Outsourcing

Friday, December 2, 2011

Think Outsourcing and Succeed


Outsourcing - WHOA, I am not going to outsource. I don't want my customer dissatisfied about our services.

If this is what you think when you hear the word outsourcing, please go ahead and read the rest of the article.I am sure, this article will change the way you think about the word Outsourcing. Not only will it change the way you think, but it will also lead you to a new path of success.

A path of success that many corporate giants have already discovered and they are enjoying the benefits now.

Now you must be wondering I have always heard my customers complain about outsourcing. Even when I call some companies, the support I get, makes me highly dissatisfied, then how can I outsource my services yet make my customers happy. Well, I would say it is possible, if done correctly.

It is not that your customers hate outsourcing; they hate outsourcing when they suffer because of it.

What does that mean?

The customer would love outsourcing, if it is a pleasant experience for them.

Now, you must be thinking, how to outsource, yet make your customers love it.

By the end of this article, you will get to know how to outsource your business needs, without upsetting your customer. Before we get started, let us cover some basics of Outsourcing.

Business Process Outsourcing is the delegation of one or more business processes which are not the core process of the outsourcing company to an external provider who in turn provides services for the selected process based on certain defined and measurable performance criteria specified by the outsourcing company. This generally involves an organizations non-core processes.

Outsourcing: Contracting some or all call center services to an outside company.

OnShore: Onshore outsourcing is outsourcing within nearby region or the same country.

Offshore: Offshore outsourcing is outsourcing beyond your country.

Call Center: A term that generally refers to inbound centers, outbound centers, help desks, information lines or customer service centers, regardless of how they are organized or what types of transactions they handle.

Help Desk: An inbound call center set up to handle queries about product installation, usage or problems, primarily technical support related to computers or other hardware. The same can be offered through Voice support, chat or email support.

Now that you understand few terms related to outsourcing, let us try to understand why it is important for your business.

Why is outsourcing necessary?

I am sure; you must have read about the term Opportunity Cost. An Opportunity Cost is the value of a product that is forgone when pursuing another product. For example, if a CEO of a company chooses to spend two hours a day on building more sales channels, something that could be easily outsourced, the opportunity cost is the value of the time he denied himself and his primary work. That time could have been used to take important strategic decisions about your company, or it could have been time well spent playing baseball with your kids. Either way, the time represents an opportunity cost, or you may call it an opportunity lost.

Now let us try to understand how to make outsourcing a beneficial experience for both you and your customer. Whenever any company thinks of outsourcing their customer service, technical support, helpdesk or Back office support, the only thing that they think about is cutting costs.

Now this is the problem. As a company planning to outsource your services you should focus on these 3 things:


Quality of work desired.
Customer satisfaction.
Reduction in cost.

Most of the times, people forget about the first 2 and focus only on the 3rd point. Such a strategy leads to drop in the quality of service leading to dissatisfaction of customers.

The Beneficial way of Business Process Outsourcing would require a complete business plan.

Let us take an example.

If your company sells a DVD player and you plan to outsource your technical support, this is what I would suggest to keep in mind while making your Outsourcing Business plan.


A document detailing the required infrastructure for the call center.
Minimum qualification of the technical support representatives.
Voice and accent test of the technical support representatives.
Quality guidelines for the call centers and the employees.
Thorough product training. (This is where most of the small companies lack)
A Complete Knowledge base, with detailed answers on each and every product.
Customer satisfaction surveys.
Blended outsourcing - Blended outsourcing means, having an offshore as well as onshore support center. If you require 100 technical support representatives, outsource 90 to offshore and keep 10 onshore. You can always utilize onshore representatives to act as level-2 support.
Timely updates to offshore call center.
It is very important to inform your offshore call centers well in advance about any important updates or launch of new products. Please don't forget to ship new player your company launches to the offshore call center well in advance, so that the representatives can be trained properly before the launch.
Start slowly and gradually. Don't outsource all your services in a single go. If possible, operate multiple call centers in different parts of the world. This would also give you benefits in terms of Disaster management.
The most important point to remember: Always hire a professional Business process outsourcing company to manage your offshore operations.

The basic need is outsourcing is to focus on your core business. That does not mean outsourcing your services and to forget about them. I would suggest hiring a Business process outsourcing company, expert in the field of outsourcing to manage your outsourcing needs. If you make a proper outsourcing plan and then outsource your business, it would definitely lead to a beneficial experience for both you and your customers.

Always remember, Successful entrepreneurs are those who can see the big picture. They know when to delegate and how to accurately delegate tasks.




End2End Consultant is a Business process outsourcing company providing BPO Solutions to global clients with an excellent track record of beneficial outsourcing. We have successfully managed customer service and technical support operations for many companies based in different parts of the globe.




Thursday, December 1, 2011

The New America - Should We Outsource


If you were to look at many large corporations such as Sprint, Dell, and so on, you would find a number of jobs are outsourced overseas. Outsourcing is nothing new but the trend of global outsourcing has ignited a firestorm of controversy.

North American businesses are increasingly outsourcing business functions to companies outside of the United States. Often this outsourcing is seamless to the outside world. The company maintains control over the processes and results, while certain business functions are quietly conducted in another country. Companies often benefit from reduced operating costs and an eager workforce. For the employees, particularly those in struggling economies, they are afforded higher wages and an increased standard of living.

While this may seem to be a win-win proposition for all, it does not come without its share of naysayers who believe that this practice is further eroding the already shaky North American economy. To understand this controversy, we must look at why companies decide to outsource as well as the type of jobs being outsourced. Companies cite a variety of reasons for outsourcing from lack of qualified, available labor to cost concerns. Unfortunately, while many people in the United States want to work and some actively seek positions, sometimes these individuals are not qualified or unreliable. To the company, this creates a risk of missed deadlines, understaffing and its inherent consequences, under production, and so on.

Cost and competition raise another issue. Businesses around the country are vying for ways to reduce cost while increasing effectiveness and productivity. By using overseas outsourcing, companies are able to save on one of the largest line item expenses in business - human capital. Consider alone the skyrocketing cost of healthcare in the United States. Businesses can spend an additional $8000 - 10,000 per employee, per year on benefits alone. When added to salaries, workers compensation, and operational expenses it is easy to see why global outsourcing becomes an option.

Global outsourcing can also offer competitive advantages. Companies can take advantage of specialized knowledge and emerging technologies by outsourcing certain processes to other countries. In this way a company can hire those leading an industry and leverage that competitive advantage in the marketplace.

The underlying discontent with global outsourcing has to do with wages. In example, outsourcing to countries such as India and Mexico enables companies to pay much lower wages than they would pay North American workers. With an abundance of people in foreign countries interested in making higher North American wages, finding help is never a problem. For instance, a telecommunications company pays a customer service representative in the United States between $20,000 and $30,000 per year on average. If the company were to turn the same job over to someone in another country, they would likely pay between $10,000 and $15,000. For the foreign worker this salary enables them to significantly raise their standard of living while the same salary would be at the poverty level for North Americans. For the company and the overseas worker it is a win-win situation. However, this also means workers in the United States are being forced out of or passed over for jobs - thus the controversy.

American Express was one of the first companies to publicly come under fire for global outsourcing. Dell too has come under attack for basing customer service in India. United States customers complain about the language barrier and lack of service but neither company has suffered the loss of profits as a result of outsourcing.

From the viewpoint of the overseas' employee, they simply want to make a decent living. With jobs difficult to find in their own country, accepting an outsourced job is a gift from Heaven. These people often make 100% or more of what they could make in their own country, which makes outsourcing highly profitable and very attractive. Obviously, with so much at stake, the outsourced workers are willing to be trained, to follow rules to the tee, to respect authority, and be to work on time, every time.

As you can see, outsourcing overseas is a huge dilemma, with growing concern. When you consider the growing positions being outsourced, the concern rises. Although you might generally think of customer support as being the number one outsourced job, you might be surprised. Below is a list of other jobs that are often outsourced:

o Customer Service - Although this was not one of the original aspects of a business outsourced, we now see a huge number of companies, small to large, using overseas services in all areas of customer support.

o Data Analysis - The amount of data being generated by companies throughout the United States is staggering. In most cases, conducting market analysis and reviewing trends is crucial to a number of industries. For instance, much of the data coming out of the New York Stock Exchange is sent to India where it goes through a complete analysis process.

o Research - Research is also another large area where overseas outsourcing is used. In this case, companies will outsource large or portions of large research projects to people in other countries, which covers everything imaginable such as pharmaceutical trials to genetics to nano stocks.

o Engineering Design - More and more, we see engineering design being outsourced. Typically, companies in the United States establish what is known as an Offshore Development Center or ODC, which includes a number of design fields such as architectural, mechanical, hardware, structural, and product.

o Medicare - Many people are unaware that Medicare is also outsourced to foreign countries. Services provided by employees could include data entry of doctor's transcripts to interpretation of an MRI, CAT scan, or other medical imaging processes.

o Art and Animation - With different countries offering unique levels and genres of creativity, a company needing a website, illustrations, artwork, book cover design, television show, graphic art, and other similar functions would turn to other countries for fresh ideas

o Legal - Finally, we also see legal support services being outsourced overseas. Although professional services would not be included, we do see some of the more low-level tasks such as data entry of legal documents or transcripts and patent searches being performed.

Although outsourcing to other countries has been done since the early part of the 1990s, it has become a multi-billion dollar business for other countries. Although many of the workers are low skilled, they are again, eager and willing to work. The trend of outsourcing will likely to continue to expand. We often view the negative impact to North American workers but the reality is we too benefit from outsourcing.

