06 Jan What is outsourcing? What is its current importance in business?
By: Miguel Angel Serracín
Outsourcing or external services is the way we use to call the business strategy that allows us to hire the services of suitable personnel to carry out specific tasks for defined periods of time or for specific projects. With this kind of contract, the aim is to strengthen and refresh the work team of the companies, as well as to manage solutions from a different perspective.
The main motivation for this type of hiring is to increase productivity and lead to the optimization of time and resources.
This is how functions are delegated to a company or team specialized in them, to increase production, access better technologies, or reduce costs within the organization. Tasks range from facility maintenance to complex and meticulous processes such as accounting or talent recruitment.
Among the advantages and benefits of this service are:
- A timely and effective response to changing environment.
- Strengthening of company processes.
- Construction of commercial and corporate relationships.
- Dissemination of a new and better image of the organization.
- Hand-in-hand competition with other companies in the sector with better technologies and greater reach.
- Familiarization with new technologies.
- Optimization of delivery times and quality, which favors organizational development.
- Obtaining accurate data to optimize decisions.
- Access to better technological resources.
- Availability of information services in a timely manner.
- Application of talents and resources in strategic sectors of the company.
- Flexibility within the organization and reduction in its fixed expenses.
There are different types of outsourcing accordingly to the requirements and kind of organization:
Tactical:
-In general terms, it is subcontracting to perform a specific task and that is not part of the strategic tasks or activities of the company. Its main reason is the reduction in costs. For example help desk service, infrastructure and application monitoring, programming, and support team.
Strategic
-Here we already talk about fostering a very close and stable relationship with a third. These are strategic alliances that take shape according to the codependency that exists between the task and the other functions of the organization. These are sought to improve the quality or capacity of the company.
Co-sourcing
-In this scenario, both organizations share responsibilities and the risks that exist in the provision of the service. That is, there is a partnership relationship between the organizations.
In house
-It is only in the cases in which the outsourcing service is carried out within the facilities of the company that requests it.
Offshoring
-It is when a company hires a foreign company to handle tasking or manufacture its products. This is because the foreign company may offer lower management or production costs than the national ones.
Off-Site
-The services that are executed within the facilities of the companies that provide the service are called and then are distributed directly to the consumer from that place.
It is very important when hiring this service or staff, to take into consideration that the results will depend to a great extent on the team and resources available, in addition to promoting the integration of this person or people to the company’s work team, trying so everyone is aligned and oriented towards the same purpose.
Although autonomy must be provided, it is also necessary that this personnel clearly know the mission, the product strategy, and the goals to be achieved in the short term.
In every group or team, the figure of the leader must emerge who will oversee communicating the problem that needs to be solved. It is also the leader’s responsibility to explain why it is necessary to solve the problem. Once they are in a situation, it is the turn of the ‘squads’ to collaborate with each other to find the best solution to the problem raised. On the other hand, the figure of the specialist is also important to determine the best practices to apply both in incidents and in new projects.
The figure of outsourcing today is highly required within companies and is a human tool that will add a lot of value to the company by developing best practices within the institution, in addition to providing better service to its clients by optimizing resources and response times.
At ByondIT we have different types of outsourcing or Executive Services at your disposal such as Center of Excellence, Squad Team, Swat Team, and Consultant on demand, each with different characteristics that adapt to the particular needs of different types of activity or business.