Outsourcing Preparation.
Making a bank ready to source agentic work before market.
3 months · fixed-fee, fixed-scope, fixed-deliverable · The sponsor or procurement lead, before the RFP
The clinic in brief.
The gap sits inside the bank.
The clinic makes a bank ready to source agentic work before it goes to market. Client preparation was the weakest of the five problem areas in the study, at 3.52 of 10. The gap sits inside the bank, not the vendor. The clinic runs entirely client-side. No vendor is contacted. Where a readiness standard exists, Akholi audits and strengthens it. Where none exists, Akholi builds it.
Before the bank releases an RFP.
- The bank intends to release an RFP for agentic scope.
- The bank is re-sourcing work from a prior agentic engagement that stalled.
- Ownership of AI inside the bank is unsettled.
- The data and processes in scope have not been assessed at the depth agentic work requires.
Governance, process, and data readiness.
- Governance and ownership. Who owns AI, the decision rights, and the board mandate. Governance and responsiveness was a damaging issue in 87 of 150 engagements.
- Process readiness. Whether the in-scope processes are mapped to the depth agentic AI requires, optimized for agentic execution, and consistently followed inside the bank. Documentation gaps were a damaging issue in 94 of 150.
- Data readiness. Whether the data is owned, profiled, and documented well enough for an autonomous system to run on. Data readiness was a damaging issue in 93 of 150.
- The business case. A single approved value case, validated by finance rather than the sponsoring function alone.
- Retained-organization design. The team the bank keeps to govern the work, sized to the oversight load.
- Commercial and contract readiness. The sourcing router, the evidence-weighted RFP, and the co-management schedules set at signature.
Scored on cited evidence.
The clinic runs three months, entirely client-side. Akholi scores each readiness gap on cited evidence, never on self-assessment. A gap with no named owner caps its area low, whatever the rest of the score. The evidence-gathering is time-boxed. The remediation plan runs longer.
What the readiness report covers.
One report to the sponsor:
- A prioritized inventory of readiness findings.
- A written readiness standard the bank can gate against.
- An RFP-preparation plan sequenced across 30-60-90 days.
- The KPIs to track progress to market.
Optional — Phil Hatch activation
Phil Hatch can help lead the readiness resolution and shape the RFP.
The Practice
All clinics →Crisis Response
An engagement in acute failure. Phil Hatch engages the executive team within 24 hours of contact.
Retained Advisory
Standing senior counsel across the outsourcing and global capability center portfolio.