|
|
|
 |
The journey to optimized operations calls for considerable vision, preparation, and leadership. You undoubtedly plan to spend time evaluating your outsourcing provider and planning for the transfer of day-to-day operations to your new partner. Similarly, it is important that you not overlook the change management which must take place internally within the organization in order to realign your resources in support of the new strategy.
Build Internal Consensus & Commitment
Even with a strong business case for outsourcing, outsourcing cannot succeed without corporate commitment. C-level support and championship are critical for outsourcing to achieve anticipated ROI and value.
Beginning as early as the provider selection and solution design phases, you want to begin identifying your “champions” throughout the organization. They will be the agents of change and must be ready to play an important role in leading the organization through its transformation. It is only with their buy-in and unwavering commitment that consensus can be earned throughout all levels of the organization.
Retool Your Team
Even while outsourcing shifts the process delivery responsibilities to the outsourcing provider, it is important to realize your increased levels of involvement and accountability at the strategic level. While outsourcing will free up valuable time across your organization, from the lowest to the highest levels, you must now be ready to champion internal reengineering initiatives, manage the company-provider relationship, and provide strategic governance.
To address this change in the mix of responsibilities, companies must be ready to rightsize, reallocate, and retool their employee resources. Outsourcing may call for the elimination of some jobs, however, for other employees it may translate to career opportunity. High performers should be retained, trained in new skill sets, and given higher-level responsibilities. For example, employees who were once responsible for processing transactions may now be focused on review of daily operations reports and ongoing quality improvements.
Planning for this change early will ensure the smooth transition to outsourcing and the success of strategic optimizing initiatives.
Support Ongoing Change
Change management and communications are important, not only during the transition to outsourcing, but on an ongoing basis.
Outsourcing welcomes continuous positive change in the form of process reengineering, Lean Six Sigma projects, and other improvement efforts. It is true that your provider will bring a number of change management tools to your organization, however, building the structure and skill sets internally to effectively manage and roll-out this change will help to ensure company-wide cooperation and flexibility.
The necessary change management support will be unique to each company, however, it might include hiring Lean Six Sigma professionals, aligning rewards with your strategic change goals, and creating a culture that is open to new, better ways of doing things.
Partnership Development
The strength and commitment of your relationship with your provider is highly correlated to the success of your outsourcing strategy. It is therefore critical that you invest time, attention, and resources early-on to develop open, honest channels of communication and a mutual respect for and commitment to each other.
You and your selected provider should work together from the start to develop “integrated operations” whereby your mutual dependency upon each other equally distributes both risk and reward. Your provider should internalize your viewpoint on topics, and likewise you should understand theirs, such that decision-making becomes complementary and works toward the mutual benefit of both parties.
With a solid, trust-worthy working relationship in place, you will have a foundation upon which operational success can flourish.
> Further Reading
We encourage you to download, “Avoiding Pitfalls that Hinder Return on Investment in F&A Outsourcing,” which discusses a number of topics that should be addressed before outsourcing begins in order to make it a strategic success.
| |
|
|
|
|
