End of year? Time for review?
How often in a 12 month period do you review your processes and procedures? Especially after such a turbulent year.
I suppose it goes back to the old adage, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”
However, it isn't always possible to see if something is broken.
Things may well be very broken, or, if it isn’t broken, it may be
working to a point, but faced with the same set of challenges and
hurdles as you, other companies in your sector may be doing better?
What are your competitors doing that means they are more productive, more efficient, more profitable? On the surface, things may seem to be almost identical.
To the outside world, including yourself, your competitor is doing everything in a similar way to your company. They go to the same trade shows, have similar sized premises, market in similar publications, and use the same PR Company etc. How then can their net profit be 4 times as much?
The answer often lies in outsourcing.
Outsourcing is an invisible facilitator of productivity, efficiency and profitability. It goes unnoticed by customers and competitors alike.
Let's consider an example...
Company A employs a small team of people to answer the phones, their analysis told them that only 38% of their time on average was spent on the phone. This was a costly department that was failing to add value.
In contrast, Company B have decided to outsource their calls so they only pay for the precise time (measured in seconds) spent answering calls. An instant win, plus their CX NPS scores have also been enhanced making it a win-win.
Going back to Company A, they also employ a medium sized admin team which takes care of all the contracts and customer correspondence. This costs £340k in labour costs alone and in addition there appears to be a lack of efficiency as there is always a backlog of work despite recently employing 2 new members for the team. There may be a need to recruit a more senior office manager to sort this out.
Company B however has none of the cost or issues involved. They have outsourced this department to an ultra-efficient team which clears the tasks in half the time and at a fraction of the cost. No additional hiring of managers needed either.
Conclusion:
So, in a nutshell, just by looking at 2 departments, there is already a huge gulf between these companies and a difference in costs of more than 500k – with no detriment to performance or customer experience. In fact, whilst costs have gone down, productivity and efficiencies have increased as expertise has been added.
Company A feels they have achieved a good result, this is their reality. But the actual reality is that they could have achieved so much more. They don’t feel as if anything is broken, but in reality, things aren't working well at all.
Isn’t it time that you reviewed your processes to see what can be
achieved through harnessing the power of business process outsourcing?
