Every company in the world, wants to be profitable and successful. And each of these companies deploy a different strategy for ensuring a profitable…
Every company in the world, wants to be profitable and successful. And each of these companies deploy a different strategy for ensuring a profitable and successful enterprise. Some do so through new product development, others through deploying brilliant strategies for new products; but, no matter the strategy, the primary goal for most of us is to improve the bottom line through progressive improvement of our processes to ensure success.
The adoption of effective outsourcing strategies is a major value-add in this regard and, while outsourcing has made the progressive improvement in processes easier, the thought processes which go into the adoption of a successful outsourcing strategy requires planning, understanding your own work environment and a forward-thinking plan that will accomplish end to end process which will reduce costs and enhance your excellence in quality by adopting a successful strategy utilizing an experienced business process outsourcing company which is led by a leadership team who’s expert strategic thought process analysis of your outsourcing program will provide solutions with forward-thinking strategies which will avoid future negative issues and who, because of their knowledge base and proven experience, will be prepared to meet any challenge.
The following are some suggestions which will ensure that your outsourcing strategy is as successful as possible:
Ø Have a clear understanding of what your objectives are. Is the outsourcing being done to reduce costs? Is it to develop a new product? What are the strategic reasons for outsourcing and whether it will lead to an improvement in the total end to end process? So whatever the reasons/objectives you have for outsourcing, it must be clearly spelled out and discussed with your outsourcing partner.
Ø A consultative approach to outsourcing is the best method for getting the best results from outsourcing and should be conducted with an experienced outsourcing partner who is not merely looking to “add seats” for their own profit. When in-house processes are outsourced, there is a lot of anxiety of the people doing the in-house processing, leading to this contentment and affecting morale. Managers must be able to foresee the issues that will be raised by outsourcing and simply eradicating jobs in-house in order to outsource them to an outsourcer is not the optimal reason for outsourcing.
Ø Set realistic yet solid success-driven expectations. Establishing realistic and thoughtful expectations is a huge precursor to the success of any outsourcing program. Both you and your outsourcing vendor must establish and possess a very clear understanding of the goals of your organization, definition of the tasks and processes and must agree on the realistic metrics for measurement of results from the end to end process. The establishment of clear expectations can and must be accomplished through a well-drafted, clear, realistic and experience-driven SLA as well as frequent contact with your provider to ensure that these expectations are being fulfilled as the project is executed.
Ø Analyze the risk of outsourcing. You have carefully analyzed your processes and now you should utilize the expertise and capabilities of your deeply experienced outsourcing partner to assist you with an objective analysis in this regard as well. This process will enhance your excellence in quality, provide “new eyes” on your program and ensure tha all issues are addressed in order to deliver the optimum in success. Once a complete understanding of your own processes is enhanced by the application of the extensive experience of your outsourcing agent provider, the likelihood of success increases exponentially. Your experienced outsourcing professionals can provide invaluable analysis with a special emphasis on risks, the highest quality resources of the outsourcing partner (a function of experienced recruitment and training), the talent pool available for deployment as your business grows, risk of loss of documentation and prevention and the technology that is being utilized to provide the outsourcing services, just to mention a few tools in the highly experienced outsourcing providers tool box.
Ø Analyze future cost escalations of outsourcing. A great deal of this analysis can be accomplished by proper draftsmanship of the SLA, where a fixed price contract is chosen for a certain period of time, normally three years. Furthermore it is important to examine the environment in which they outsourcer is working. Factors such as inflation, future currency forecasts, attrition rates [the higher the attrition rate the more likely the cost of inflation as people leave to join other providers], etc. must be considered and, once again, the value of a highly experienced, proven and successful outsourcing vendor is crucial in the recognition of these factors and the strategies required to deal with them effectively and in your best interest.
Ø Understanding your customer’s requirements as well as their changing needs. Rest assured: your customers’ business environments and requirements are perpetually changing, some quickly, some less perceptively; however, they ARE changing. Thus, it is crucially important to work with an outsourcing provider who has deep, varied and substantial experience as well as a diverse background in the provision of outsourced services so that, as these changes arise, your outsourcing vendor will know exactly what is required and how to deliver services which will accommodate your customers’ changing environments and evolving requirements. This delivery expertise also requires a provider who is agile, flexible and nimble and who is large enough to assure excellence in quality but who is small enough to make certain that the changing needs of you and your customers will be accommodated with proven expertise and capability. Ensuring that your customers’ needs are recognized and successfully addressed is an extremely important criteria as with respect to which your vendor must have a proven history of execution as you not only retain but grow revenue from your customers. A consultative discussion at the beginning of the outsourcing arrangement is indispensable in assuring you that your vendor has the requisite knowledge, experience and expertise to resolve any issues that you are likely to incur in this regard.
Ø Finally, communicate, communicate, communicate with your outsourcing supplier. This is probably one of the most important facets of successful outsourcing and it is important at every level of your operations. The outsourcing partner must have regular meetings with you on at every level on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in order to monitor progress in regard to successful execution of your outsourced functions at the optimum level of excellence in quality.
While these are but a few of the more important factors which will ensure the success of your outsourcing strategy, thereby assuring that your profit margins and the bottom line are successfully addressed to ensure maximum levels of success, they are an excellent beginning for your Outsourcing Strategy Review and Checklist.
You may have realized that there is a recurring theme throughout these factors- experience and communication. Your outsourcing provider absolutely must have deep, diverse and wide experience which is both well established and empirically provable. Premier BPO LLC has this experience. Premier BPO LLC has the requisite talent, resources and ability to ensure the success of your outsourcing program but, of equal importance, is of the perfect size to see ensure your place in their Client portfolio as an important Client who will receive the optimum in attention and communication which will deliver a consistently successful implementation or your outsourcing requirements which are essential for you, your brand and your customers’ needs and desires.
Author:
N. Reese Bagwell
N. Reese Bagwell is Premier BPO LLC Director of Sales. Prior to joining Premier BPO LLC, Reese Bagwell was counsel at ClientLogic, Inc. (now known as Sitel Worldwide). Early in his career, Reese founded The Bagwell Law Firm, a Trail Law Company. Reese has a Doctor of Jurisprudence and is a lifetime member of the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association. He was the President of the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and is also a lifetime member. He is admitted to the bars of the State of Tennessee, the United States District Court, and the United States Supreme Court.
