Establish the type of contract you will use for each contract (i.e., fixed, cost-plus, reimbursable, unit)
o Determine the evaluation criteria you will use to select the preferred vendor(s) (e.g., low price, best value, etc.) [Are there different evaluation criteria for different business units? Why?]
o Identify the number of vendors you will select to provide the services to be outsourced (i.e., one vendor for all services versus individual vendors with specific expertise in each of the services to be outsourced)
o Construct a time line that summaries the bid activities and time duration for each contracting process (i.e., plan purchases and acquisition through select sellers)