Project Supply Chain/Procurement Management Assignment

This assignment presents a student's discussion post addressing potential issues related to outsourcing in project supply chain and procurement management, specifically focusing on question 9 from Chapter 13 of the Contemporary Project Management textbook. The initial post identifies and analyzes risks such as the reliability of the outsourcing company, information confidentiality, and hidden costs. Solutions are proposed for each risk, including assessing the company's maturity, implementing measures to protect intellectual property, and conducting thorough cost estimations. The response post reflects on the importance of carefully selecting contracts and understanding intellectual property rights, drawing from the perspective of a biotechnology company. It also emphasizes the significant costs associated with drug manufacturing and the need for comprehensive contract considerations. The post concludes by highlighting the benefits of well-defined contracts in project development.

Running head: PROJECT SUPPLY CHAIN/PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT
Project Supply Chain/Procurement Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1PROJECT SUPPLY CHAIN/PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Initial Post Requirement..................................................................................................................2
Question 9: What are some potential issues related to outsourcing? How could you mitigate
these issues?.................................................................................................................................2
Response Post Requirement............................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

2PROJECT SUPPLY CHAIN/PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT
Initial Post Requirement
Question 9: What are some potential issues related to outsourcing? How could you mitigate
these issues?
The potential issues and their corresponding that mainly arise based on the factor of
outsourcing are:
Risk 1: Ability of Outsourcing Company
The primary question is based on relying on the company and whether they would be
able to finish the needed tasks within the stipulated time. Each of the company would advertise
their skills, possibilities, high-end technologies and quality of expertise in the work done by them
(Kutsikos & Sakas, 2014). The high risk is based on selecting the proper company who would be
able to perform the tasks diligently.
The solution would be based on measuring the maturity of the company, quantity and
success criteria’s of their achieved projects (Gurung & Prater, 2017). The experience of the past
clients should be understood in order to decide on hiring them for performing of tasks.
Risk 2: Information Confidentiality
During the process of outsourcing of an organisation, it is extremely crucial to maintain
the confidentiality and integrity of the intellectual property and important data of the
organisation. Without a proper assessment of the outsourcing company, there would be some
risks based on protecting the copyright information of data supported within the organisation.
One solution for solving the concerned risk is based on gathering of information whether
the company has previous experiences in working with extremely sensitive data (Sinjilawi, Al-

3PROJECT SUPPLY CHAIN/PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT
Nabhan & Abu-Shanab, 2014). The company, which is outsourcing should perform a complete
check whether they have successful achieved the projects in different sectors.
Risk 3: Hidden Costs
Without a proper kind of cost estimation of the entire cost structure that would be
incurred for the project, any kind of hidden costs might pop out during the designing stage of the
project. This might result in the company to spend more money than it was previously estimated
during the signing of contract.
One such solution that could be recommended for overcoming this problem is that there
should be a prior estimation of the total costs that would be incurred within the project (Seppälä,
Kyläheiko & Jantunen, 2014). The different forms of contract types that might be accepted by
the company should be understood firstly.

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Response Post Requirement
From the review over the supported discussion, I have concluded that each kind of
business deal are unique and thus intense care should be taken to define a particular form of
contract within any specific industry. This review is based from the perspective of contract based
on a biotechnology company. From this discussion, I have understood that intellectual right of
property should be understood. From my experiences, I have understood that there is a huge
form of benefits with the use of contracts for the development of project. I have understood that
contracts should be properly chosen before the initiation of the project.
This discussion also supports the aspect that the cost incurred during manufacturing of
drugs is considered to be a huge amount. During the procuring of contract, other considerations
should also be thought and discussed. The various types of contract based on defining of various
kind of incurred costs should also be considered. This would helpful for defining proper
measures during the successful development stages of the project.

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References
Gurung, A., & Prater, E. (2017). A research framework for the impact of cultural differences on
IT outsourcing. In Global Sourcing of Services: Strategies, Issues and Challenges (pp.
49-82).
Kutsikos, K., & Sakas, D. (2014). A framework for enabling service configuration decisions: the
case of IT outsourcing providers. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 148, 604-
610.
Seppälä, J., Kyläheiko, K., & Jantunen, A. (2014). Revealing hidden motives behind outsourcing
decisions: a case study relating to public information technology services. International
Journal of Procurement Management, 7(5), 520-542.
Sinjilawi, Y. K., Al-Nabhan, M. Q., & Abu-Shanab, E. A. (2014). Addressing Security and
Privacy Issues in Cloud Computing. Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web
Intelligence, 6(2).