Growing entrepreneurs and small business owners will be always looking for creative ways to accomplish their business goals at lower costs. Outsourcing to a skilled yet cost-effective business process outsourcing company is one of the best strategies to help you save time and cost.
It’s not just about outsourcing your business tasks to a third-party, you just need to ensure that your outsourcing efforts are worth the money you invest. Herewith, we have explained the helpful tools and resources which can help you to ensure the success in outsourcing.
Creating Supportive Systems & Processes
It’s important to prioritize systems and processes that will support your outsourcing experience. Even if you don’t plan to start outsourcing for months, in this module you’ll find sound business advice about how to get started right away so your business is ready when you are.
Why Systems & Processes are Important for Business Process Outsourcing?
Some business owners don’t make systems and process a priority due to a lack of knowledge or time and resources. Particularly, small businesses struggle with this. There is, after all, the daily work that needs to get done.
Writing down processes may not feel so urgent. Often, there are just a few key employees who know the work like the back of their hand. They don’t need instructions.
However, when you’re thinking of bringing more people on board to support your business, they’re going to have lots of questions. You’ll find yourself explaining the same information, processes, tasks and systems over and over again.
And to be successful long term, you’ll eventually feel an urgent need to systematize and document as many processes as possible. Employee turnover, the evolution of technology and business growth all demand timely knowledge transfer.
How Appropriate Systems & Processes Support Outsourcing?
In this pandemic situation, with employees working from home, you are now in a need to tweak your process to meet the new norms of the remote work environment and communicate it effectively to your current employees.
A good process document can give a framework of tasks and activities for the employees and BPO partners to know their key responsibilities, and gain a perspective of where they fit in and what to expect from your organization.
And, when a new employee comes on board (contractor or otherwise), you need them to be able to jump right in and support operations productively even as they’re learning. The faster the learning curve, the better for everyone.
Knowing what to do and how to do it is key to early success with new employees.
Systematic, documented processes make this easy by:
- Providing clear, concise instructions for work
- Making learning more efficient and standardized
- Allowing for early successes and productivity, leading to better job satisfaction
- Enabling you to keep better track and hold staff accountable
- Setting clear expectations and quality standards
- More accurately predicting outcomes
- Ensuring consistent production and customer experiences
Leveraging Tools & Technology for Successful Business Outsourcing
If you employ a good outsourcing partner, they will likely provide you with all the hardware your contractors need. However, the rest is up to you. You know best what tools, tech and software your team needs.
Typically, outsourced employees need the same tools and resources as do your home team employees. Maybe all you need to do is to provide them with download links and licenses.
But if your teams are in different locations, you may need to research and select additional tools to help you support ALL your employees, regardless of where they’re located. This can be achieved with ease when outsourcing the works to a preferred BPO Outsourcing Company.
This can include things like:
- Web, phone and video conferencing
- Chat, instant message and video chats
- Social platforms, forums and discussion boards
- File sharing and storage solutions
- Collaborative virtual workspaces and tools
- Knowledge sharing platforms
- Online training, including video and e-learning options
There are so many resources available online, and many are even free to use. Do your due diligence to find the ones that work best for your teams. The key is to get your employees what they need to effectively do their jobs, regardless of where they are in the world.
Heads in the Cloud
So much technology exists right now, and more is coming online (into the Cloud) all the time; there are solutions for nearly every need. It’s amazing how far we’ve come. Employees are more connected than ever before, making for easier collaboration and learning, knowledge transfer, and communication.
The advancements that will best serve your team include:
Collaboration Tools: The business world is changing, adapting to the new norm of the post-pandemic world. Teams are more collaborative than ever before, due in large part to massive technological advances and a shift in mindset to a much more social (distancing) atmosphere. Take a look back at the list above.
There are so many ways to enjoy real-time collaboration across departments and even across continents.
There are no longer any boundaries to inhibit a truly team-oriented approach and embrace working together with BPO outsourcing companies, vendors and partners with a unified goal. Employees can see and work on the same documents, comment and discuss, and send and receive files nearly faster than if they were in the same room. And no more losing files in long email chains or losing track of document versions!
Real-time Communication: The need for streamlined two-way communication is more than ever before with employees working offline and business partners located across the globe. The technological advancement in chat, instant messaging, and video/voice options can make this communication seamless and instantaneous, making real-time communication possible in the virtual world.
File Storage and Sharing: Employees across your organization (and the globe) have access to the same files and can share them effortlessly thanks to services like Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. Every file is constantly backed up and can be accessed from anywhere on any type of device, including mobile.
This makes for a more easily integrated team than ever before, and you are unlimited by location or time zones.
Start Systematizing Today
Starting to systematize your business today may seem like a lofty goal. But that’s why you’re here! The first thing to do is to get the knowledge out of your head and into a shareable format that your team can use.
Step-by-Step Systematizing
There are 3 basic steps to systematizing, which you can start doing right away:
Step #1 – Documentation and its Importance
Start documenting everything, even (and maybe especially) the things that you assume everyone knows. Capture what you do and how it gets done. And, bonus, this will help you to determine which tasks can be easily outsourced!
If a process is complex and difficult to predict, it may not be the best outsourcing project to start with, if it can ever be outsourced at all. Start simple—both with outsourcing and with documenting.
Here are some logical starting points for documenting:
- How does a product get to your customer (from purchase to delivery)?
- What does the customer’s experience look like (from initial contact through delivery)?
- How do you market your products?
- How do you communicate about your business, both internally and externally?
Step #2 – Organize your Business Information
Now that you’ve got down some key information, it’s time to organize it. A fun, team approach to starting this process is to write down each step on a Post-It note, and then have your team arrange them in order, group them as they fall naturally, and clear out any duplicate efforts. This can be done virtually as well, as long as one person acts as the team scribe.
Here are some ways to further organize your information:
- Flowcharts
- Diagrams
- Lists
- Videos
- Tutorials
- Handbooks
Essentially, the purpose is to create an easy-to-follow instruction manual for any normal, recurring business activities.
Step #3 – Make the Information Accessible
Once you’ve documented everything, you want to be sure that your team can access it from anywhere. This can be done via a training hub, a file-sharing platform, or an online manual.
Make sure to password protect this document so that only those internal to your company including employees, vendors and BPO outsourcing partners can access it, and you can restrict access to certain sections as needed (managerial functions may not need to be open to everyone, for example). Make the information easy to find and access and make it easy for everyone to find what they need within it (ideally via a search function).
Bonus Tip
One last thing; work to make documenting a habit. It may seem like a lot of extra work to write everything down as you go, but it will simplify and support your business as it grows and evolves, including when you outsource.
Summary of Successful Business Process Outsourcing
In this modular and digital world, the possibilities are endless. Without the overhead of hiring full-time staff, you can access top-notch BPO outsourcing companies at any time according to your business requirements.
The above-detailed analysis can help redefine your business process to meet the current global crisis and find new opportunities to outsource. Now that you’ve defined the process and set tools and resources to support outsourcing, it’s’ time to find the right business process outsourcing company who will grow your business, increase revenue and have more time to focus on your core areas. Reach us at info@vservesolution.com for more insights on making outsourcing work for your business.
Interesting posts to read:
A Brief Introduction to Outsourcing in the Post-Pandemic World
Is Business Process Outsourcing Relevant for your Small Business?
