The magic of outsourcing

“The survival of the fittest” is not only the motto of the animal kingdom, but of the business world as well. In order to survive in a highly competitive market, business entities have to adopt aggressive strategies for optimum utilisation of their available resources (including their manpower). Outsourcing has become an important business strategy for survival and success in the market place.Nowadays there is a major tendency of businesses to outsource their business processes such as customer care and data processing to an external provider in the pursuit of success. A typical example is of a medium-size manufacturer of electronic products who finds it difficult to operate his customer care department within his affordable budget. He gets in touch with a service provider in India which has a well-trained and highly skilled workforce that manages his customer care requirements admirably and well within his stipulated budget. Soon he finds himself on the stairway to success. Of course, the results may not be visible overnight but within a short period of 3 – 6 months the owner is pleased, the service provider is happy and the customer is truly satisfied. It is a win-win situation. This is the magic of outsourcing. There is nothing wrong about outsourcing and everything right about it. That’s why it has become a popular buzzword in the modern business world. Keep functions such as Corporate Planning and finance within your grasps. Do not outsource functions you specialise in yourself whether it is production or database management. Then decide on the remaining areas such as customer service perhaps or even the logistics function. Can they be outsourced? Each individual business will have its own response to this vital self-analysis. Then the logical follow-up will be to whom should they outsource these functions to. Again, the decision taken should be uniquely suited to the requirements of the organisation. Actually, many companies outsource their business functions without even realising it. When you pay Fedex for delivering your parcels and correspondences you are in fact outsourcing. When you hire security guards from a specialist agency to protect your premises once again you are outsourcing. However, business enterprises should be careful about which service provider they will opt for to manage their outsourcing requirements. The low cost vendor will have the same demerits in comparison with his more ‘expensive’ rival as the flea market will have in comparison with a high-class shopping mall like Bloomingdales. There will definitely be a greater reliability in the quality of services provided by a vendor who quotes a higher price but has better staff, better infrastructure and can satisfy your customers better. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) function of the vendor should be like the BBC i.e. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This will be a boon to the customers or even prospective customers who require to be attended with a personal touch so that they can obtain relevant information about the products and services on offer. A CRM serves as a marketing as well as a fulfillment function for the business.The customer should be encouraged to speak directly to the manager rather than agents for important ordering of products or services. For example, if one wants to buy a custom-made car he or she would approach the designer first and not the mechanic who would actually implement the design. It is but obvious that the manager is in a better position to attend to the major customer demands due to his knowledge of the actual customer requirements due to his experience and his awareness of the system as a whole. Besides, it is he who actually has trained the executive.India has become popular as a BPO destination as it has the demographic advantage of a high number of educated people who are IT savvy and can communicate in excellent English. There are numerous other advantages as well such as lower overheads, Government support, improving telecom infrastructure, lower infrastructure costs, hardworking and dedicated staff, and the focus on quality control by the service providers. There is an improvement in quality and productivity of services rendered by these vendors in India. The outsourcing of various processes lead to an economy of scale for the business and the operations of the organisation can easily be scaled to meet the requirements of the market. The expertise of the service provider can result in better output, an increase in the standard of the services rendered and a better reputation for the outsourcing organisation.There should be no compromise on costs when selecting a suitable service provider as the fees charged is nothing but an investment that will benefit the outsourcing organization in the long run.Thus, outsourcing is the way forward for most enterprises whether they are corporate giants or SMEs. It could be the key to their survival. It is the key to their success.Read more about Aumenta Services at http://www.aumenta.cc

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