Outsourcing- especially in the Philippines- is a very common strategy for companies who want to scale their business. But most don’t know what it is, let alone how to leverage it to their advantage. As an outsourcing company ourselves, we decided to (hopefully) bring some clarity to this subject. In this series we present our CEO & Founder, David Sudolsky, answering Quora questions on outsourcing.
Transcript:
Hey guys! My name is David Sudolsky and I am CEO and founder of Boldr, and we are a purpose-driven outsourcing company.
Question: What is BPO? How does it work?
Answer: So BPO is Business Process Outsourcing, and the idea is that you are taking processes executed within your company, or tasks being done within a specific department or function, defining a process around it, and then moving it overseas.
Q: What are the important things to know before outsourcing?
A: Knowing what it is you wanna outsource, what is the success metrics, and how does the process work are incredibly critical to being able to move forward fast and quickly.
Q: What are the different outsourcing strategies?
A: There’s many different types of outsourcing, and there’s many different strategies around choosing what you want. I think, first and foremost, you need to identify the amount of time, I would say risk you wanna take, and also money that you wanna spend. Once you understand those internally, then you can make different decisions.
Looking at a service that’s the most expensive, but probably the easiest to implement, and also the highest or lowest risk would be a Managed Outsourced Solution. So in this environment, it’s where you define the task and the process with the company or partner that you’re working with, and then they will execute that on your behalf. They’ll manage the people for you, they’ll manage and report out success metrics or KPIs, and they’ll be communicating as if they’re an extension of your team on a weekly, or bi-weekly, or a monthly basis.
A second setup like that would be this idea of a Seat-leasing Model, where you would be responsible for managing your individual employee’s performance directly. The seat-leasing company would not be responsible for performance metrics. It would help you recruit, manage from a IT, payroll perspective, and provide the facilities available; but they wouldn’t be responsible for performance management. So there’s a little bit more risk for you and your company if you’re gonna choose that model.
Last one that I think is something that once a companies reach a certain scale might wanna consider would be to invest in their Overseas Office. Once usually around maybe 30 or more team members in an overseas market, it might make sense to consider investing in your own operations here.
Related Read: Answering Quora Questions: Outsourcing Advantages & Secrets
Q: How do I choose an outsourcing partner?
A: There’s over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of BPOs across the world, and everyone’s different. There are some consistencies though, and I really relate this fact to this hamburger or cheeseburger example where you go to different types of hamburger or cheeseburger restaurants depending on what you want.
So, for instance, you go to McDonald’s if you know that you want a very standard, routine, consistent hamburger. Whereas you go to your bespoke or craft beer kinda craft restaurant to enjoy a boutique cheeseburger that’s gonna be tailored to what you want.
In essence, that’s kind of what outsourcing has. They have large call centers where you can really outsource ten seats and describe the function and they’ll do it at scale. However, if you wanna work with an outsourcing partner that’s really gonna understand your business, and what makes you different, and build the partnership around that, then a smaller outsourcing company might make more sense for you.
Q: What are the mistakes to avoid when hiring an outsourcing service provider?
A: The biggest thing, especially if you’re a culture-driven company, is finding an outsourcing partner that is aligned to your company’s values. I think it’s so mission critical that you seek to find alignment in what is your partner value and what do you value and is there a match? And if there is a match in hiring, managing performance, managing communication across overseas, it’s just gonna be so much easier.
Thanks guys, hope you found today useful. If you didn’t, don’t worry. We’ll be back next week answering some more questions from Quora. If you can do me a favor now and if you like what you heard, please feel free to like, share, and subscribe.
Otherwise, we’ll be back next week with more questions and answers. Thanks!
ABOUT DAVID SUDOLSKY
David has a track record of successfully mapping business strategy, scaling outsourced operations and driving growth for businesses from diverse vertical markets. Connect him on LinkedIn here.
