Imagine you are following a controversial political scandal. What would you do? Watch the news unfold on only one channel, or pick up the TV remote and jump between multiple channels? Collecting accurate, reliable and in-depth data is the most crucial goal for intelligence providers. Information can be gathered by single-sourcing or multi-sourcing. As providers strive for the best quality of intelligence, what process is the better choice?
Single sourcing
Single sourcing and multi-sourcing have both their benefits and limitations. Single-sourcing allows providers to streamline the procedure. With higher task volumes and building long-term relationships, providers can also negotiate better pricing and better quality work. However, single-sourcing presents high indirect costs. The transaction between a single source increases dependency and leads to higher levels of risk should an unfortunate event occur with the source. The sole dependency and greater risk diminishes many of single-sourcing’s benefits. For example, reduced levels of competition may lead to less ideal pricing and reduced transparency as there is no benchmark to compare with. While single-sourcing can streamline a procedure, the dependence on one source means if the source is late to meet a deadline or should any other miscommunication occur, the procedure is inevitably delayed more than if providers had used multi-sourcing.
Multi-sourcing
Multi-sourcing is important because of the way in which it combats issues single-sourcing may bring. Firstly, it protects providers in case of emergencies by maintaining many sources. This also allows competition. That is, competitive bidding ensures that there is unlikely to be complacency or a lack of transparency. For example, RegDesk is a crowdsourcing marketplace filled with local healthcare experts focused on medical regulatory intelligence, quality, privacy, and reimbursement. We work with biotech and pharma companies to navigate complex local and international government compliances. Regdesk uses a flash team framework. Multiple experts, international or local, are sourced to provide clients with a process that is transparent and budget-competitive as well as medical regulatory intelligence that is reliable and valid. Having multiple experts allow clients to choose the consultant(s) that seem most compatible to their project and budget. Multi-sourcing also allows clients to evaluate the advice given by seeing if opinions differ among experts or not. With both the benefits and limitations of each process considered, multi-sourcing is the better choice for the best quality of intelligence.
