Book review: Unveiling the secrets of buying and selling key IT services

Today's volatile economy has made buying or selling strategic IT services and outsourcing deals very complex and sophisticated.

Cutting strategic deals in this aggressive landscape requires a top-notch application of pursuit management, sales engineering and program delivery.

Seasoned veterans of global business deal making, Anirban Dutta and Hetzel Folden, unveil the secrets of success in their new book, Winning Strategies: Secrets to Clinching Multimillion-Dollar Deals.

The only book of its kind to focus on the end-to-end IT services and outsourcing life cycle, Winning Strategies is a complete seller's and buyer's guide for today's market.

Sellers will learn how to perform analysis on the target market, form the right bid team, partner with relevant influencers and create unique go-to-market strategies for finding qualified IT services and outsourcing deals.

Both buyers and sellers will learn how to define appropriate engagement models, create pricing and financial structures, form well-defined contracts, negotiate effectively, institute transition best practices and govern the entire program with success.

Whether you are the buyer or seller of large outsourcing deals, you will require a total understanding of the complex outsourcing process that is required to win and deliver large deals. This book will help you understand the entire deal life cycle and show you the stages involved from an insider's view - the buyer's and seller's perspectives - as the authors have worked on both sides. It will identify the multiple stakeholders of the deal pursuit process and also share applicable best practices (not research-based but experienced-based) needed at each stage.

And it provides the foundation needed to apply these lessons learned in your own environment. Packed with witty anecdotes, insights and lessons for the practitioner from the authors' own experience and stellar trade performance, Dutta and Folden's work is a vital read for customers, vendors, advisors and anyone involved in today's complex IT services and outsourcing deals.

Book name: Winning Strategies: Secrets to Clinching Multimillion-Dollar Deals

Authors: Anirban Dutta and Hetzel W. Folden

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd

ISBN: 978-0-470-82466-5

Price: $29.95; 224 pages

(China Daily 12/28/2009 page8)