Outsourcing pros step up

Godfrey Pinto has great credentials. He has three master’s degrees, including an MBA, and a bachelor’s in economics. He has a solid position, too, as director of offshore outsourcing, a role he has held for six of the nine years he has worked in IT at a large East Coast technology company.

Now Pinto is adding one more accomplishment to his list: Earning the certified outsourcing professional (COP) designation. He acknowledges that many people haven’t yet heard of the certification, but he believes it’s valuable nonetheless. “It means you’ve obtained a certain level of expertise and your skills are transferable,” says Pinto. “This differentiates you.”

Industry leaders say IT outsourcing professionals need skills in technology, finance, law, negotiation and project, change and performance management. They should also be able to work in various corporate environments and national cultures. Knowledge of Hindi or Chinese is a plus.

Because so few people have the combination of skills required to manage an outsourcing relationship, companies often assemble teams to negotiate, implement and oversee outsourcing deals, or they appoint inexperienced and unprepared workers to the job.

The new COP designation is one option for differentiating knowledgeable professionals working in outsourcing. Traditional educational institutions offer others. Carnegie Mellon University and the Stevens Institute of Technology, for example, have outsourcing management concentrations, and the Illinois Institute of Technology provides outsourcing management training for client corporations.

Many in the IT community say they’re looking for these kinds of training and certification programs, says Christina Powers, director of association and professional development at the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) in New York. “Outsourcing used to be a Band-Aid and not a strategic move, but now it is [strategic], and companies are looking for people to lead their relationships with other companies,” she says.

Michael F. Corbett, who has worked in outsourcing for about 15 years, started the IAOP in early 2005 in response to this need. “Everybody was talking about the disappointing results from outsourcing,” he says.

Corbett, who now serves as the IAOP’s executive director, says companies want professionals who can align outsourcing with the organization’s overall strategy, identify the right opportunities for outsourcing, and structure and implement outsourcing arrangements.

The IAOP’s goals include setting standards for the profession as well as recognizing experienced professionals via the COP designation.

Powers compares the certification with the more established project management professional designation awarded by the Project Management Institute. Like the PMP, the COP requires applicants to demonstrate experience and a thorough knowledge of the discipline. They must also have executive sponsorship.

Applicants need 150 points to earn certification, and at least 50 of those need to come from mapping their experience against a body of knowledge set by the IAOP’s standards committee.

Applicants also can earn 75 points by taking the IAOP’s four-day master’s class. (Price tag: US$3,500 for members, and US$4,500 for non-members.) In July, the IAOP announced that it had awarded the first COP designations to 13 professionals, who came from various companies — including Johnson & Johnson, Bell Canada International Inc. and The Procter & Gamble Co. — and disciplines, such as pharmaceutical research and development, contract management and IT. This inaugural class also represented both sides of the outsourcing relationship: Customer and service provider.

Powers says 10 more applications for certification are being reviewed, and hundreds of people have signed up for the Web-based seminars held twice a month to explain the new program.

William Metz, the external business development manager in business services and IT at P&G in Cincinnati, is among the first 13 COPs. Even though he has experience managing outsourcing relationships, Metz says he saw value in earning the COP. “You have to know and understand your competence in a particular area to understand how and where you can improve,” he says.

His executive sponsor, Carlos Amesquita, director of innovation for global business services at P&G, agrees. “For [employees], it provides something widely recognized outside of P&G. And for us, it’s a way to benchmark that we’re getting the best skills over time,” says Amesquita.