Busines Process Solutions - To Outsource or Rightsize, That is the Question!

It's an interesting global economy as you have companies trying to figure out how to survive the downturn while others are expanding at a rapid pace. If there is one thing that I have learned over the years - the time for planning for survival is not when you are looking down the hole you have just dug. In fact, many times companies in this predicament cannot see past today to figure out the best solution, they are in "putting-out-fire" mode.

Ideally, a forward thinking organization has a strategy ready to execute either prior to any economic downtown or has already implemented the solution now to prevent future repercussions of a devastating blow. Whatever your company's strategy is, the question I would ask is "did you choose to outsource non-essential functions, or rightsize the organizational structure due to necessity"?

Any client-facing activity, in my opinion, should be kept in-house. Most organizations make the mistake of outsourcing critical areas of customer service, like call centers. Call center outsourcing may be fine for a service or product of low dollar value, but the higher the dollar value, the more reputation is at stake with customer retention. Look to outsource those functions/applications within your organization that are routine, time-consuming, and repetitive. With a good workflow process-design company like Telamon, these tasks are easily identifiable and the ROI is captured immediately. The task itself may only be 1 hour of an FTE per day, but if you have 20 FTE's doing the same work, then you can see how outsourcing this function not only saves money, but allows your current FTE's to focus on more cost effective, client facing activities.

Rightsizing, according to businessdictionary.com, is the process of a corporation reorganizing or restructuring their business by cost-cutting, reduction of workforce, or reorganizing upper-level management. The goal is to get the company molded properly to achieve the maximum profit. The term rightsizing is often used by companies instead of downsizing because it sounds less drastic. "The company felt that rightsizing was necessary after four quarters of losses."

Rightsizing itself has the perception of negativity. However, if positioned in a way that allows those employees remaining to upgrade their skill sets, then a positive outlook is achieved. This is achieved by combining outsourcing with rightsizing. The perfect time to outsource is during rightsizing. You simply take the tasks that were defined above and work with a solution provider to bring immediate savings. This allows you to rightsize appropriately, leaving subject matter experts (SMEs) at your organization to carry you through the downturn. As your company grows, you no longer need entry-level employees because you have found a strategic partner that continues to scale as you do. You continue to hire the SMEs, which actually get to do the work they were hired for, allowing for routine/non-critical functions to be processed by a true outsource partner.

-John Owen
VP of Sales
Business Process Solutions - Telamon Corporation
john.owen@telamon.com
317-818-6697