To Outsource or not ?

In the business society today the term “Outsourcing,” is rapidly emerging and making its way to a new trend in business processing. Commonly, outsourcing is getting a third – party company or individual to do a certain task. Usually the third-party is a Consultant, Contractor or even a freelancer.

The best example of a task that is being outsourced by a company is Customer Services. They hire third party individual to receive customer services- related calls and another very simple example is hiring someone to do the cleaning of your company office. Does it make sense?

Outsourcing vs. Offshoring

Oftentimes, the term outsourcing is being used interchangeably with offshoring. Outsourcing may or may not involve offshoring. Lets define offshoring to make things clearer. Offshoring is the process of transferring business processes or organizational functions to another country, regardless whether the task is outsourced or being done by the company.

During the recent times, the term has been used for technology related solutions such as Customer Support or Helpdesk, but it does not only end with the technology- related solutions but also even with non-technical, such as telemarketing, market research, customer services, and with manufacturing and engineering.

There are a lot of companies today that are offering outsourcing services, these companies usually caters to industries such as:

IT

Human Resource

Accounting

Facilities and Real Estate Management

The main reason that companies usually outsource is to effectively cut their cost and the following are:

Cost Restructuring ()

Improve Quality

Knowledge

Contract

Operational Expertise

Staffing Issues

Capacity Management

Catalyst for Change

Reduce time to market

Commodification

Risk Management

Time Zone

Customer Pressure


To Outsource or not?

The question that is always being raised by small business or even large companies. To engage or not into outsourcing. Risk is always bounded with business, but it can be manage, by choosing intelligently the right provider. Consider always the required skill and knowledge that is intended for your campaign. The skills and talent required for your campaign may not be seen and available with your internal employees.

Outsourced campaigns are more difficult to manage and oversee with an eagle eye while with the your internal employees, tasks or projects are easily evaluated . But if project reports are required and task are neatly defined , outsource projects may be manageable also.

Businesses are continually looking for solutions on how they can increase productivity and lower costs. In Economics, the essential elements for business success is by lowering the costs and increasing productivity. Success of a business leads to its growth in which leads to employment.