Outsourcing has provided companies with new ways to expand their businesses. From boosting their workforces to streamlining their processes, these benefits have become vital in the competitive business scene. But to get the most out of these, you need to work with your outsourcing company effectively. Here how you can build and maintain a strong outsourcing partnership.
Why good outsourcing partnerships are important
With the number of outsourcing companies operating, you might get tempted to think that you can just switch to a different contractor at the end of each project. But this creates issues that can affect your business’s performance.
One of these is the lack of continuity. Since outsourcing companies work differently, you might get different results with each contractor that you bring in. It can be especially problematic with work that requires a certain level of consistency, such as data encoding. That inconsistency can also lead to customer dissatisfaction.
Getting a new contractor on board also requires a long time. You will have to create a new system for you and the outsourcing company. There is also a matter of training your regular staff and the outsourced team to work together. By having a more long-term relationship with your contractors, you mitigate these issues.
Creating an extension of your brand
A strong outsourcing partnership goes beyond just the contractor being able to do the tasks assigned to it. Through continuous close engagements with your team, the outsourcing company becomes more familiar with what your brand is all about. They can then better help you build your brand image for customers.
Additionally, a long-term outsourcing partner can give you a new perspective for your brand. Since they fully understand what your brand is all about, the contractor can help you discover new opportunities to expand to. They also become more willing to suggest improvements in your organization that you might not have thought of yet.
This long-term partnership also plays a large role in the success of your future business goals. As your outsourcing partner has already worked with you for a long time, they will be more willing to join you in these efforts. They are also ready to adapt to meet the new challenges of your bigger business goals.
The components of a good outsourcing partnership
While building a strong outsourcing relationship with your contractors is a long-term effort, you would want to start right from the first contract. Here, you need to take into consideration the following elements. These elements help build a strong relationship for your initial contract that lets you and your outsourcing partner pursue future contracts more confidently.
Well-articulated business requirements
You know the common jokes about outsourcing agents blowing their tops over clients that keep on changing their requirements mid-work? Those aren’t exaggerations and are often due to clients themselves not knowing what they want exactly. Such indecisiveness can result in a lot of delays and frustrations, as the contractor struggles to meet the changing demands.
Here, you have to make sure that every internal stakeholder is on the same page about everything in the project. These include the desired outcomes and the objectives that you want to achieve. Only after you have prepared and certified all the requirements should you then negotiate with an outsourcing company for the project.
“Intelligent” clients and contractors
Another common mistake that clients often make when outsourcing is leaving all the responsibilities of achieving the objectives to contractors. Here, the contractor also struggles to meet these objectives since you are not guiding them. This situation is often referred to as unintelligent outsourcing.
Being a more intelligent client means that you have to help and guide contractors to meet the desired results. For instance, instead of just using project KPIs for tracking progress, you use them to learn more about the finer details of the work done. This way, you see what is and is not working, and team up with the contractor to create better processes.
Intelligent clients will also attract intelligent contractors. But you should still know what makes them smart options. Here, one thing that you would want to look for is a contractor who is willing to innovate their processes to meet goals. The outsourcing company should also be ready to communicate with you regularly to achieve goals.
Flexibility
Having a definite course for the project goes a long way in establishing a stronger relationship with your outsourcing partner. But you should also be flexible. This flexibility helps both sides bring in innovations that will help the project develop further.
One way to introduce some form of flexibility into your outsourcing partnership is by allowing one-off requests. The strategy lets the outsourcing company try out new ways to improve upon your initial ideas. it goes the other way as well. A contractor that is willing to adjust to meet your needs will be able to bring your ideas to fruition better. But you still need to exercise restraint on your requests so as not to bog down the contractor.
Establishing a long-term outsourcing partnership
Once you have established the initial partnership, you have to work towards maintaining it. Here, your goal is to keep the partnership fresh for each new project you work together in. You would also want to keep productivity up without needing to impose new requirements.
Keep communications up
As is with any business partnership, good communication is vital to keep the work running smoothly. For that, you would want to create a suitable communication plan for both parties. Here, you should maintain regular meetings throughout working with the outsourcing partner. In many cases, these regular meetings tend to wane as the working relationship becomes more routine. You want to avoid this and keep both sides engaged and the ideas flowing.
You would also want to provide feedback in the right way. Too much negative criticism can result in a hostile environment. The sandwich method is one useful strategy here. It works by you providing a constructive (instead of negative) criticism in between positive comments. This strategy helps encourage the contractor to improve more positively.
Make contractors part of your business plans
If you are looking to establish a long-term outsourcing partnership, then contractors would want to know what would be in it for them. As such, you need to include them in your business plans. Let them see more of your processes and strategies to be better acquainted with your work. That allows them to gain useful insights on how you can improve your business ideas.
It is also at this point that you and your outsourcing company need to start aligning your goals together. Ask them what their goals are for each project and see how those fall in line with yours. From there, you and your partner begin developing complementary strategies and processes that would achieve these shared goals.
Finally, you can consider venturing into a new project together. For instance, look for new services that your contractor can offer outside of the ones they already provide. It helps you improve their existing work while they get a new business opportunity to expand on later.
Create a long-lasting outsourcing partnership
Creating a strong outsourcing partnership with your contractors is a significant step that you need to undertake to expand your business further. It will take a considerable amount of time and effort. But once you have established that partnership, you and your contractors will reap all the fruits of your labor.