Vested Outsourcing: P&G, McDonald’s & Microsoft Redefine Winning in Business Relationships


An Interview with Kate Vitasek, Faculty at the Center for Executive Education at the University of Tennessee on “Vested: How P&G, McDonald’s, and Microsoft are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships,” the topic of a new book that tells the stories about how successful companies are applying vested outsourcing concepts.  In the book the researchers examine a variety of successful outsourcings related to various industries including IT, real estate facility management, construction, and supply-chain management.

Included are Proctor & Gamble’s real estate relationship with Jones Lang LaSalle, the reconstruction of the Minneapolis bridge, and McDonald’s success in building win-win relationships with suppliers.

About the book:

In today’s rapidly evolving world, business relationships based on an outdated, “win-lose” mentality won’t withstand a market that demands constant change and adaptation. Only by focusing on “win-win” relationships can companies drive innovation and increase their competitive edge. What businesses need now are Vested(r) relationships.  And some of the world’s business giants have realized this.

Companies like P&G, McDonald’s and Microsoft have embraced Vested’s groundbreaking “What’s In It for WE” approach, and the results are transformational: new levels of opportunity and innovation, increasing market share, greater efficiency and fast-paced problem solving–for both companies and suppliers.  Their stories demonstrate John Nash’s Nobel Prize-winning theory that cooperation, not competition, guarantees the best results for everyone involved.

In Vested: How P&G, McDonald’s, and Microsoft are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships, authors Kate Vitasek and Karl Manrodt take the reader beyond the theory of “win-win” to show how real companies are applying the Vested  “Five Rules” of business to build successful relationships grounded in shared value and desired outcomes.  Vested challenges readers to consider what it means to “win” in today’s evolving business landscape.  As the world marches towards reinvention, Vested partnerships aren’t just the best way to achieve business success; they’re the only way to create success in a future we can no longer prepare for or envision.