Business ideas

Myth 1: The first and possibly the hardest of all outsourcing myths to overcome is that outsourcing is all about call centres.

Yes, call centres have given outsourcing a bad name, we have all been there – the times where you tried to contact your bank only to spend half an hour trying explain to the advisor what your name is or the time when you had just grabbed a glass of wine ready to have an hour to yourself and the phone rang with an agent trying to sell you a mobile phone.

Will it surprise you to know that call centres amount to less then 5% of all outsourcing?

Then you may also be surprised to find that there are so many different types of outsourcing some of which are so widely accepted that people do not even consider them to be outsourcing?

Example Cleaning and Security Staff:

Very few companies employ their own cleaning and security staff, opting instead to pay a professional cleaning or security company to provide these services. This now means that instead of having to ensure that holiday and sickness periods are covered, or worse are left incomplete while cleaning and security staff are on leave or sick, a service company provides these services and ensures cover according to your requirements.

Advantages?

• No time spent on arranging cover for sickness or holiday;
• Compliance with relevant legislation and health and safety requirements for these roles;
• No time spent on training staff and yourself on the specific laws and Health and Safety in relation to these positions
• No time spent re-interviewing when staff leave due to high turnover levels inherent in this type of position
• Service Level Agreements! Yes ladies and gentlemen definable standards!
• Indemnity Insurance

Disadvantages?

• None other then payment of a monthly invoice.

So why is this form of outsourcing so popular? The answer is simple, these are non-core tasks which are better performed by people for whom this is a core business. Your core business (unless you are a company providing cleaning or security services) is not cleaning or security. Therefore once you have weighed up the time and hassle it takes employing individuals in cleaning and security positions and ensuring cover, training and compliance you have spent more money, time and energy than what a contract with a profession service company would cost you.

So now that we have established that there is no such thing as Irish Stew in Ireland and that outsourcing does not automatically mean call centres, what other functions can be outsourced?

Well, due to advances in technology this means that most of your none core business functions can be outsourced.  Take the tasks below, which are mundane, repetitive and add no or little economic value to your business but are essential tasks that keep your business running, it is these functions which are ripe for redeployment:

       Transcription Services and Document Production

       Purchase and Sales Ledger Transactions

       Bank Reconciliations

       Bulk Conveyancing

       Remortgaging

       Repossessions

       Data Entry

A number of firms have implemented some or all of the outsourcing services described above. If you would like some more information on how these services can work for your firm please contact Liz Knight

Next week we will look at the Second Myth that Outsourcing will automatically mean redundancy of current employees:

Provided with compliments of Magellan Consultancy Services

www.magellancs.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Myths on Outsourcing - Week 1 Outsourcing is all about Call Centres