The topic of outsourcing is very delicate, yet very critical in achieving any or most US companies’ priority goals and paths in order to achieve major savings and cuts cost-cutting across the board.Let me first explain my crazy thought of replacing the current phrase “Outsourcing“ with “OutsourcingUS” , “Helpsourcing” and “Needsourcing”.

• Outsourcing: I personally feel this phrase is not motivating enough and is therefore a bad sign as to why many companies are failing during implementation. I see the phrase as very demotivating and demoralizing; something along the lines of “get out” which can come across as quite arrogant, hence could be lacking support from all included.

• OutsourcingUS: This phrase exactly captures my intent. It basically translates to outsourcing the work from the US or outside the US by the US. The main point here is that is it a decision made solely by the company.

• Helpsourcing or Needsourcing: These phrases are more global/generic to showcase the words “Help” and “Need”. It is something of a call for needing help in order to achieve necessary goals by any company, anywhere on earth.

Upon successful implementation of the processes, all three of the above expressions could directly translate into major savings for companies.

Showcased below are the areas where there are potential gaps. If we were to collectively adopt a positive attitude and approach, I firmly believe companies could increase their probabilities of success.

US citizens losing jobs or Jobs Being Taken Away (Myth): We have highly skilled workers from other countries immigrating to the US, like me and/or like yours truly, to perform and help companies meet their technical and professional needs. Therefore, outsourcing US companies could save money by having to pay the same individual less in local currency instead of US dollars – Uh oh! The secret is out!

Outsourcing message priority/enforcer: At many companies, the outsourcing message, as it cascades down the organization, loses its strength, therefore resulting in unclear direction, focus, support and conflicting information which lacks the foundation required for implementation. In a nutshell, we need strong enforcement or policing to avoid this situation.

Staff Experience, Time Zone Difference, and Communication: These topics are all well known and documented long before we make the decision to actually outsource. There are definitely a few challenges, all of which can be addressed by taking into consideration the type of services offered. We are all problem-solvers by nature and where there is a will there is a way out for sure. For example, we can have centralized documents for communication instead of email where the information is lost over time which ultimately leads to re-iterations and a waste of time.

Training, Commitment, Patience and Repeating: There should be a very robust training process and plan. My suggestion would be to implement in multiple phases instead of dumping everything we want done at the same time. This might upset the offshore team since being inundated with too much information and too many processes will be difficult for them to digest the complete content.

Individuals (both onshore and offshore) involved in outsourcing should have an extreme level of patience, commitment and be able to repeat the same instructions, and in some cases, multiple times. It is natural that any process for someone who has been steadily utilizing it over time becomes simple and second-nature, but for someone new, it will take some time before they become completely acclimated with it.

Mentoring and Micro-Manage: Having a small group or core group identified offshore, which is more stable in terms of turn-over and backup plans. This group is to be the eyes and mouth of the onshore on-goings. This is very critical when defining expectations, responsibilities and understanding of the information as they will be responsible for broadcasting the same for the remaining offshore team. In this situation, micro-management is very effective and create a very good/healthy micro-management environment in order to make the team that much stronger.

Work Assignments: It is important to avoid dumping or transferring all of the assignments simultaneously while implementation of different operation models is surely a call for disaster. Instead, suggest having a clear and robust long-term plan involving multiple phases of rollout until confidence is built and developed. Additionally, ensure you always have a backup or disaster recovery plan in place since we tend to forget this phase. The onshore team should be capable and ready to take complete charge of the project if needed at any time if priorities ever change.

Turn-over: This is something that is bound to happen and should be expected. The main reason this happens is because the experience gained builds confidence in the offshore individuals, but they mistakenly think their performance is either going un-noticed or under-appreciated for the duration of their duties. (Sometimes it could be as simple as reminding them there is more to learn and what they know is somewhat lacking).

Turn-over can be minimized simply by creating open communication in a friendly environment without fearing the need to express oneself. Additionally, by showing appreciation to both onshore and offshore personnel (awards of excellence, bonuses, etc.) you can reduce the rate of turn-over quite drastically. According to a WorkPlaceDynamics survey of millions of employees across the nation, “feeling appreciated in what they do” ranked highest among the most important factors for workplace satisfaction. Basically, a little appreciation goes a very long way.

Quality Control (QC), Quality Assurance (QA), Quality Oversight Plan (QOP) and Audits: There are many actions and process improvements that can be implemented in all these key areas which will contribute to the ultimate success of outsourcing. These include keeping the process simple, reducing dependencies, huge manuals, conflicting information etc. It would also behoove you to place more emphasis on the actual core task, rather than its documentation. The checklist, which is certainly necessary, should never be a burden or make one feel overloaded. It is definitely recommended to implement continuous monitoring in methods such as QOP and random audits in order to achieve high quality deliverables.

Others: There are many other areas listed below that we can focus and take into consideration the local laws to design an optimal model or solution to meet any company’s needs to save costs. For example:

• Physical Presence,
• Operating Shifts,
• Temporary Workers, etc.

Ensure you do not forget and take into consideration cultural differences and local public holidays when working on your project during project planning in order to avoid any unnecessary surprises.

I will wrap up this article by stating that outsourcing is not for all companies. The services have to be evaluated very closely, since we can be blinded by the things in the backend as we concentrate too much on 1 to 1 head count replacement in terms of compensation, which looks very attractive when projected savings are witnessed on the balance sheet.

I entreat all companies and individuals that have been successful or un-successful to share their experiences, so others don’t end up repeating the same mistakes and instead come up with more innovative or effective solutions for the rest of us to use.