Outsourcing has both positive and negative effects. However, the positive side of outsourcing outweighs the negative side of outsourcing. If your organization is into outsourcing and you are curious to know about the effects of outsourcing, then read on. The following is a list of the positive effects of outsourcing.

• With more and more companies planning to outsource low-end and high-end jobs, the outsourcing market is expected to grow tremendously
• The number of companies in offshore locations providing services has tremendously increased in the last few years and this too has had an effect on outsourcing
• With several offshore companies providing services, there are a wide variety of services to choose from. Companies who wish to outsource can also choose the most ideal outsourcing partner to meet their requirements. Read more »
  Bookmark to:
  

With “rightshoring” being the latest buzzword in the global outsourcing market, you might be wondering if rightshoring is right for your business. You might already be into offshoring and some of you might be into nearshoring. Your business competitors might be into rightshoring and you might be worried if you too should step into rightshoring. So what is rightshoring?

Rightshoring is a mixture of offshoring, outsourcing, nearshoring, two-shoring, global sourcing, insourcing and multi-sourcing. The right balance of offshoring, outsourcing, nearshoring, two-shoring, global sourcing, insourcing and multi-sourcing can give your business a competitive advantage.

The most puzzling questions that organizations face is What to outsource? Which processes to Insource? Which work to nearshore? And how to effectively multi-source? If you are thinking along these lines, then read the following guidelines before starting to rightsource.

Read more »

Bookmark to:

Do you often wonder if outsourcing is the right way to grow your business? In today’s business world the buzz word is “outsourcing”. There a countless books, articles, speeches, blogs and webinars on the subject of outsourcing. All this information can help you decide if outsourcing is good for your business, but it is the understanding of the pros and cons of outsourcing that can help your organization make an informed decision. The following is a list of the pros and cons of outsourcing:

The Pros of Outsourcing

• Your organization can become more flexible to change with outsourcing
• Outsourcing can give you increased control over your business
• Experience a freeing up of your cash flow with outsourcing
• In outsourcing, you can share your business risks
• Outsourcing can free you from management problems
• Offshoring can help you benefit from professional and expert services
• Outsourcing can help you save more than half of your operating costs
• By outsourcing, you can be assured that your processes are being carried out efficiently within a fast turnaround time
• Outsourcing can help your organization save on manpower, training costs, time, effort and operating costs
• Save on investing in the latest software, technologies and infrastructure
• You can meet the new and difficult requirements of your customers with outsourcing
• Increased productivity, efficiency and profits are some of the other benefits of outsourcing
• With outsourcing, you can productivity and efficiency even in your non-core business processes
• You can save on capital expenditures by offshoring
• By offshoring, you can spend more time concentrating on your core business processes
• Experience a streamlining of business operations with outsourcing Read more »
  Bookmark to:
  

Is your organization falling back due to increased competition? Is your organization coming down on the ladder of success? Are you suffering from reduced productivity and increased expenses? Are you worried about competing in the flat world? If your answer is yes to the following questions, global outsourcing could be the answer that can solve all your problems. In today’s world an organization cannot survive by only adopting offshoring, outsourcing or insourcing. Adopting only one entity cannot help your organization to gain a competitive edge in the global playing field.

So what must organizations do to remain productive and competitive? The answer to this question is “global outsourcing” Global outsourcing can be defined as a blend of onsite, offshore and nearshore outsourcing solutions in order to achieve strategic business solutions. So how can your organization adopt the global organization model? Organize a meeting with your employees and discuss which business processes can be done offshore, which can be done through nearshoring and which processes need not be outsourced. After deciding on this, your organization can adopt the global outsourcing model.

These following guidelines can help your organization in adopting the global outsourcing model:

1. Perform core business processes onsite

Perform core business processes in-house. Study your organization’s business processes and find out which processes are being performed the best. Do not outsource these processes. Performing your core business functions in-house can enable your organization to exercise greater control.

2. Offshore non-core business processes

Analyze all the processes conducted within your organization and identify the processes that can be outsourced. Accounting services, editing services, customer support services are all integral to your business, but are not part of your core business functions. These services are best outsourced, as when you outsource these services, you can save on time and effort and also benefit from reduced operating costs and increased productivity, Offshoring can also give you access to specialized services in areas which are not part of your domain.

3. Choose nearshore outsourcing for processes that are best done within your country

Although outsourcing has a lot of benefits, there are some processes that can be best done within your country. When certain business processes are done by partners who reside in your country, you can get access to services at a faster turnaround time and it can save you the trouble of shifting your processes to another country, training people and constantly keeping in touch to ensure that your work is being carried out according to your specifications. By choosing nearshoring, you can easily communicate with your partner and there would be no cultural differences to handle.

Please share your thoughts and comments on adopting the global model of outsourcing.

Bookmark to:

When the outsourcing phenomenon fist started taking the world by storm, software maintenance and development services were mainly outsourced. From the onset of outsourcing, India has been the main offshore vendor providing an entire range on IT and ITES services. After the first phase of outsourcing software services has passed, the next phase took on a whole new turn when companies started offshoring all their back-office work, such as accounting services, payroll processing services, procurement services and claims processing services amongst others. The second phase of outsourcing has been rightly called business process outsourcing.

