How effective relocation outsourcing helped Agilent Technologies (a spinoff of HP) build a new, global company.
Its March 1999, and
As we prepared the business case, it became clear that leveraging the variable costs of an outsourced relationship, versus the fixed costs of internal staff, would save us money. Whether we were moving one employee, or 1,000, we had to deliver a complete, end-to-end, international solution. We simply couldnt devote our staff to the day-to-day management of this essential, but non-strategic, role.
Unable to justify the HR staffing levels we were accustomed to at HP, and aware that global relocation management wasnt a core competency, our team evaluated a dozen service providers, ultimately choosing Cendant Mobility for all relocation administration and supplier management. Cendant provided the crucial compliance know-how in each country where Agilent does business and enabled the HR team to focus on other responsibilities.
Outsourcing also allowed us to reduce by 422 percent the number of suppliers we had to manage. We now had only one supplier to manage. Not only were many of our previous suppliers already part of Cendants GlobalNet program, Cendant agreed to manage select, regional providers not in the GlobalNet program that we wanted to maintain in our cadre of suppliers. Many of our direct costs have decreased due to streamlined supplier management and better leveraging capabilities. We were also able to free up IT dollars for core, revenue generating activities by using our providers systems via our own intranet.
The ability to maintain a small internal staff has been a boon to HRs bottom line. As our outsourcing model stabilized, we were able to progressively reduce our internal resources. The current relocation team consists of three part-time regional relocation managers and an expatriate tax manager, each concentrating on vendor management, policy development, exception review, and escalation management.
Today, this team monitors service levels on a quarterly basis, evaluating employee and manager satisfaction via a Web-based survey, and consistently finds that the satisfaction level is climbing and, in some cases, is higher than scores received prior to outsourcing.
Open and frequent communication maintains our productive vendor relationship and outsourcing environment. The relocation managers meet with Cendant account managers weekly to discuss status reports, issues, and opportunities. We also have a monthly global meeting so that policy or process issues can be resolved.
FAST FORWARD
Today, only four years after its inception, Agilent boasts a streamlined relocation team, integrated technology, marked cost savings, increasingly satisfied managers and employees, and an approach that flexes with the ebbs and floods of employee relocations.
By continuing to improve operations by leveraging external competencies and efficiencies worldwide, we are better able to focus on what we do best to retain and gain competitive advantages in the markets we serve. Success in outsourcing has meant success in our core businesses.
Lin Contino is the Global Relocation Manager for Agilent Technologies. You can contact her at lin_contino@agilent.com. Sarah Fenson is Leadership Communications Representative for Agilent Technologies.
