Captive–Vendor Delivery Rebalance Board Adviser

The mandate

The board repeatedly asks which commerce engineering capabilities should move from long-standing vendors into the India captive. Management cites margin and intellectual property, vendors hold production knowledge and surge capacity, and India leaders risk inheriting fragmented work without senior product scope. The standing question is where captive ownership creates durable advantage and where partnership remains the stronger operating choice.

The adviser will provide two working days monthly, lead a monthly sourcing-boundary challenge, attend four technology-and-investment committee meetings and complete four captive, vendor or headquarters reviews. A material renewal or transfer question receives an initial view within two business days; routine papers receive comments within five. Preparation and attendance are included.

The appointment is fixed at nine months. At month eight, the chair may propose a separate transition-assurance mandate, but renewal requires a new board resolution and conflict declaration; no automatic continuation applies. Unused time expires and cannot be attached to subsequent supplier exits.

The adviser holds no line authority and carries no executive, sourcing, contract, hiring, product, supplier or transition responsibility. Management owns delivery and negotiations, and directors decide strategic posture. The adviser may challenge evidence, shape boundaries and request scenarios, but cannot direct captive or vendor teams, select suppliers or represent the company commercially.

Up to three unrelated roles may continue. Work for a competing retailer, incumbent or bidding vendor, GCC operator, recruitment firm, technology supplier or investor creates a conflict requiring disclosure and possible recusal. Referral fees, placement income and compensation tied to insourcing volume or contract savings are prohibited.

Why the board wants this voice

The board sees vendor cost and captive growth through sponsors invested in their preferred model. Nobody in the room has recently reversed outsourcing while preserving production knowledge, surge capacity and product accountability. Independent sourcing judgment is needed to prevent a strategic insourcing story from becoming either indiscriminate headcount growth or renewed dependence under different labels.

What you will own

• Press management to classify capabilities by product intimacy, intellectual property, customer consequence, scale variability and control.
• Test captive readiness across leadership, architecture, production access, release, incident, talent, tools and supplier knowledge.
• Challenge vendor dependency using code ownership, key-person exposure, subcontracting, commercial leverage and exit evidence.
• Examine total economics for transition, duplicate running, retention, recruitment, tools, demand volatility and stranded commitments.
• Shape boundaries for captive ownership, strategic partnership, managed capacity and genuinely commoditised service.
• Probe transfer gates, vendor incentives, knowledge evidence, source exit and recovery if captive hiring underdelivers.
• Frame the board’s closing portfolio with capabilities to reclaim, renegotiate, retain, compete or retire.

Candidate qualifications

• Rebalanced vendor and captive engineering at scale for retail, commerce or another transaction-intensive digital product enterprise.
• Insourced product-critical capability without mistaking rebadged roles, repositories or transition documents for retained operating knowledge.
• Preserved valuable vendor elasticity while recovering architecture, intellectual-property, production-access, release and major-incident ownership.
• Built board-grade economics covering duplicate running, attrition, recruitment lead time, tools, exit charges and peak-demand variability.
• Managed supplier exit or commercial renegotiation while protecting seasonal releases, checkout availability and customer-data controls.
• Advised directors independently of incumbent vendors, GCC operators, recruiters and technology suppliers competing for the redesigned scope.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend the Amsterdam cadence and complete four captive, vendor or headquarters reviews within nine months.
• Will disclose retail, vendor, GCC, recruitment, technology and investment relationships.
• Accepts that sourcing, contracts, people and product authority remains with management and the board.
• Brings executed captive–vendor rebalance; procurement benchmarking or generic outsourcing advice alone is insufficient.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a capability you chose not to insource despite an apparently attractive captive cost case.
2. 49 words maximum. Which current retailer, vendor, recruiter or investor relationship could require your recusal?
3. 49 words maximum. Confirm the Amsterdam cadence and name one vendor-held dependency that must close before transfer.