With the rise in outsourcing, there have always been debates and arguments about whether outsourcing business processes to India, China and other countries is a good idea or not. Though there are cost advantages, companies wonder whether outsourcing is a good option. One major reason being, that some jobs require knowledge about the local culture, domain expertise in a particular industry or even a good understanding of business practices. These concerns have made companies cautious about outsourcing. Some organizations have even burnt their fingers at outsourcing and then taken their jobs back to their own country. Read more »

Bookmark to:

If you have been outsourcing your services or have experience in offshore outsourcing, you would have realized the benefits of offshore outsourcing, namely maximized savings, cost-competitive prices, highly-flexile resources, shorter delivery cycles and increased efficiency. For organizations who want to step onto the threshold of outsourcing, choosing an offshore outsourcing vendor and evaluating the vendors’ capabilities can be a tedious task.

If your organization is keen on offshore outsourcing, then you must choose the right outsourcing partner, who can efficiently meet your outsourcing requirements. When you start searching for an outsourcing partner, you will meet many outsourcing vendors who will claim to meet all your outsourcing requirements, but you must choose an outsourcing partner only after thoroughly evaluating your vendor.

• Evaluate different outsourcing destinations, such as, India, Russia, China, Philippines etc to find the location which will best serve your outsourcing requirements.
• Find out more about the laws in the country that you are planning to outsource to and make sure that the laws are compatible with your country’s laws.
• Finalize on the outsourcing delivery model that is best suited for the project that you are going to outsource.
• Choose between an offshore model and a global delivery model, depending on whether you will be having an onsite team.
• If you have finalized a group of outsourcing vendors and have to select one of them, ask the outsourcing vendors for information about their employees, project management, technology, infrastructure and other business-critical information.
• Find out more about the different outsourcing vendors before you choose one particular outsourcing vendor.  Assess each outsourcing vendor to find out more about their processes, quality assurance processes, domain expertise, cultural flexibility, pricing and technical expertise amongst others.
• Start a pilot project with the few vendors that you have selected. This will throw more light on the outsourcing vendor’s capabilities. It will also help you decide which outsourcing partner will be able to meet your outsourcing needs.
• Visit your outsourcing vendor to validate the claims made by your vendor.
• Interact with the outsourcing vendor and the company’s core team to find out if they can work well with you.
• Do not begin outsourcing your work without signing a service level agreement (SLA) and a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Also ensure that you define performance measurement techniques in the SLA.
• Before outsourcing, make sure that you make provisions for performance measurements and monitoring, so that you can identify issues as and when they arise.
• Develop a strict reporting system and ensure that your outsourcing vendor complies with it.

I hope these few guidelines will help you in successfully evaluating your outsourcing partner and choosing the right outsourcing partner for your business.  If you would like to add to this, or would like to post your thoughts on this subject, please send in your comments. Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

Bookmark to:

If you are a photographer who specializes in wedding photography, you might be under constant pressure during the wedding season. With the daunting task of capturing the memories of a thousand couples, it leaves little time for wedding photographers to add finishing touches to photographs. Image editing and post-processing of wedding photographs take a lot of time and effort.

Apart from time and effort, wedding studios also have to engage extra resources and invest in expensive image editing software. Wedding studios have to sometimes also reject prospective customers, because they have to perform image editing tasks.

If you or your wedding studio is facing the same scenario, then outsourcing wedding photography to India might help. Gather around your team members in your wedding studio and discuss your priorities. Do you want to concentrate more on wedding photography and spend less time on image editing? Would you like to save on time, effort, resources and software? Do you want to get access to specialized image editing services for wedding photography? Do you want to engage the wedding photography solutions of an expert instead of conducting in-house image editing services? Do you want to get a cutting-edge over your competitors?

Read more »

Bookmark to:

In the last 10 years outsourcing has grown by leaps and bounds. If you are already outsourcing your services or if you are yet to join the gang, then you might be concerned about the changes that are taking place in the outsourcing arena. Experts on outsourcing have made many predictions about how the outsourcing business in 2008 is going to turn out. Although predictions are just predictions and may never turn into reality, it is wise to look over some of the predictions on outsourcing, before you begin to leap into the popular outsourcing bandwagon.

Since most businesses today depend on offshore outsourcing, experts have foretold that organizations who are outsourcing their services will concentrate more on ensuring the success of their outsourced work. Even though organizations outsourcing their work to outsourcing locations have dealt with problems, such as, bad communication, increased staff turnover, time delays, wrong software codes and so on, companies have not stopped outsourcing.

The year 2008 will be a year of transformation. Outsourcing experts have predicted that there will be a transformation in the way outsourcing relationships work. While the company outsourcing will spend more effort on building the outsourcing relationship, checking the status of the project on a constant basis and making sure the project is a success, the outsourcing provider will work on increased efficiency and providing bug-free services. Read more »

Bookmark to: