The Outsourcing Mania…

“Outsourcing”…Type in this word in the wikipedia search space and you will get a complicated and higly jargonized definition. Here it goes :

“Outsourcing” involves transferring or sharing management control and/or decision-making of a business function to an outside supplier, which involves a degree of two-way information exchange, coordination and trust between the outsourcer and its client.

Quite a simple one. isnt it? Well its defintely pretty simple to someone whose life is equally jargonized in the corporate world. Let me clear this concept for a layman who is simply interested in knowing what this whole huplaa-boo is all about.

Outsourcing in simple terms means transferring a part of your work to an entity which is supposed to be an expert at that section of the work. Howzzat!!! Still not clear?? Well then lets clean it up with an example. Lets say you run an organization ABC Corp. Your organization is a full-fledged one and deals in numerous operations. Now to run your organization you would have obviously set up a few vital departments like accounting, marketing, finance, HR, etc. Initally you and your people were able to handle all your operations in-house. But gradually as your company grew up you felt the need to focus more on your manufacturing department and wished if someone could handle your marketing aspect. This is where outsourcing pitches in. In order to focus on your core operations what you do is contact a marketing firm (lets call it XYZ Inc.) and strike a deal wherein all your marketing operations would be handled by XYZ Inc. So ultimately what you have done is outsourced your marketing department to XYZ Inc. Its as simple as this.

Now here comes a grenade of criticisms looking to vanquish outsourcing from its root:

1. Why do I need to outsource if I could do it all by myself?

Ans: Well if you can do it all by yourself, then its well and good but seriously are you willing to invest a tree of money to hire people from different departments who are the best in the business??? Are you willing to buy out all the equipments and accessories necessary for running a particular department?? In case you are a Mittal or Ambani and possess truckloads of bank balance, its not at all a problem for you. But if you’re not then don’t you think a better option would be to put someone at work who is definetely an expert in the particular field and would unboubtedly charge you way less than all the investment you would ultimately have to make in order to keep a department running efficiently.

2. Why should I trust someone to handle a part of my business? Isn’t it risky?

Ans: With all due respect, I appreciate your thought process but dont you think business is itself based on trust. And come on, people are here to earn & grow and not penetrate into your business just to runaway with all your bank balance. Outsourcing firms are an epitome of professionalism. They exist because you trust them with a particular functionality of your business. They very well know that the moment they try to betray you, they would be out of business. So clear all these misconceptions and weigh your options before you get pre-judiced.

3. Offshore Outsourcing…You mean giving away the job of my countrymen to the natives of some other nation?

Ans: Now this is something that has been a hot issue courtesy a few “wise” men from the so called developed nations. For God’s sake if you call yourself a developed nation, then dont you have enough jobs in your own country that you are cribbing over a few jobs which either way would benefit your very nation. Dont you get a simple concept of doing stuff in the best possible way and at the cheapest possible cost ratio. Please grow up.

Well i’m sure now you know what outsourcing is all about. So ready to go the ‘outsourcing’ way?

Ashutosh Didwania