competitors are also using the same network.

Sangalang: We also want to outsource the preventive maintenance of our branches, so I also need to check the facilities that the vendors have. We check if they have SLAs for hours of downtime, if they will replace it. I have to validate that part to make sure, because maintenance is very expensive.

Sangalang: At my previous job, we hold a weekly meeting to discuss if there a need for a bit of fine-tuning because of the SLA or the penalty clause. We also lay down clear expectations and communications, like, for example, when doing POS, there are two sides--the software side and the hardware side, so we have to manage both suppliers.

Ferrer: Management depends on which product you are talking about. If it's a supportside product, we should be able to get reports from them either weekly or on a good period of frequency, and that will manage itself as long as there's a good reporting system on their routine activities. I think that's the concept of outsourcing, we don't want it to be a burden to us. So, even with telcos, we do a weekly report to find out how healthy everything is, and then we have it structured in such a way that those that require focus would be more noticeable than the normal, so you could just go to your table, pick up the report, and then if there's nothing urgent, you can forget about it. On that note, we have to be able to define the reports, because those are your only eyes and ears on the service. You have to know how the reports were constructed, what formula they used in driving those reports. For the other projects like development, you'd have to manage by milestone, and by the people in place. It's a bit harder because you get people to work temporarily for you, so you have to manage them on your own. We have four to five contracts with different companies now. Four of them are running smoothly, but one of them is our biggest problem right now. We had to issue a 30-day notice rescinding the contract unless they are able to rectify their mistakes. We always give them that because for one, it's a partnership. To restart is more costly.