Governing a provider relationship after go-live

Three cadences doing three different jobs

A daily or weekly operational contact resolves yesterday's exceptions and confirms today's plan. A monthly review examines measured performance, open actions, volume against forecast and any change requests. A less frequent executive session covers the direction of the relationship: whether the arrangement still fits, where investment might be justified, and how the term is progressing. Collapsing all three into one meeting means the urgent crowds out the important every time.

Scorecards that mix service, cost and behaviour

A scorecard limited to service measures rewards a provider that meets its numbers while resisting every change. Adding cost movement against agreed baselines, the closure rate of corrective actions, responsiveness to queries, quality of reporting and the client's own obligations produces a fuller picture. Keep it short enough that each line is discussed, and publish it before the meeting so the session is spent on causes rather than on reading.

Improvement as an obligation, not an aspiration

Agreements often mention continuous improvement without saying what it requires of anyone. Making it real means naming the commitment: a number of proposals per period, a joint review of the largest cost drivers, or a target for a specific measure with an agreed method. It also means deciding who benefits, since a provider paid by activity has no obvious reason to propose removing activity unless the gain is shared.

Escalation, and the cost of using it

A defined escalation route is essential and slightly corrosive: each use signals that the normal relationship failed. Reserve it for issues that are genuinely stuck, use it early rather than after months of frustration, and record what was decided. Repeated escalation on the same subject is the clearest signal available that something structural is wrong, and it usually points at scope or resourcing rather than at effort.

Watching for quiet drift

Operations move away from the agreement gradually: extra steps absorbed as favours, order profiles changing, service levels measured on a definition nobody rechecked, reports produced for people who left. An annual comparison of the operation as described against the operation as run catches this while it is still a conversation. Left alone, it surfaces at renewal, when both sides discover they have been describing different arrangements.

Frequently asked questions

Who should chair the monthly review?

The client, since it owns the agenda and the decisions, with the provider presenting performance and proposals. Reviews chaired by the provider tend to become presentations of good news, and the actions that come out of them belong to nobody in particular.

How do you keep governance alive after the first year?

Attach it to people whose objectives depend on it, keep the scorecard short enough to survive a busy month, and refresh the measures when the business changes. Governance dies when the meeting produces nothing that anyone acts on.

What signals a relationship in trouble before the measures show it?

Rising exception volumes handled informally, actions carried forward repeatedly, senior attendance falling away, and an increase in requests treated as favours rather than as changes. Each of those precedes a measurable decline by a comfortable margin.