What is outsourcing?

It’s never too early to take note of what outsourcing is. A business strategy in its own right, it is aimed at companies looking for a solution to increase productivity, flexibility, skills and scalability. To achieve this, outsourcing takes into its hands various tasks that are deemed necessary but time-consuming.

Outsourcing in a nutshell

Outsourcing is when a third party, specialized company, offers its services as a provider. To do so, it implements its own workers and IT systems. In the case of offshore outsourcing, the services are delivered from the supplier’s premises.

What tasks can be outsourced?

Outsourcing covers a plethora of jobs, for example:

• Customer Service Representative;
• IT support specialist
• Human Resources Specialist;
• Payroll Clerk;
• Bookkeeper/Accountant;
• Tax duties;
• Personal Assistant;
• Computer Programmer;
• Data Entry Clerk;
• Web designer and developer;
• Social Media Manager;
• Marketing Specialist;
• Copywriter;
• Proofreader;
• Medical Transcriber;
• Legal Advisor;
• Lead Generation Specialist;
• Draftsman;
• Event Manager;
• Security Manager.

Discover ProContact’s services!

How does outsourcing work?

Outsourcing is more than just buying a service from a provider. In fact, for it to deliver the expected results (productivity, flexibility, evolution, skills) and to become a lasting partnership, it must take into consideration both the commercial and logistical aspects, with maintaining an atmosphere of trust.

Some experts recommend a particular focus on the exit clause of an outsourcing contract. Indeed, from the beginning of the partnership, the client company and the service provider must each have a clear vision of what to do when the contract expires.

Why opt for outsourcing?

Outsourcing consists in delegating a particular task to a company specialized in this type of service. In return, its clients visibly achieve several objectives that would otherwise be difficult to attain:

• Reduce their costs;
• Improve their efficiency and gain in speed
• Benefit from an expertise in the execution of tasks in an outsourced way to obtain these advantages;
• Focus their resources on their core competencies, which allows them to gain several competitive advantages in their market.
• Eliminate the time-consuming and costly process of hiring traditional, or in-house, full-time, etc., employees with the specialized skills and experience needed to perform certain tasks.

In some cases, companies opt for outsourcing to transfer the parts related to compliance with regulatory requirements or obligations in their countries to another one.

The different types of outsourcing

There are three outsourcing solutions to choose from:

• Onshore outsourcing (through a company located in your own country);
• Offshore outsourcing (through a provider located outside the borders of your country);
• Nearshore outsourcing (through an outsourcing company located near your country).

The advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing

In addition to reducing costs and improving productivity, companies that choose to outsource gain in many other ways.

By adopting this strategy, they are able to streamline the distribution of their most valuable resources, i.e. budget, human capital and logistics. These elements can be redirected to other existing needs or to new value-added projects.

They can also streamline production and/or reduce lead times by using an outsourced service that can perform the tasks assigned to it more quickly.

The challenges of outsourcing

Outsourcing requires clear and documented preparation in advance. By proceeding meticulously, companies can manage their contracts and their relationship with their service provider in a tangible and above all serene manner.

However, some of these companies may find that there is a certain amount of competition between their internal resources and those of their service provider, which goes against the very core of outsourcing.

They may also experience a loss of control over various aspects of the outsourced tasks or services. This may include, for example, loss of control over the quality of customer service provided.

Security is also a challenge in outsourcing because of the constant exchange of proprietary information or sensitive data between the client and the provider.

Finally, communication is another aspect that needs to be considered at all times, so that it remains seamless between internal employees and agents provided by the outsourcing provider. A common scenario that might raise this issue is if the third-party provider operates abroad.

So, insourcing or outsourcing?

It is always a complex decision to outsource, especially when insourcing seems to be the easiest and fastest solution to implement. So, what to choose?

As its name indicates, insourcing consists in entrusting internal teams with tasks, even if they could be handled by a company specialized in outsourcing.

However, insourcing implies the recruitment of new human capital, on a permanent or temporary basis, to perform these tasks. It involves investing in new equipment, hardware and software, or even the complete reorganization of business processes.

ProContact, your offshore outsourcing partner!

Outsourcing simplifies the development of the company, which gains in agility, skills and quality, without having to invest huge sums!

Established in Mauritius for more than 18 years, ProContact has built its name and has become one of the leading firms in the contact center industry. The company uses state-of-the-art technology and techniques in the field of outsourcing and offshore call centers (telephone call centers). Thanks to trained, qualified, hand-picked, multilingual agents, we enable the companies that choose us to maintain their credibility and above all to satisfy their customers. To find out more about our services, for a quality partnership, click on our contact form, send us an e-mail or call us on (+33) 1 77 75 04 50.