How to Build Talent Through Vendor Collaboration

Do you struggle with building talent in-house? Leverage business process outsourcing (BPO) partnerships. Co-developing skills with vendors gives you expertise, tools, and training that are hard or costly to build alone.

This article explores how to develop in-house talent through vendor collaboration. It teaches how to align learning objectives, build joint training programs, embed knowledge transfer into daily workflows, and measure the real impact of partnerships on your talent development strategy. Read below to learn more!

What is the value of developing skills through vendor partnerships?

Many businesses limit the definition of BPO to cost efficiency. However, partnering with reliable providers can enhance your team’s skills and build long-term capabilities through the following:

• Transferring knowledge and industry expertise to upskill your team
  
• Providing specialized training and access to advanced tools that your business might not have in-house
  
• Exposing your team to best practices and new approaches that drive competitive advantage and growth

Co-developing skills with vendors could make your in-house teams more productive and more likely to innovate. 

Vendors also benefit from gaining deeper insight into your business, expanding their expertise, and strengthening the partnership for future collaboration. When you invest in joint learning, BPO providers become more engaged and proactive. They better understand your goals, contribute strategically, and stay committed long-term. 

Co-developing skills is a long-term play for shared growth. But how do you integrate it into your partnership? The following section outlines the basic steps.

5 essential steps to co-developing skills with vendors

Building skills with your BPO providers strengthens both teams and drives better outcomes. Here are five key steps to make co-development successful:

1. Identify shared learning goals

Moving vendor relationships beyond task delivery starts with shared intent. This alignment avoids duplicated efforts, miscommunication, and misaligned priorities. Instead, you build a focused, joint approach to talent growth that benefits both teams.

Here’s how to create shared goals:

• Start with strategic alignment. Tie learning goals to high-level business priorities, such as entering a new market, improving customer experience, or boosting compliance. Then, explore how vendor training directly supports these objectives.
  
• Spot mutual skill gaps. Look for areas where both sides could benefit from improvement. These could be faster onboarding, better tool adoption, or cross-functional collaboration.
  
• Collaborate during planning. Include your vendors when conducting quarterly reviews or creating training roadmaps to align on goals, track progress, and adjust strategies as needed.
  
• Establish shared key performance indicators (KPIs). Define learning success in ways that matter to both teams. This could include time to productivity, error reduction, or improved quality ratings.
  
• Build in flexibility. Leave room to evolve as your capabilities grow. Continuous goal setting keeps learning efforts relevant and results-driven.
• Celebrate joint wins. Recognize and share success stories when training efforts drive measurable improvements. This builds trust and motivation and reinforces the value of shared goals.
• Create clear accountability. Define ownership for each goal. Know who is responsible for execution, measurement, and follow-through.

Whether you’re building product expertise, improving service quality, or driving innovation, shared learning goals ensure that every training delivers strategic value. 

2. Build a shared learning framework

Once you have set goals, the next step in co-developing skills with vendors is knowing how to achieve them. A strong co-learning framework requires structure, intention, and a combination of formal and practical experiences.

Here’s how to build the framework:

• Schedule joint training sessions or programs. Co-led workshops, onboarding modules, and role-specific trainings help internal teams and vendors quickly align. These sessions create consistency across workflows and encourage a shared language around tools, expectations, and standards.
  
• Use projects as hands-on learning opportunities. When vendors and internal staff collaborate on real tasks, such as launching a product or improving service flows, they gain deep, applied knowledge that no slide deck can teach.
  
• Embed knowledge transfer workflows in vendor contracts. Build expectations into contracts, such as shadowing sessions, shared documentation, and milestone-based training reviews. This ensures knowledge is exchanged and retained across teams.
  
• Align upskilling efforts with business objectives. Tie skills development to business needs to keep it relevant and practical. Examples include faster response times, improved security, or regional compliance.
  
• Encourage vendor involvement in employee development plans. Treat vendors as contributors to your talent pipeline. Invite them to lead specialized sessions, co-develop learning paths, or mentor internal team members. This builds trust and strengthens mutual investment in long-term success.

