When I explain that governance consulting has played a major part in my career to date, I’m often greeted with the look of a good friend searching for ways to say ‘how sad, you really need to get a life’. I have on more rare occasions also received supportive comments such as ‘keep the faith’, often coupled with a consoling pat on the back.

I suspect these reactions reflect some degree of adverse individual experience but also a more widely held perception that governance in any form should carry a health warning. Indeed many individuals and organisations are more than a little ambivalent about governance - and therein lies my challenge. It is difficult to promote the merits of something when such mixed views prevail in the corporate community.

In my view successful governance is an enterprise wide, overarching corporate function, aimed at delivering innovation, value and mitigating risk to the business. It therefore follows that governance should provide a management continuum throughout the outsourcing life-cycle to provide a consistent and appropriate focus on strategic outcomes. Good governance should not be undermined by the distractions of every day operational issues.

This may seem obvious, but the reality often falls short of the mark. The effects of time, business dynamics, management changes and daily events too often overtake the intent at the outset. It is almost easy to gradually lose sight of the objectives and outcomes we’re aiming for when dealing with daily operational challenges. I once heard an Executive comment, “they’re all floundering around in the swamp when I need them up here on dry ground showing us the way out”.

Governance should not be seen as an opportunity for yet another meeting attended by a cast of many to dwell on matters already settled elsewhere.

Good governance is critical to the success of any outsourcing venture. It provides a formal decision making framework to ensure alignment of the provided services with the business, technical and sourcing strategies of the client. The precise nature of this framework matures over time to reflect mutual levels of trust and confidence coupled with the changing aspirations and the nature of the client and provider relationship.

We need good governance to enable the delivery of business benefit. Put simply: Governance really matters.