Outsourcing as a decision is not easy to make. Before you make such decision you have to ask yourself all the set of WH questions (and even more types if needed!) and make sure you have answers for them all.
Let’s start with some questions and guidance, but no answers! You have to put the answers yourself to match your exact case:
Why outsourcing?
Not every task needs to be outsourced, and not every company needs outsourcing. Do you need someone to do your additional business service in order to let your employees focus more on the fundamentals of your project? Or do you need someone to help in the fundamentals for a reason?
Who can get benefit from outsourcing?
Are they owners of small, medium or large-sized business? Or does it depend on the amount of business you need to get done whether or not you have the number of qualified and available in-house employees that can do such job?
What’s expected from outsourcing?
Cost-effective solutions? Completing more tasks in less time? Saving in-house resources (like time, offices, and employees themselves) for more basic tasks?
How much will outsourcing be…
Less or more expensive compared to in-house solutions? Beneficial? Repetitive (i.e. the use of outsourcing repeats whether for similar tasks or variant tasks).
And last about your in-house employees, do you have employees who can…
Be skilful enough to complete the job? Be enthusiastic about the job as the outsourced who want to prove themselves are? Rearrange schedules and priorities to do the more tasks you need?
All these questions and highlights are part one of the decision, part two is to choose the right outsourced!
One good thing about outsourcing is that it gives you a wide spectrum of labor to choose from. To narrow such spectrum logically you have to go through some steps, like gathering as much information about your partner as possible. Whether that will be through search engines, personal referrals or ratings by vendors who has previously dealt with them before.
Also it’s important to know the exact field they worked in before. You may need someone to deal with your medical software for instance, so you can’t just go with anyone with previous experience in ‘software’ only with no specifications. That’s crucially important for industries with subdivisions which, though have a common base, aren’t related to each other much.
A customer service task is different from any other task to be outsourced. That’s because you can never have full control over the person you are outsourcing. This requires you to put in mind the risk of first-time-trying a new offshore employee. If you decide to go through it you have to put some very clear guidelines to deal with customers properly (whom are supposed to be always right) and make deadlines with the expected quality.
In addition, before signing a contract you have to make sure you have all the possible contacts of your outsourced employee. Whether it is email, fixed or mobile phone, fax, messenger or whatever means of communication you should be sure he/she’s reachable through them most of the time.
But after all, you can’t rely totally on someone you don’t personally know or have complete employer power over. Even if the outsourced seems efficient and the work seems fine you should put a ‘plan B’ for any reason that causes your dissatisfaction about the work. Plan B is no equivalent to doing the job yourself. But it’s just a ringing bell denoting all possibilities.
Great post.
Outsourcing to virtual assistant is great option for small business owners.