April 28, 2022 | less than a minute read

Services Procurement & SoW - "What's in a name?"

AMS

Incorporation of Services Procurement/SoW into Contingent Labour programmes to develop a complete external workforce view is nothing new. However, adoption continues to be limited alongside the depth of management applied across constituent elements of the process.

Confusion driven by the interchangeable use of Services Procurement & Statement of Work (SoW) certainly contributes towards adoption and evolution of programmes.

I would advocate a subtle difference based around operational approach namely Services Procurement is the process of requisitioning people-based services to produce a desired output that is underpinned by a discrete SoW.

Clarity and consistency of language although not a silver bullet will certainly aid our understanding and ability to make informed decisions linked to programme adoption and evolution.

I believe the key reason SOW adoption is limited is a general lack of understanding of what SOW is and, most importantly, what it is not. One way to avoid misunderstanding is to stop referring to it as SOW within your organisation. A statement of work is a document outlining contractual deliverables.