Outsouricng to the right company

The way we work is changing. People work remotely and outsourced solutions are every where you look. I am a great advocate for outsourcing and use it throughout my business. However, be very careful when choosing an outsourced partner. I have noticed more and more businesses claiming to be experts in many different areas with some worryingly unrelated to the next. When choosing a partner ask them if your work will be undertaken by their own staff or if it will be 'subbed' out to a third party. If the work is to be 'subbed' who is doing it?. There is nothing wrong in companies doing this but what is the strength of your suppliers relationships and to what standard do they work. This happens a lot in telemarketing. A job is taken on and then 'subbed' to a remote worker found on a list of freelance telemarketers or through an agency who have little or no real idea of their candidates quality. In this case how do you retain quality, control and ensure results?. The agent doing your work may not care what they do as they are getting paid regardless!. Always ask the questions. I recently used a company who sub contracted part of the project. I originally thought 'ok wait a minute I will go direct'. However it was explained that because of the volumes of work they give this company the rate I get through them would be a lot better (and I am not dealing with two seperate companies). No problem I was happy with that but I made sure I knew exactly what parts of the project were subbed and the history of the people doing it. It actually turned out fantastically well but better safe than sorry. James Minion 0845 094 3266 www.symmetry-marketing.co.uk

Date: 12/09/2008
Category: BUSINESS EDITORIAL