قراردادهای برون سپاری BOCOG : دیدگاه فروشنده

To date, most research on outsourcing is modeled from the client's perspective. In this paper, we approach the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) outsourcing contracts from the vendors’ perspective. Since a vendor always has the option to accept or not accept an outsourcing contract, we use the theory of options to analyze the vendor's decision making, i.e., the trigger point, which coincides with the optimal profit level, of the vendor's decision to pursue an outsourcing contract. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the model and its potential benefits for vendors’ decision making.

Olympic outsourcing is an advanced form of a project portfolio management system. Project portfolios include three types of projects: compliance, operational, and strategic [1]. Compliance projects are those required to meet regulatory conditions. In the Olympic Games, this would include environmental preparations that have to be accommodated—for example, outsourcing of janitorial services. Operational projects would involve the scheduling, logistics, and execution of the events—the actual daily work packages that have to be accomplished. One example would be the outsourcing of the programs at each event. A vendor is selected to print, produce, and distribute the programs at each site. The strategic projects are those that have long-term significance for both China and the Olympic Games. China sees the Games as an opportunity to promote its modernity and culture to the world. The Games wants to continue as an operating entity of significance. Projects in a portfolio are of both financial and nonfinancial criteria. Outsourcing decisions fits within the financial criteria, and the decision process is critical in producing a profitable Olympic Games. Until the 1984 Olympic Games, most cities viewed the Olympics as public relations extravaganzas. However, the Games in Los Angeles proved that a profit could be made. But, who makes the profit? Do vendors share equally in the financial success of the Olympic Games? While the client's outsourcing decisions (BOCOG, in this instance) and the client–vendor relationships have been examined in the current literature, the vendor's perspective has hardly been explored. In fact, there are significant risks born on the vendor who accepts an outsourcing contract. Those include capital reinvestment, realignment of capacity and resources, dedication of its existing capacity to provide the outsourcing service and forgoing investment opportunities from other competing projects or contracts. After interviewing several of BOCOG's vendors, we find that there are three main considerations for vendor risk: pressure of bidding process, uncertainty of baselines, uncertainty of costs and pricing.

The focus on cost-savings from outsourcing clients’ can drive vendors into making service delivery promises that are initially calculated on a slim or even nil profit margin. In addition, with the high rate of innovation compounded with market uncertainty, vendors must carefully consider the merits of undertaking outsourcing contracts. Thus, the current literature does not provide the practical guidelines from a vendor's perspective. In this research, we try to fill this gap by applying real options theory to BOCOG's vendor decision making. The real options concept provides useful insights in the vendor's perspective, because this approach is particularly applicable when there is a high degree of uncertainty. In the case of outsourcing, the real options concept says that the vendor has an option to undertake an outsourcing contract that will generate value given the risks of the investment. The analysis of the option value variation caused by the vendor's risks in outsourcing is a novel approach that is helpful in evaluating outsourcing contracts from the vendor's perspective since it considers the value of waiting which has been neglected by the traditional NPV approach. The real options approach's investment threshold π*π* is higher than the traditional NPV approach's View the MathML sourceπNPV*. Such a higher bottom line helps the vendor mitigate against the winner's curse in outsourcing. Also, by studying the changing pattern of the ratio of investment threshold View the MathML sourceπ*/πNPV* under different situations (μμ, σσ, and ρρ), this research provides practical guidelines for the vendor's decision making, e.g., when it should be more conservative and when it should be more aggressive in bidding for outsourcing contracts. Table 3 summarizes the vendors’ risks and pressures under outsourcing contracts, the typical problems stemming from these risks, the real options theory's mechanism to tackle these problems, and some practical guideline for vendors.