Co-developing skills with vendors through structured learning and real-time collaboration builds more than operational capability. You lay the foundation for a long-term, growth-driven partnership.

3. Enable seamless collaboration through the right learning tools

To make co-developing skills with vendors sustainable, you need tools to optimize the process. Platforms that support shared access, real-time feedback, and cross-team visibility help teams stay aligned and engaged while jointly learning. 

Examples include:

• Learning management systems (LMS). Platforms such as 360Learning or Docebo allow internal and vendor teams to access the same training materials, track progress, and complete certifications in one shared space.
  
• Knowledge hubs and wikis. Notion, Confluence, and Guru help create living documentation that both teams can contribute to and reference. This keeps updates centralized and preserves knowledge.
  
• Project management tools. ClickUp, Asana, or Trello keep learning initiatives visible and on track by assigning tasks, setting deadlines, and documenting team responsibilities.
  
• Collaboration and communication tools. Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom make real-time communication easier. Dedicated channels for learning initiatives or training feedback expedite issue resolution and enhance collaboration.
  
• Interactive whiteboards and design tools. Miro and Figma are ideal for real-time co-creating workflows, service blueprints, or product training materials.
• Analytics and reporting dashboards. Power BI, Tableau, or built-in LMS analytics help track training effectiveness, engagement levels, and skill development. These insights guide decisions, highlight gaps, and showcase progress.

The right tools support and accelerate learning. They make knowledge sharing easier and give teams instant access to resources.

4. Track skill growth from vendor collaborations

To make co-developing skills with vendors effective, track progress. Look beyond surface metrics to how both teams improve over time. One valuable but underused KPI is new skills per learner. It measures how much each participant is acquiring through the partnership. 

For example, your team might learn new threat detection and response protocol skills after co-running a cybersecurity initiative with a vendor. Meanwhile, the BPO provider deepens its knowledge of specific systems and compliance requirements. This KPI shows how the partnership strengthens both sides in practical, measurable ways.

Other relevant metrics include: 

• The application rate of new skills measures how often employees and vendor teams apply newly learned skills in real projects or daily tasks.
• Time to proficiency tracks how quickly participants reach a defined level of competence in the new skills developed through the partnership.
• Cross-team problem-solving outcomes examine the number or impact of issues resolved collaboratively. This indicates how effectively both teams leverage their combined expertise.
• Mentorship or knowledge transfer sessions held counts structured sessions where teams actively share expertise. This shows how learning spreads beyond initial participants.
• Reduction in external support needed measures how much less outside help is required over time. It indicates that internal and vendor teams are building self-sufficiency.

Tracking skill growth ensures your vendor partnerships are building lasting value, not just hitting short-term goals.

5. Sustain long-term development through continuous improvement

Short-term training fills immediate gaps, but lasting impact needs continuous learning. Improvement loops, such as regular check-ins and feedback, refine development.

Learn to:

• Review skill gaps together. Regularly assess where both teams should improve. This keeps learning aligned with evolving goals and everyone competitive.
  
• Adapt learning plans. Update training initiatives as business priorities shift, so both sides continue building relevant capabilities. This responsiveness helps maintain agility in changing markets.
  
• Treat learning as a living system: Document successful approaches and involve vendors in retrospectives to identify improvements. Use these insights and performance data to inform future training.
• Use performance metrics to drive learning. Track how new skills shape real outcomes such as quality, speed, or customer satisfaction to tie training to measurable business value.
• Foster shared accountability. Set joint milestones and celebrate progress to keep teams motivated and committed to continuous growth.

A growth mindset transforms vendor collaboration from a fixed engagement into a dynamic, value-creating relationship. It reinforces that strategic outsourcing is about growth, not just execution.

The bottom line

Co-developing skills with vendors is more than an innovative learning strategy. It strengthens your workforce, accelerates innovation, and drives meaningful results. It builds long-term capability through strategic outsourcing.

Investing in shared development can give you a competitive advantage as talent needs evolve. It builds specialized skills faster and creates a more adaptable, future-ready workforce. Let’s connect to learn more about maximizing BPO partnerships.