Over the last 15 years outsourcing has developed at a very fast pace. Unfortunately, what has not developed at the same speed is speed is the development and implementation of Best Business Practices and the according standard processes and procedures. This in return results in uncoordinated efforts and lack of understanding of the whole process. Third party service providers will try to sell outsourcing as a win-win situation, but this is not always the case. A majority’s outsourcing efforts are implemented through “trial and error” and there for a more costly than expected.Sixty-nine percent of companies outsource IT services. Outsourcing of application development and maintenance ranges from 15% for CRM, ERP 25%, another 25% for business processes, and 27% for other applications.Statistics about outsourcing provides us with a positive picture but more and more businesses are disappointed with their outsourcing efforts, according to new research.Companies express frustration with the quality of work being provided, according to a survey, but most businesses still said they chose the cheapest outsourcing option instead of the best quality.The question is why are companies frustrated with quality of work provided. What are the reasons behind that frustration? There can be many reasons. Reasons can be:Language issues
Geographical problems
Cultural problems
Infrastructure and Operational problems
Lack of procedures and controls
No or poorly defined Service Level Agreements (SLA)
Lack of or poorly defined Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Lack of guidance and follow-up
Failure to understand the business model, processes and expectationsSome of these listed issues may have a bigger issue on your business than others depending on the type of service that has been outsourced.In my 12+ years of outsourcing experience the lack of guidance and follow-up by the Outsourcing Organization led to a failure of understanding the business model, the processes and expectations by the Outsourcing Partner. Yes, you read right – The Outsourcing Partner. It is important to see the organization/provider you outsourcing to as a partner rather than just a service provider.Service Providers are organizations that provide services that do not directly have an impact on your business and its day-to-day operations. Service providers are banking services, payroll services, cleaning services, mail and package delivery services and other business services that have are not part of your core business model. Even certain outsourced IT services fall into these categories. Again, some of the above services may be critical to the success of your business and at that time they must shift from Service Provider to Outsourcing Partnerships.Outsourcing Partnerships must be established with any organization that provides services, which are part of your core business model and have a direct impact on the overall success and profitability of a business. These can be services like Customer Service, Supply Chain Management, Warehousing, Logistics (3PL Services), Software Development and more.It is not that a “regular service provider” is less important to a business than a outsourcing partner that provides core business services. The difference is that a Service Provider will need less controls and less of an understanding of the core business processes. Some of these services have standard service levels they provide and not necessarily have exactly specified KPI’s and the according control mechanisms in place.There for let us concentrate on a typical outsourcing partnership and the requirements to make it a success.First we need to evaluate why so many business fail in outsourcing. Over the years, I have managed many outsourcing initiatives. At some I participated from the get-go and some either after they had failed or were about to fail. The number one reason has always been that the business, which was outsourcing services, did not communicate their expectations well enough. At the same time the organization, which became the provider of the outsourced services did not understand what was expected from them completely. The reasons have been multitude, but eventually always boiled down to lack of communication. The majority of organizations see outsourcing just as a personnel cost cutting measure and hand off all responsibilities to their third party service provider. Outsourcing initiatives, which are handled in such manner are for sure doomed to fail and will leave at the same time the impression that outsourcing does not work. This is why outsourcing has left such a negative impression with many people and organizations.Often outsourcing projects will fail from the get-go, because an outsourcing relationship is established at the wrong level. Management is negotiating not only terms but also requirements with a sales department whose focus is to make the sale, without understanding 100% what is expected. Terms, SLA and KPI are negotiated and agreed upon before processes have been defined, communicated and put in place. It is imperative to have from day 1 all the people in the boat that are affected by the outsourcing measure. These folks really do understand their business.I can attest that outsourcing can work and will work if done for the right reasons and if done the right way. I have successfully managed and participated in various outsourcing initiatives, like:Outsourcing of customer-service-call-centers to offshore third party service providers, as well to onshore and nearshore providers.
Outsourcing of data center monitoring and support.
Outsourcing of data center replication and backup for data center redundancy and disaster recovery. At the same time improving the sustainability of not only the IT organization within the business but also the sustainability of the business itself in case of natural disasters or other unforeseen catastrophic events.
Outsourcing of Warehousing, Logistics and Supply Chain Management to Third Party Logistics (3PL) providers.
Outsourcing of certain Accounts Payable and Receivable functions.In many cases, outsourcing may not save you money but may improve your service levels without investing in more resources. This in return, over time, will improve company performance, reputation or brand awareness and hopefully profitability.It is highly recommended to engage not only reputable third party organizations that provide the to be outsourced services, but also to hire a person that has experience in managing and handling outsourcing projects. The person to be hired should not only know the does and don’ts of outsourcing but also be aware of the Structure of Outsourcing. It is also imperative to assure that your business model and the business processes that are to be outsourced make sense to be outsourced. A skilled person that has vast experience in outsourcing will be able to help to make this determination.