Choosing your outsourcing partner
Outsourcing is like marriage. You don’t marry someone without knowing them very well. Do you? Likewise you can not choose an outsourcing partner without fully knowing about them, their strengths, weaknesses, cultural fit and a lot more.
In marriage you share important information, form trust while sharing good and bad times. A good level of transparency must exist for the marriage to be successful and long lasting.
Just as in marriage, even in outsourcing, you are giving control of an important function of your business. You want it to be in safe hands. You want your outsourcing partner to advice and guide you through good and bad times. Failing this ends up in messy divorces. You don’t want that. You want “happily lived ever after”.
What are the parameters to choose outsourcing partner?
- Domain experience and track record
- Local presence and ability to provide instant support
- Competitive rates and ability to deliver quality service
- Flexibility, scalability and adaptability
Domain experience
Successful execution of similar projects in the accounting domain is a good indicator of the ability of the outsourcing supplier. It is better to choose domain specialist outsourcing supplier than the general supplier. Domain experts will typically have the knowhow, latest processes and methods. For example if you want to outsource accounting then choose a specialist accounting outsourcing provider.
Local presence
Communication and transition of work is very important especially in the early stages of the outsourcing relationship. This will be greatly aided if the outsourcing supplier has a local presence in your country. This provides an opportunity to quickly find if the supplier is the right match and it can save a lot of your due diligence efforts.
Price & Quality of service
Quality comes at a price, but a balance can be struck. Watch out for the guaranteed quality of service at a competitive price. The service level agreement should include the expected quality and agreed in advance with your offshore partner.
Flexible partnership
Ability of the outsourcing supplier to scale up the operations and do it quickly is crucial. Flexibility to adapt to your exact requirements is very important in an outsourcing partnership.
History and track record, strength of senior management, stability of the company are the other factors to consider.
Success in outsourcing lies in finding the right offshore partner. The partnership must be mutually beneficial, thoroughly planned with clear strategies, risks analysed with provision for an alternative plan-B if any thing goes wrong. If you do them then success is just a matter of time.
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- We wanted the benefits of outsourcing. But we held it back because we did not want our clients to know nor we would allow any outsourcing company to talk to our clients direct. So we wanted to associate with a trusted outsourcing partner who will stay behind the scene all the time.
That's when we found Integra. It works perfectly for us. They always stay behind the scene, do all our grunt work and send us all the questions. We send the answers back, they complete the job. We are also protected by their strong confidentiality agreement. Integra has made us feel safe about outsourcing.
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Anonymous accounting firm, London
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