Drama! Tears! Exhilaratus!

Of late with the departure of critical staff and the overwhelming yet critical incomplete work they leave behind, organisations are finding it necessary to get the job done by other people outside the organization within a short time frame. This plus the fact that the nature of doing business worldwide has been redefined by the convergence of telecommunications, information technology and media. Systems such as electronic commerce and enterprise resource planning systems have become an integral part of conducting business. As a result there has been a sharp increase in the need for qualified IT and business professionals to manage these functions. Demand has exceeded supply, and the need for such resources has resulted in increased personnel costs, longer time to market and longer product development cycles.

Chances are, you won’t find these highly skilled people in your own backyard. Yet you need them more than ever, now that competition is swooping down faster than business opportunities are taking off. And you realize that without them, your big dreams for a flourishing enterprise could rapidly go up in smoke. But you don’t have to manage all business functions in-house. Outsourcing provides a neat solution to several of your business problems.

Sadly in third world nations organizations have not been quick to embrace this practice as an intrinsic part of their business strategy and those that have have seen their balance sheets improve greatly in 2 to 3 years. Outsourcing extends the following advantages to the business:

1. Reduced overheads thereby freeing up resources
2. Avoid capital expenditure
3. Improved efficiency
4. Offloading of non-core functions
5. Access to specialized skills
6. Save on manpower and training costs
7. Reduced operating costs
8. Improved speed and service
9. Established long-term, strategic relationships with world-class service providers to gain a competitive edge
10. Enhanced tactical and strategic advantages
11. Focus on strategic thinking, process reengineering and managing trading partner relationships
12. Spread your risks
13. Provide the best quality services, products and people
14. Reliability and innovation
15. Provide value-added services
16. Increase customer satisfaction
17. Avoid the cost of chasing technology
18. Leverage the provider’s extensive investments in technology, methodologies and people
19. Benefit from the provider’s expertise in solving problems for a variety of clients with similar requirements.
20. Focus scarce resources on time-critical projects such as application reengineering
21. Obtain needed project management and implementation consulting expertise, along with access to best practices and proven methodologies
22. Reduce the risk of technological obsolescence and increase efficiency by consolidating and centralizing functions
23. Keep pace and minimize the impact of rapid changes in applications and standards
24. Extend the reach to more trading partners quickly and efficiently
25. Reduce the overall IT management burden while retaining control of strategic decision making.

In summary, the reason why outsourcing is (and still) a success could be put on its ability to reduce cost but at the same time, still provide the quality that organizations need in their business operations. The only difference now is the way organizations deal with their outsourcing deals which equates to the success rate.