Outsourcing refers to hiring a third-party service provider to meet your business needs. Over the past few decades, outsourcing has gained immense popularity among business owners, making it the most preferred solution for instantly scaling businesses while reducing operational costs.
With the advancement of technology, the means and modes of outsourcing may have changed significantly, making it more convenient and hassle-free, but the idea behind outsourcing has rarely been questioned.
The Myopic Attitude of Traditional Outsourcing
Ever since its inception, outsourcing has predominantly revolved around solving staffing issues, resource optimization, and cost reduction. Most outsourcing initiatives are driven by practical issues which arise during the day-to-day operations of a company.
Consider an example, your sales team is also given the task of telemarketing, appointment setting, and content marketing. While your sales team tries to perform all the tasks assigned to it efficiently, they might not be able to be completely productive in the task they were hired to do, that is, close deals!
So, you decide to outsource your telemarketing, appointment setting, and content marketing needs to a competent outsourcing services provider at an affordable price, relieving your sales team of additional responsibilities, and ensuring that their productivity does not suffer, and the overall output of your company increases, without adversely affecting your monetary resources.
Though such an outsourcing venture is effective, it only provides you short-term benefits like temporarily supplementing your sales team, without addressing long term solutions to problems like future staffing requirements, automation of marketing campaigns, need for sustainable outsourcing partnerships, among others.
Outsourcing Should Pre-empt Not React
If you want to gain a competitive edge in the market, then outsourcing should not be a mere reaction to recurring operational issues. It should not be a consequence to everyday obstacles in business. Outsourcing should be an inherent part of your business strategy. It should be a proactive measure, rather than a reactive decision.
Your business plan must be future-proof. You should be able to estimate the obstacles that you may face in the future, and design your strategy accordingly. If required, outsource right from the beginning, so that you will not waste your time and resources after you commence your operations.
The Importance of Strategic Outsourcing
Strategic outsourcing is different from traditional outsourcing. It is not a response to short-term problems of a company, but it is a valuable addition to a business strategy, in alignment with the long-term goals of the company. Through strategic outsourcing your company can allocate more time for core activities, reposition itself in the market, increase its market valuation, and stay ahead of the competition.
In strategic outsourcing the traditional customer-supplier relationship is transformed into a business relationship based on strategic alliance and partnership. Though the goals of strategic outsourcing will be defined at the outset, the partnership arrangement will provide flexibility to modify the goals to achieve maximum results. In strategic outsourcing all the parties involved are treated as equals and together they collaborate and adapt to create a win-win situation, leading to enhanced productivity and increased revenue.
Do you want to stay in the reactive rigid customer-supplier relationship, or adopt the new outsourcing paradigm based on mutual co-operation, symbiosis, and partnership? Traditional outsourcing will soon be phased out, strategic outsourcing is the future. Are you ready for the future?
It is time for you to reconsider your outsourcing strategy. It is time to build business relationships rooted in trust and alignment of goals. It is time to overhaul outsourcing!