Many small businesses provide services to other countries. Writers, web developers, marketing consultants and many others build a business that is largely global. These small businesses are often started by laid off or out placed corporate employees. Other countries outsource to the United States for the same reasons we do - specialized knowledge, lower costs, and qualified labor. Let's face it the world has changed. The debate over outsourcing is unlikely to subside any time soon, but the rules will continue to be written.




Richard A. Hall is founder and President/CEO of LexTech, Inc., a legal information consulting company. Mr. Hall has a unique breadth of experience which has enabled him to meld technology and sophisticated statistical analysis to produce a technology driven analytical model of the practice of law. As a busy civil trial attorney, he was responsible for the design and implementation of a LAN based litigation database and fully automated document production system for a mid-sized civil defense firm. He developed a task based billing model built on extensive statistical analysis of hundreds of litigated civil matters. In 1994, Mr. Hall invented linguistic modeling software which automatically reads, applies budget codes, budget codes and analyzes legal bill content. He also served as California Director and lecturer for a nationwide bar review. Mr. Hall continues to practice law and perform pro bono services for several Northern California judicial districts.




Outsource Wealth - Make Money Doing Nothing!

It Is True You Can Help Yourself To Unlimited Amount Of Money By Doing Nothing. Just Using Outsourcing. There Is A Method To The Madness And Nothing Like This Has Ever Been Told About Before. Please Check Out Http://www.outsourcewealth.com/affiliates


Check it out!

The Benefits of Outsourcing Today


There are many benefits of outsourcing your work to other workers. The main benefit is that you will free up your own time so that you can run your business. This practice will also allow your business to increase its productivity.The more people that you have doing work for your business, the faster it can grow. If you try to run a business on your own you will find that you do not have the time to do much needed operational tasks. If you pay workers to do your work at a lower cost than what you are charging clients, you will be making profit without having to do the grunt work yourself. This will help your business move forward.

As a business owner your main priorities should be running the business and generating sales. Simple yet necessary tasks such as administration will take up your time, leaving the more important tasks to be done at a later date. If you outsource your work, you will have more time to dedicate towards growing your enterprise.

There is one downside to this practice and this is that you will not always find competent workers. However, this is a problem that every business faces at one point or another. If you have someone else to do the basic work for you, you will be able to come up with and implement business ideas that will improve the productivity of your workers.

One of the best parts of engaging in this practice is that you will be able to save a lot of money on operating expenses. Thanks to the internet, you are able to hire workers that work from home. This will save you money on costs such as renting a premises or paying for electricity, water and other expenses paid by brick and mortar businesses.

It does take time and resources to put together an outsourcing team and it can feel like a burden on your already stretched resources when you first embark on this journey.The best advice you can follow is to keep it simple and start slowly and allow your team to evolve over time.This is one part of your business you don't want to rush, because if you get this wrong, it can take a considerable effort to correct.Having said that, if you follow your plan, interview carefully, as you should with all employees, you will avoid most problems.




For more outsourcing tips, news and advice, please visit http://www.outsourceformula.com




Proven China Outsourcing System For Entrepreneurs

Top Wealth-building System. Teaches Outsourcing To China And Building High-ranking Online Storefronts. Includes $100 Consulting Coupon And Bonuses. See The Affiliates Page For All The Resources You Need. 50% Payout.


Check it out!

What Is Outsourcing and What Can It Do For You?


What is outsourcing? Outsourcing when used is most commonly being refereed to offshore outsourcing. It is simply contracting a service to another party. Usually in the cases of offshore outsourcing for cheaper than what you can get in your own country. Outsourcing has just gained popularity on the net but has been around for much longer.

Why has outsourcing gained popularity on the net? The idea of getting work done cheaper while increasing your profit margin works even for webmasters. Would you rather pay someone in Texas for example Five Hundred USD to design a site for you or someone overseas who will do the same job for fifty dollars? As you can see with the way the economy is webmasters would rather pay the fifty dollars to have their site developed and take the extra four hundred and fifty and put it to use on advertisement and other promotions.

What can outsourcing do for you? If you are a webmaster it can mean more money for you because you are paying less to get your work done. If you are a clever marketer it also gives you a chance to sell service cheaper playing the middle guy or as some like to call arbitrage. The potential in using outsource laborers in your business is limitless. No matter how bad the economy gets you will always be able to save money via outsourcing.

So there you go the quick overview of outsourcing and what it can do for you and your business.




Christopher L. Hardin is the Owner of http://outsourcewealth.com and has made a small fortune online using outsource laborers. To learn more on how to make money using outsource laborers please visit the website.




Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Source Control

The Definitive Resource For Automating Your Life, Creating More Time, And Outsourcing. Wildly Different From Other Products. This Is A Hot Topic Right Now. Gorgeous Book W/ Resources & Bonuses. Resources: Http://affiliates.getsourcecontrol.com


Check it out!