The journey from effective to efficient- outsourcing has a lot to work upon!
People are aiming at moving towards being effective nowadays. In management terms, the word effective itself means “to get the tasks done”. On the other hand, being effective means “getting the task done with utmost perfection”. The world is shifting from effectiveness to efficiency. Even though being effective is a big skill to possess, but the changing world with new inventions every minute forces you to stand out of the box at every step in life. Being effective is just a satisfactory condition for thriving in the world.
Outsourcing is the process of acquiring services from different companies who are specialized in their field. Eg. Company A wants to fix their accounting but their own accountant was fired because of committing theft, they hire a company who handle all the accounting needs and take remuneration in return.
The journey
The outsourcing departments give results much better than what we really think of. Usually, people think whether it’s a wise decision to get an outsider in the business and just hand it over the books of accounts to them? yes, it is that easy ! also where all the risk is concerned, the agreement and the amount of money you pay gives enough trust and thrive for them to work for you.
It is as simple as hiring an employee. You go to a company that is into providing outsourcers to other companies. give them your needs and they will introduce you to their clients who contact them for getting clients
It’s a cycle of clients and business providers and outsourcers acts like an intermediator by channeling the services from the provider to the receiver.
Outsourcing the life cycle
The life cycle of outsourcing service is quite short. The continuation depends purely on the efficiency of the service provider.
There are majorly 5 steps involved in the cycle
1. Strategic assessment
The decision of a business to outsource their services after accessing their current position and situation. The main aim usually is to work hard on their core competency and not indulge in complicated tasks like legal department, and waste their funds and most precious time nudging over it and not reaching a solution.
2.Business case development
Looking into scenarios and how is outsourcing the best fitted for the company, whether in case of cost savings or directing the main focus on the business and not side handling etc. making a list of pros and cons is made at this step and then the final decision is taken.
3.Vendor selection
This is the step where you can either find the service provider yourself or can ask for an outsourcer to find the best-suited person as per your needs and requirements. The finding process is troublesome many times because we as a business person are not usually into technical business and the decision making is tough. The specialists nowadays can be freelancers or full-time workers depending on what you want.
4.Negotiation
After finding the perfect person for your company, you need to negotiate and cut a deal with the other party, for let’s say the staffing process for your new finance department. You set the policies and state the various parameters that are a must for your departments. It may include the range of salaries, the number of workers and special criteria like must have relevant skills like ms excel advance level, etc. negotiations can be easier with the help of outsourcer which acts as a mediator and helps both the parties satisfy their criteria and demands.
Post transition management
When the service provider finishes his/her work, then comes the post-transition analysis where the client judges whether the job is done as per the requirements and specifications. If the work is done with perfection, the businessperson can further renew the contract and get his works done with the same party afterward. If the businessperson doesn’t feel satisfied, then the contract can be ended there and then only and there will be no future contracts whatsoever.
Tasking the positive side, the firm is happy with the performance and further takes the contract, it will be easier in goal setting, deciding the future and working towards success with a fresh and specialized team.
We have always heard the phrase,’ smart work is better than hard work’. In this case, this is absolutely true because hard work would be employing people for doing a certain work, let’s say customer services. But smart work would be outsourcing this work and work on the main operations of the company. Manufacturing, packaging, labeling, distribution, etc.
How do people assure about the quality of the service being provided?
It is a big challenge for a person who knows nothing about the company to handle a whole department and with utmost perfection. There is multilayered work to be done by the service provider because the person has to give its best and just has only one shot unline employees who get a certain time to settle.
The project is a whole mix of defining scope, analyzing the baseline system, building, and delivering it on time. The analysis is one of the most important steps since all the customized information is taken into consideration here(the way the client wants the work to be done).
On the smooth way of handling businesses under one roof, there was a diversion a few years back by e-commerce and online businesses. And a further new concept is co-working spaces where miles apart businesses work under the same roof not hindering each other’s privacy. Outsourcing is a new wave-like all these revolutionary changes in the growing hi-tech world. As per my perspective, outsourcing is a drastic upgradation in the new way of business and the way of doing things right(efficiency) over doing the right things(effectiveness).
