Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Checklist before you Outsource your work offshore

Outsourcing is inevitable in today's world. The cost benefit due to difference in the currency values is an irresistible proposition for businesses. The inexpensive and abundant human resource of developing countries is just a click away. But in the wake of many frauds and data security threats, how can one ensure that you are outsourcing to a reliable center? After all, vendor is a third party. You have to make sure that the confidential data of your company and customers that you provide to vendor is in safe hands. Along with the business process, you also give them a share of your company's brand. If the outsourced work is not done up to optimum quality, then your brand image suffers.

Therefore, we provide you a list of criteria which you need to look into, before you finally zero in on an outsourcing vendor. If the vendor meets the following check list, then you can be assured that you have outsourced your project to the best vendor.

1- Is it offering the best price as per its domestic market?

Probably because you stay in a developed country so whatever the price they offer, it might seem like a pittance to you in your currency. But you need to convert this amount into their local currency, in order to determine what they are charging actually. You must compare the costs of various service providers only after converting them into their currency. After you have the prices in local currency, you may write them in order of costliest service providers on top and cheapest one in the bottom. Then pick out those in middle-range. You must not be tempted by the cheapest ones, because they might not assure you of the best quality. The upper middle cost range vendors are usually the most promising, as they offer quality levels of the top companies and are more competitively priced too.

2- Does it have a qualified and skilled team?

You must insist on knowing the educational credentials of the team which will work on your project to make sure that they are not drop outs or incompetent. You must insist for a skype chat with as many people from the vendor side as possible, preferably the actual team workers of this outsourcing non voice support service provider. This will give you a closer estimate of their intellectual competency.

3- Has the company made headlines for wrong reasons?

It is not difficult to dig up history in the age of internet. A normal search on the search engines can tell you if ever this company was involved in any malpractice or fraud. You must do individual searches of the people who constitute the management of the company also. If you find the slightest negative review of the company, then you ought to strike it out. The reliability of the company should be unquestioned.

1- Will they customize their services and SLA as per your requirements?
The vendor might claim to provide maximum BPO Customer Satisfaction but you need to check if it provides the specific services you want. The company should be willing to customize the services as per the need of the client. And not just services, but accordingly it should be able to make adjustments in the Service Level Agreement (SLA) as well to specifically suit your case.

These are the four essential questions you need to ask besides the other obvious ones like does it have a strong infrastructure, strong IT services, Offshore Chat Support Services etc.
And only after you test the BPO service provider on these criteria, should you finally outsource.

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