Outsourcing does not necessarily take away from your market
share. In today’s business world, a key factor in
maintaining customers and acquiring new business is to
provide a quality product or service. Many competitors may
also be able to provide high standards of quality in their
products and services.

Outsourcing has become essential in the role of continuous
improvement of any product or service one has to offer.
Outsourcing allows you to benefit from the expertise of
another company, without accumulating the expenses of new
equipment, training, and the crazy world of
non-conformances.

Now you may be thinking what steps you need to get started
on expanding via outsourcing. Well the very first thing for
you to do is to see if you have a good clients base where
you are:

Define the scope and time frame of a project. Define your
project requirements up front. Service providers need
accurate, complete information to present you with
realistic proposals and to quote you a reasonable price.

Give vendors as much information as you can about what you
need delivered and the way in which you need the work done.
Be clear and realistic about your schedule requirements,
project schedules can have a huge impact on project costs.

Evaluate a service provider. Do not be afraid to ask
questions, when you’re evaluating proposals from service
providers. Check their references and ask for feedback from
other clients who have used their services.

If you have any concerns about a vendor’s specific
capabilities, voice your concerns. Don’t just stew about it
and hope for the best.

Get samples of their work. Examine the vendor’s previous
work and make sure that their previous work meets your
expectations for quality and style. If you’ve evaluated a
vendor’s portfolio, references and previous experience and
are still unsure of their capabilities, consider asking
them to do a quick mock-up or provide a basic outline of a
work plan.

A service provider who really wants to win your business
might be able to give you a rough concept so you can better
understand their approach to solving your problem.

Define a work plan for your outsourced project with clearly
defined milestones. Having scheduled checkpoints where you
review the status of the project as it works toward
completion. It is an easy way to ensure that you meet your
final deadline and that the final product meets your
standards. Tie the vendor’s payment to these milestones.

Negotiate ownership of work up front. Make sure that you
are clear about who owns the resulting work product and any
important components of that product. Make sure the service
provider understands how you intend to use the deliverables
that they are agreeing to provide.

Don’t forget about the warranty after the project is
complete. It’s a good idea to specify a warranty so that
you are assured of some amount of continuing support from
the vendor after the project is complete. It’s much easier
to negotiate a support clause before the service provider
begins work, rather than after the completion of the
project.

Suppose you need some changes to a business plan based on
feedback that you get from potential investors. Specifying
some amount of free support or negotiating discounted
prices for future modifications can save you time, money
and headaches later on.

Get it in writing. During the course of a service
engagement, the scope of the project, deliverables or even
the agreed upon price may change. Make sure that you
clearly communicate any schedule, scope or payment changes
to your service provider and get confirmation from them in
writing that they understand and agree to the changes.

Likewise, keep a record of any agreement changes requested
by the service provider and whether you accept or reject
those modifications. Save copies of any email exchanges
that you have.

You can access top-notch expertise any time you need it
without the overhead of hiring full-time staff. By staying
focused on your core competencies and hiring expert
freelancers for your other needs, you can compete with the
delivery capabilities of larger organizations while
maintaining your independence

The fact remains that in these days of heavy competition,
it’s become a necessity to outsource certain components of
a business in order to remain competitive.

Find where to hire freelancers, how to deal with them,
protect your business and get professionnally written contract
templates in the Outsourcing Survival Kit.

Gilles Rais

Categories: Articles