While outsourcing is a great way to boost your startup business performance, it is far from perfect. Like any business relationship, conflicts might arise between you and your partner. And if you don’t resolve these immediately, they can affect your startup company significantly. So, how do you effectively handle and resolve such conflicts? Let’s take a closer look.
The Types Of Conflicts That Can Arise During Outsourcing
To better plan out how to handle conflicts, you need to know what kinds you should expect. Note that conflicts can arise for a variety of reasons. Understanding these sources will help you better devise a strategy for handling them.
There are three general types of conflicts you can expect to deal with when outsourcing.
- Commercial conflicts: These are the conflicts that arise when you can’t meet your business goals despite the promise of the outsourcing provider.
- Service conflicts: Another type of conflict happens when the provider can’t deliver the services they promised to you.
- Relationship conflict: This involves a more direct conflict between members of your team and the outsourced team.
Note that these types are not always separate from each other. One kind can lead to another. As such, your conflict management strategy will often need to deal with several types simultaneously.
Sources Of Conflicts
Another thing that you need to understand more about is where conflict can come from during your outsourcing engagements. As mentioned above, there might be various reasons why a conflict can happen. However, you can still ascribe these to one or more of several categories.
Contract Wounds
If you are running through a lengthy outsourcing contract, you might find yourself exhausted after some time. Such exhaustion can cause friction between you and other parties as you try to cope with the strain. This can happen even during contract negotiations, where a protracted one can turn unpleasant.
Insufficient Information Available.
You already know how important having information is during any business operation. And not getting that on hand can create disruptions that will affect the business. In turn, this will frustrate all of those involved, resulting in tension. Often, there would be finger-pointing on whose fault the information failure is.
Unrealistic Expectations
Outsourcing has often been touted as a lifesaver for many businesses. However, this can cause a very high expectation from companies. And when those expectations fail, they can result in frustration on the part of the business. On the other hand, providers might find themselves struggling to meet that expectation, which creates additional friction.
Creating Better Conflict management For Your Startup Business
Now that you have an idea of where and how conflicts can happen during outsourcing, you can plan out how to better handle them. The first thing you would want to establish is the rules of engagement. These rules will govern how you and the outsourcing partner approach the conflict. The goal is to create a more collaborative means of resolving issues.
Rule no. 1: We Are In This Together
A common attitude when resolving conflicts is putting the responsibility on just one party. Instead, you want to change that attitude into a more holistic view. Here, both parties take ownership of the conflict. With that mindset, you begin to look out more for the interest of both parties.
Rule No. 2: Operate Based On Facts And Not Emotions
Conflicts can cause emotions to run high. And when this situation happens., it can be harder to resolve these. To avoid that, you should always keep your resolution strategies facts-based. Make it a habit to collect all the information before engaging each party involved. When tackling these facts, you need to ensure impartiality for a fair resolution.
Rule No. 3: Ensure Transparency on Both Sides
In conjunction with the emphasis on gathering all the relevant facts, both you and your outsourcing partner should be transparent. Note that you should establish that culture even at the early stages of the outsourcing relationship. Once you establish this, transparency during conflict resolution becomes more natural.
Rule No. 4: Relationship Managers Should Have Full-Time Roles
The relationship manager will serve as a liaison officer between you and your provider. Their task is to ensure that your and your provider’s organizational structures align with each other. This will let you better work in unison to resolve conflicts. The relationship manager must also ensure that both conflicting parties know the decision of higher-ups regarding their situation.
Rule No. 5: Protect Each Other’s Interest
An important aspect of collaborative conflict resolution is both you and your outsourcing partner looking for each other’s interests. This is because protecting their interests will also give you more protection for your own. That also gives you a stronger impetus to resolve conflicts as soon as possible. It is also vital that both parties are willing to compromise to create a feasible solution.
How Your Startup Business Can Lessen Conflicts
While conflicts will always be an inevitable part of any business relationship, your startup business can still do things to lessen them. These strategies should begin at the early stage of the relationship to give you additional support.
Creating A Comprehensive Contract For Your Startup Business
Provisions for conflict resolution should always be a part of the outsourcing contracts you draft. Outline the resolution process that you will use in detail. You and your outsourcing partner can join together in developing that process. It will serve as an initial testament to your trust in each other.
Focus on developing a customized resolution process. Think about the unique aspects of your business. You then build your dispute resolution process around those aspects. This gives you a resolution process that better suits the needs of your company and its partners.
Resolve Outsourcing Conflicts The Right Way And Strengthen Your Startup Business
Conflicts aren’t just a part of the outsourcing process. When handled correctly, they also help you make your startup business stronger. And at Virtua Solutions, we ensure that conflicts are not only resolved immediately but also bear fruitful results. Contact us today for your outsourcing needs.