Outsourcing is not a new concept and has been gaining traction in the recent past. Those who are new to outsourcing ask why? Corporations can outsource many aspects of their business. These include;
- Customer Support/ Experience/ Service
- Manufacturing
- Shipping/ Logistics
- Sales, Marketing, and Advertising
- Competitor research
- Social media management
- Lead Generation
- Cloud Computing
- Payments processing
- Cybersecurity
- Manpower among others
An interesting analogy to understanding this is the Evolution of Electricity in 1879 when the light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison.
When Edison invented the light bulb he had to build a power station since there was no publicly available electricity to power the bulb. People did not want the power station they needed the light. You could say this was truly the first light bulb moment in the utility and outsourcing model of thinking. People need the outcome of light and not the power plant.
In the period of industrialization, industries needed the power to run and therefore were forced to generate their own power. This power generation plant was ideally collocated where the industry was built. Workers whose work was to take care of the power supply did not add to the output of the factory. As Outsourced/ Utility Power became mainstream, factories were able to focus on their core business and NOT on the generation of power.
This meant that workers employed to run the power supply could now shift focus on the factory’s core business and make it more productive. This analogy is not only true for electricity but also for water, gas, and computing which are consumed as Utilities.
Organizations should be able to scale up from one to millions of clients in a short time and only pay for what they use. The ability to burst capacity while saving on costs when needed assures organizations of rapid scalability.
There’s truly not a single reason to outsource, but rather several, and it depends on the company’s context and actual needs.
Outsourcing customer support is one of the key areas that organizations are keen on. Why is this? I will itemize some of the reasons in the latter section.
The chart below is a recent report by Everest Group and shows Teleperformance (TP) as the Global Customer Experience Management (CXM) providers in the world. Companies big and small outsource some of their critical functions to us like customer service, collections, sales, digital transformation among others. I am currently the Vice President Business Development Sub-Saharan Africa at TP.
TP is the largest BPO provider in the world, with presence in 100 countries and 500,000+ staff ready to serve your organization. TP serves 60% of Forbes 2,000 companies.
It’s the ninth year that Teleperformance has led the CXM PEAK Matrix by Everest Group, an independent research firm focused on strategic IT, engineering services, business services and sourcing.
TP supports businesses in all verticals including Telcos, BFSI (Banking Financial Services and Insurance), Retail, Travel, Leisure, E-commerce, Hightech companies among others.
Reasons to Outsource
- Save on labour and operational costs
- Save time and effort
- Focus more on core competencies
- Lessen operational risks when scaling
- Tap into the global knowledge base
- Grow more rapidly
- Increase brand loyalty
- Gain access to new market areas
- Mitigate risks
- Freeing up internal resources that could be put into effective use
These are just but a few reasons for outsourcing.
If you need help with outsourcing reach out to me here.
