Managing the challenges of Outsourcing
As businesses evolve and grow, the need for exceptional talent to manage multiple activities and processes becomes critical. Most organisations realize that attracting top talent is often difficult. This because, either the talent is too expensive or because, the need for such talent might not be on an ongoing or long-term basis.
Outsourcing work to industry experts or hiring talent on a short-term projects is probably the best way to handle such situations. This too though comes with it’s own challenges. While outsourcing could be a boon for many a businesses, especially in the growth stage, if the challenges are not managed well, it could spell disaster. It is therefore necessary and important to understand what are these challenges and how does one manage them to propel business growth.
Managing cultural differences
When outsourcing work or projects, cultural differences between the organization and the service provider should not be ignored. Cultural differences could be of various types – corporate differences, language differences, regional differences and more. It is important that organisations take cognizance of these differences and address the same before transitioning. This may involve awareness training of both the business and the service provider teams, bonding activities and more frequent interaction.
Ambiguity of objectives and goals
One of the most common pitfalls of outsourcing is a loosely drafted contract. It is critical that the contract is documented with significant emphasis on the objectives, goals, roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders, milestones/timelines, pricing and payment schedules.
A loosely drafted contract could often lead to delays, disputes and even abandoning of the project midway. Contracts should typically be drafted in consultation with all internal stakeholders and should be vetted by a financial and legal expert.
Lack of support from team members
When an outsourcing decision is taken without the participation of the team members it is likely that they would provide little or no support to the service provider. In some instances, team members could display active resistance to the outsourcing solution and jeopardize the project. A lack of ownership amongst team members would result in poor tracking and evaluation of the service provider often resulting in compromised performance, delays and waste of resources. It is hence important that all stakeholders should be taken into confidence and should be a part of the decision making process prior to outsourcing.
Lack of communication between teams
When an organization outsources work to an external entity, the visibility of this entity is often poor as they operate from a remote or a different location. The partner team members are not a part of the client’s payroll. This often leads to ambiguity and delays in communication, improper monitoring of progress, delays in course corrections whenever needed and sometimes a complete breakdown in communication between the two teams. Most often these challenges can be addressed by having a formal process for communication, project war-rooms and use of digital technology for project management.
Outsourcing, with all it’s challenges, is a great way for businesses to accelerate growth by working with industry experts and top talent. We at FlexiPort help businesses manage these challenges through a handpicked pool of industry experts. To learn more about our managed outsourcing solutions CLICK HERE
