Digital Print Management has been a long term advocate of outsourcing.
But, surprisingly very few companies experience the real benefits of outsourcing because of failure in communication.
All too often relationships along with the contracts fail to meet the expectations of the customer.
Digital Print Management have often succeeded in winning contract work because of failure by the last incumbent.
Great for us but not a good advertisement for the industry in general.
What do I mean?
The three main reasons outsourcing fails are:-
- The company wanting to outsource has no process for specifying the work to be done.
- Poor project management from the provider and the company outsourcing
- No metrics or KPI’s for measuring success
Unless you can specify and understand what you want as the party wanting to outsource how can you possibly expect the supplier to deliver your expectations?
You don’t need a detailed document that reads like War and Peace to make outsourcing successful but you do need to know what you expect to receive from the outsourcing process.
The worse scenario is the company decides to outsource a process and hires consultants to do the work for them assuming they know better than the organisation what is required and wasting money in the process.
Tell us what you need.
We can do anything, just tell us what you need.
I’ve sat in many meetings talking with clients understanding what they are looking and hoping for when they are considering outsourcing.
Start with a blank sheet of paper, if you could have anything you wanted what would it be?
Eh voila, there it is, all the information you need to put together a specification.
The responsibility is on the shoulders of the company looking to outsource the business process.
But, the most important and missing piece is how do YOU want your customers to feel when they experience the process you’ve outsourced.
In other words it is your customer or the end user who will have the real benefit, experience or engagement with the business process you’ve outsourced not solely the organisation.
Outsourcing fails because the agreement is not properly structured, doesn’t take advantage of the outsource providers best practices, creativity and innovation.
It does not define the scope and service levels that meet your needs and there is no communication.
When it is well planned, outsourcing relationships provide and deliver substantial benefits to an organisation and not solely cost savings.
