Lies and Statistics — Untruths and Misconceptions About Outsourcing
June 20, 2016
INTRODUCTION:
There are many stereotypes and perceptions about outsourcing that exist in the world. Some are remnants of bygone days that just keep hanging around, others are proliferated by TV and media becuase they make us laugh and entertain us.
I wrote this post to challenge the existing way of thinking about things and to dispel some of the untruth’s impacting our industry. I give you 7 things about the outsourcing industry that aren’t what you think
1. Outsourcing = Low-skilled Grunt Work
There was a time when large volumes of back-end processing were all that was suitable to outsource. Today, as companies have developed advanced workflows and have leveraged cloud-based tools, its possible to utilize highly skilled and highly trained resources to do what formerly could only be done by senior internal resources.
This is a really valuable thing to understand. #1 it can reduce costs significantly but even more importantly is #2 — You can no get that expensive senior resource focused on moving your business forward with innovation and other critical tasks.
2. Outsourcing = Quality Sucks
Most people have had a bad experience with phone support and they immediately blame it on outsourcing. Oftentimes that poor experience is due to bad processes, poor training or a lack of empowerment on the front line. These types of issues can plauge comapnies who outsource or who do the work themselves.
Most reputable outsourcing companies are highly-focused specialists in what they do. They have better systems and processes in place than you do inside your company. They have more evolved quality mechanism and find themselves accountable not only to their users but also to thier customers. Intense focus is levvied towards measurement and development of people so that they can consistently deliver on quality service.
3. Outsourcers Don’t Care about your business like you do
How can someone love your customers as much as you do? I hear that all the time. Well outsourcers love thier customers too . . . in this case it happens to be the comapny outsoucring thier business to them. As an outsourcer, we know how important it is to be aligned with our customers, to understand thier brand and strategic plan. Oftentimes our team has greater insight and knowledge of our customer’s business than many of thier internal staff.
Customer Churn is a really tough thing in the outsourcing world. We are looking for very long-term relationships with our customers. Customer aquisition takes a long time and is expensive. Staying aligned, relavant and constantly adding value is a true succes strategy for any quality outsourcer
4. Only Large Companies Outsource
This is one of my favorite misconceptions! Outsourcing is a brilliant strategy for small and startup companies and is a game-changer for leveling the playing field against your larger competitors. Virtualizing your resources as a smaller company allows you to increase focus and agility. . .something your larger competitors cannot do. It allows you to outflank your competitors and enter markets more quickly, maintain innovation and be more aggressive with market strategies.
Outsourcing conserves precious capital and minimizes overhead and fixed expenses giving smaller companies more headroom to succeed
5. Outsourcing = India
We have a couple of funny movies and TV shows to thank for supporting this myth. In reality, outsourcing of certain work in india is shrinking. Rising wages and consumer backlash has caused many companies to rethink global support models.
In the US there is a thriving outsourcing industry that is able to deliver strong value to a global marketplace.
6. Outsourcing is a dying industry
Outsourcing continues to grow at double digit rates and presently represents a multi-billion dollar industry in the US. More importantly, companies have realized the value of a virtualized resource model. With tremendous enabling technologies, companies have become proficient with virtual and home-office models for thier in-house staff. That same connectivity extends itself to outsourced resources as well.
It has never been easier to conduct business and smart comapanies can create much more leverage today than they have been able to in previous years. Outsourcing is a key component and a valuable strategy for rapid growth
7. Outsourcing = Risky and uncontrollable
If you are an ultra-control freak and have to see everything going on than outsourcing might not be your thing. But the reality is actually just the opposite of the perception. Outsourcing helps you to eliminate many types of risk. A properly structured outsourcing arrangent helps shield you from some very significant risk elements — Employee risk, performance risk, and economic risk.
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