When speaking of outsourcing, the first topics that come to mind for most people/companies are IT outsourcing and cost reductions. This is still perfectly valid; however, there are many other aspects that are worth considering.
Having dedicated people (We) looking after a certain process can make your internal processes more efficient, an approach which is widely used internally when setting up internal support functions.
First of all it allows your own people to focus differently. But it will also force you to streamline your own processes leading up to the touch point – and a professional outsourcing partner (We) will both demand and assist in this. Going through this now, will place you in a strong position for when the market changes and allow to quickly responding to the new agenda.
Cost reduction comes in many shapes. One of the obvious ones is reduction in staff cost. Another aspect is the operational cost which can often be reduced. Samples are office maintenance services, running the canteen – or bunker desks or DA service providers who can do the job cheaper because of scale of magnitude. But the most important side of the coin could be the transformation from fixed cost and capital investments into variable costs.
Less fixed costs allows you to be more agile and less exposed in a turbulent market.
By engaging with a professional outsourcing organization (We), you could potentially achieve an improvement in the quality of service. One reason could be if the processes you are outsourcing is either not your key competency; another that it is trivial work which doesn't motivate your own staff. Also, working with an external partner, makes it a natural step to introduce agreed service levels and KPI's.
It lies in the nature that often processes found suitable for outsourcing, are processes of repetitive nature and which are not your key business processes. Humans are different; some people like doing such processes; others don't. Taking trivial tasks away from your valued business staff could be an important aspect of keeping them motivated and retain them on your team.
In a turbulent market where up's and downs come fast, the ability to quickly scale up and down can be crucial to survive in a competitive market. In the current market, you likely want to be able to scale down. But when the market changes, wouldn't it be nice to be able to quickly scale up again without having to employ staff?
A classic argument for outsourcing is to allow you to devote more attention to you core business.
Your business is full of daily necessities which are not your core business. You might not think of it as outsourcing, but you don't run your own power plant just because you need electricity. So consider what are the processes that are important to control, and which are of a supportive nature only.