Outsourcing can allow almost any organization the opportunity to contract a third party to handle various areas of their business. Smaller companies may not have the ability or the financial means to hire several employees to handle areas like customer support for example. By outsourcing their customer support, they can over time save a significant amount of money.

If you’ve hired or are thinking about hiring a provider to handle your Business Process Outsourcing or IT Outsourcing. There will be problems. It’s the nature of the business.

But it’s how you manage all of the outsourcing pros and cons that will determine your success or failure. Focus on maintaining control and you can attack problems early on before they become even bigger problems. Otherwise, you and your business will become yet another outsourcing statistics horror story. Nobody wants that!

Create a detailed plan for your outsourcing project. Doing so will help you spot potential problems and plan strategies on how you will handle these problems. A potential vendor should be a part of this plan and be well informed of proper procedures and protocol.

If You’re Still Not Convinced About The Importance Of Keeping Control…Consider This Analogy…

A bank typically has millions of dollars stored in vaults and safes. It could simply deposit money and just leave it all laying around. No locks. No security. But that would mean anyone could help themselves because no one is managing and controlling how the bank operates. Without control mechanisms that also provide security, any one could walk in and take as much money as they could carry.

But what happens when the bank “controls” the bank environment? By adding armed security guards, security cameras and alarms they can decide who comes and goes and where they can go. They can’t stop everyone, if they could there would be no bank robberies. But they can mitigate loss by installing security measures. They plan beforehand where cameras would be most beneficial. They also analyze the layout and decide the number of security guards to provide maximum protection.

Do you see where this is going?

Plan Your Outsourcing To Keep Control To Protect Your Assets

Now take a look at your outsourcing project. Imagine if no one from your organization supervised the process. If your outsourcing provider is allowed to execute plans and make all decisions without any input from you. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Remember the bank without control?

You can avoid this by staying involved and maintaining regular contact with your vendor. Check up on the progress of the vendor to make sure deadlines will be met on time. Asking questions and making sure the vendor is actually keeping their part of the deal.

In some cases depending on the project itself, a certain amount of control may need to be given to the vendor in order to successfully do the job they’ve been contracted to do. That will be outlined in the outsourcing contract.

Outside of that, you must maintain a consistent watch over the process to make sure that area of your business is functioning as it should.

Communicate Issues Clearly

Make sure you are in regular communication with your vendor. Find out if they are experiencing issues that you can assist them with.

Your outsourcing provider has been contracted to handle a certain area of your business. Hopefully, you’ve hired one of the best. It is in their best interest to deliver as promised. The more involved you are in the process, the more likely the milestones you’ve set in your contract are likely to be met. A vendor just like you, needs to feel confident that they have the support of the organization they are working for if needed. If the vendor has a clear road map, this leaves less room for error.

Keeping control doesn’t have to be difficult. Making sure you have a plan in place to assist your vendor when problems do arise can lead to a more successful solution. This can also keep the same issues from happening over and over again.

The less time you have to spend on an outsourcing problem… the less money you will end up spending trying to correct the problem.