If you work at an office or set up a home office, there is a great chance that you own a computer or an electronic gadget to help you with your daily tasks. If you encounter problems with your electronic gadgets, you simply call the manufacturer for some technical supervision or support. In most cases, the technical support that you have called is actually located thousands of miles away from the place where you have bought the electronic device - this is what you call "outsourcing".
Companies nowadays - in medium and large scale industries, are considering outsourcing their jobs in other countries such as India, Philippines, Mexico, and China because of cheap labor. Although the labor is cheap, companies can expect quality services and it allows them to focus more on the important aspects of their company growth. In case you have called a technical support from another country, it doesn't mean that it's the only job that's being outsourced nowadays. In fact, payroll jobs, business processes, data entries, and human resources are also outsourced by many companies - it's all because of the growing IT competitiveness of other countries.
There are many advantages of outsourcing services. Here are some of the advantages and the reason why more and more companies are considering outsourced jobs:
- Low personnel cost
- Companies can focus more on important factors
- Maximize office space for important use
- Increase production
- Effective job management
- Less cash flow
- Less Management time
- Increase company efficiency
Although there are many benefits in outsourcing jobs, there are also disadvantages. If you're main target is cheap labor, you can expect outsourcing to be the best solution. You just have to make sure that the quality of services of the outsourcing body or company meets your standards. Let's say, you're a US-based company and you want to outsource personnel outside the country - you have to make sure that the employees should be competent and qualified to get the job done. You should know if the personnel that you're going to hire speak English fluently with an understandable accent.
Here are some of the disadvantages that you should know in outsourcing services:
Here are some of the disadvantages that you should know in outsourcing services:
- Lesser employment rate in the local scale, particularly related to customer service and technical industry.
- Lesser control over personnel management
- Problems related to the quality of service
- Slow response time which may lead to frustration and anger of customers
- Personnel in other countries may have a different accent (in a call center setting), that may bring out difficulties for local consumers.
- Slower paced resolution time
- Decreased product sales because of negative feedback from the company's outsourced fields.
Outsourcing may have a lot of advantages and disadvantages so it's best to weigh things first before you outsource. If you want to provide jobs to your local sector, you shouldn't consider outsourcing in the first place. If you want to have lesser personnel costs, then you should focus first on outsourcing jobs and services. It’s really up to you and your marketing plan whether you need to outsource or not.
