EquaTerra, an outsourcing consulting firm, which is based in Houston and London, has introduced Governance Healthcheck, a service designed to enable outsourcing buyers and their service providers to identify and fix governance problems. EquaTerra provides advisers and customized templates and scorecards that both clients and their outsourcing vendors work with.

Recent research has suggested that as much as 20% of the value of an outsourcing relationship can be lost because of ineffective governance, which would make the prevention and remedy of such problems somewhat key to outsourcing success.

Governance Healthchecks are performed biannually to ensure that corrective actions are being followed and assess the overall health of the outsourcing relationship. Governance Healthcheck's objectives are to identify the root of the dissatisfaction, realign expectations, secure commitment to high-priority actions and create a process that tracks improvement. Says Stan Lepeak, managing director of research at EquaTerra: "The goal is to proactively identify the problems and address them before the deal is ruined."