Nowadays outsourcing plays a vital role in ensuring the productivity through which enabling managers to focus on business development and disruptive innovation. Both small and big companies are outsourcing their business functions. It is their choice whether to outsource all of their functions or just a handful from them.
Regardless of these factors, we need to consider some key factors which will help the firm to choose the right outsourcing option. The main factors that have to be taken care of are as follows:-
1) Cost Efficiency:-
While choosing the outsourcing we need to look after the accuracy of the functions with reduced operational costs. If you skip this feature there will be chances that you will end up spending the money more than what you save.
At the same time, you must also keep an eye on the quality of the outsourcing that is you should keep the balance between quality and quantity of the services provided by the outsourcing. Majority of the outsourcing happens to lower the operational costs and labour while improving the bottom line. Most of the companies avoid outsourcing the core activities since the knowledge levels should be found in-house and they don’t want to risk their activities.
2) Price of the Outsourcing:-
Apart from the cost efficiency, we should also have to take a look at the pricing of the outsourcing. You will get several vendors offering the resources at a competitive price. Instead of going for the cheapest one you have to make sure what you are getting from the other outsourcing ones at the same price.
Always remember that the price is not always the only factor that helps you on a vendor.
3) The Resources Used:-
We should consider the resources and technologies that are used while choosing an outsource.
You should enquire about the tools that are used to solve or use for your project and also how much capability they have to solve your issue. The tools and technologies used must meet your need for outsourcing.
We have to check the resources ie., if they are well trained or not. The vendor must at least have an office with systems to update the processes. By giving answers to all these above will give you an appropriate vendor for solving your activities.
4) Capability to Meet the Deadlines:-
The outsourcing that we select should have the ability to meet the deadline that you provide. It has equal importance to that of the costs. If an outsourcing fails to meet the deadline even if all other factors meet it will be of no use in hiring them.
So while choosing you must make some queries regarding this like whether they promise quality and timeliness. If you find a vendor which has less quality and timeliness it’s better not to hire them in the first place.
5) Security:-
Security is an important factor since we are giving the details regarding the activities and it should be highly confidential. So the outsourced IT providers must have some package bundles that offer multiple features along with the security. For example, if it involves sharing confidential customer information/data then ensuring the security is important. Also, check for the certificates like ISO certificates before selecting a provider.
The least features that should be included are firewall configuration, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), vulnerability patching, incident response etc. An outsourcing must provide these features by default. Make sure that the provider you choose can match the level of security that you prefer.
6) Service Level Agreements:-
Service level agreements are inevitable while choosing an outsourcing provider because this is the level where the service provider outlines the details of your activities or services. This mainly includes an end to end program management and service delivery details.
The outsource provider will take a project from you, will assign it to the resources to solve the project and will coordinate each and everything between you and the vendor. SLA’s should include delivery dates, surveys, the effectiveness of the work and availability of the services.
7) Experience in this Field:-
You can see many providers which offer cheap prices but you should also consider experience in this cases. The experience is not on the number of projects completed but completed successfully with minimal or nill errors. You should investigate it properly since we deal with a confidential activity. Assigning a project to a well-established outsourcing provider will be more relaxing since they will be equipped with the latest tools and techniques and highly trained resources.
8) To Know Who is Leading Them:-
You can’t blindly believe the outsourcing team only by the experience alone. In order to become trust-worthy, you should find out all you can including the team members who are working on that activity and the ones who lead them.
9) Configuration Management:-
Managing changes and new requirements is an important thing for a well-reputed outsourcing provider. Depending on the feature and scope of the project the configuration management plays an important role to make all the changes tracked and logged.
The end user will request for a change in the project or activity. The provider will analyze the request and will refer how it will make an impact on the service.
10) Ask for References and Work Samples:-
You must always go for client references about the vendors quality, delivery time and turn around time which will help you to get an overview of the outsourcing provider. Always check on the potential challenges that come while entering into a project and ask for the work samples that had done by the providers for a better experience.
11) Reporting:-
Reporting is the one which should be taken care of on a timely basis. You can go for formal reporting which provides a standard set of reports and deliveries. Reports should be delivered as daily, weekly or monthly based on the agreement that you have made. This will help you to know if the work is going through in a fine manner.
