The challenges of outsourcing come in different forms, depending on the industry. For example, the HR outsourcing challenges may not necessarily be the same as that of accounting outsourcing. The nature of the work in IT outsourcing differs. For example, call center outsourcing involves finding people who can have exceptional quality communication skills. IT industry, on the other the hand needs people with strong technical concepts.
Challenges of Outsourcing
If you are considering outsourcing, here are some things to consider before you go with that decision.
Limited Availability of Time
When you ask a resource to work for you, it is only available for a limited period. Therefore, one of the challenges of outsourcing is lack of time to complete the tasks. The limited time means that the projects would get delayed and cost more money to companies. On the contrary, full-time employees can offer more time. Therefore, firms with full-time employees can put in more hours to complete the same project in time. Similarly, you may never know if the resource with you are working is dedicated to your task during a given time slot or employed by other companies too.
Tackling of Emergency Situations
Technical industries have to handle different critical issues need timely availability of assistance. Take the example of a web hosting service provider. If the company has to outsource its hosting services to a part-time employee, it will have a hard time tackling emergency situations. In this example, if a customer’s server crashes, the company cannot help it timely revive the traffic if the resource is not available at that time. Thus, the client can lose a lot of money in that time.
Quality of Work
The typical rules of HR appraisals and performance reviews do not apply to the remote resources. Therefore, companies usually find it hard to replace them with cheaper employees. Thus, they have to compromise on the quality of the work. Also, sometimes the quality of work suffers because of lack of training. It is not easy to train employees who are working for some other company with different priorities. Thus, one of the challenges of outsourcing is to get good quality work out of the available sources.
Workforce Discipline and Reporting
It is a different ballgame when you have your work done by someone working remotely. The typical HR rules of discipline and attendance do not necessarily apply to them. Furthermore, it is not easy to manage these resources and strictly enforce those norms. Thus, you may have to compromise on particular disciplines. It means not being able to get everything done the way you consider best for your organization.
Difference of Time Zones
The difference of time zones is one of the significant challenges of outsourcing. You may have to get up early or stay late up at night to coordinate. There are difficulties in understanding the other person’s problems. The difference in time zones can also make it difficult for people to work at the same time on a given project. It may mean not being able to coordinate and deliver projects on time.
