This article is also available in: Deutsch (German) Italiano (Italian)
The outsourcing size market was more than 88.9 billion US dollars in 2017. The official data provided by statista.com confirm that the largest share of revenue from this industry came from Europe. The same data prove that business process outsourcing BPO and Information Technology Outsourcing ITO generated the most revenue.
The data help to understand the importance of this industry in the global market. Currently, there are numerous companies that decide to contract out their service to partners or vendors. At the same time, there are specific countries that are known as long-established outsourcing destinations. As the industry continues to grow, even global trends related to the industry will change, but not all those that outsource are successful.
Yet, there are a few elements that remain strong and help to define what makes outsourcing successful no matter the size of your company or the industry where you operate.
Different companies choose their partners or vendors based on the specific needs of their companies. However, when it comes to the factors that drive success, they rank the following.
Communication
When you contract a vendor to outsource specific processes you create a relationship like any other business relationship. Thus, you may know the importance of effective communication and the role it has on ensuring success. You need to communicate your goals and objectives and make sure that no one gets misunderstood. You set expectations for each of the sides and choose the right communication channels to keep track and make sure that those expectations match the deliverables.
Moreover, good communication is crucial to the integration of both teams. You can discuss performance and opportunities for improvements. You can also pay attention to the time zone. If your project requires ongoing communication, find a company in a location that shares the same working hours. The best option would be that the team of the other company speaks your language. If not you can speak another mutual language, which usually is English. Multilingualism is a highly valuable skill. If you’re in the call center business, Albania is a country with a multilingual population and a western cultural model.
Remember that good communication is at the heart of every successful company.
The experience of the vendor
Selecting the right vendor can be an overwhelming task. When you want to outsource a process you also know the end result that you want from the vendor and the benefit that you get from your choice. Find a company or partner to deliver tasks based on their experience. How can you measure it? Start with general information such as the number of projects that vendor has done and the clients that received similar services like those that you need to outsource. You can also ask for the qualification and experience of the persons that will be responsible for the tasks that you plan to delegate.
On the other hand, you may ask for the opinion of their clients if they are not subject to confidentiality.
Confidentiality
No matter how reliable a vendor can be, you must sign confidentiality agreements in cases when data related to your staff, clients, or even business ideas are disclosed to your partner. There are different types of confidentiality agreement depending on the number of sides included. When delicate information is involved you need to choose people that you can trust.