Daily Archives: September 15, 2013

Resourcing techniques…maintaining your talent

Resourcing is one of the most overlooked areas in outsourcing.  Clients enter into large contracts and often hand over the rights to  the vendor to bring in the needed talent.  This works to some extent more so when the arrangement is new when the outsourcing vendor is very particular to get this right to delight the client and improve business.  But once you reach optimal levels you see a big shift by the vendor to turn it to their advantage.    Clients are largely to blame.  In a staff augmentation mode, it is extremely important for both sides to agree the kind of talent you are looking for, skill sets, years of experience, soft skills, visa situation and everything that goes with it to make sure you have a resource that you can bank on.     

Bringing in the right resource at the right time is often a challenge and it could go either way translating to loss of precious outsourcing budgets.  The vendor could present a resource that is not fully qualified to close the open position, the client could sand bag interviewing a qualified resource who could be lost to another client since no one want to keep resources on the bench in a hot market, the client may agree to take the resource without even looking at the profile, the vendor may have inaccurately capture the needs the list goes on and on.  Having a  uniform and consistent procedure from the request stage to the post onboarding phase to declare a resource qualified to continue is the key. Note, onboarding does not end this cycle, a good six to eight weeks of review after onboarding is important to know if the resource is performing to the optimal levels. Most contracts provide for a free billable time if the resources doesn’t fit the bill after onboarding with a cap of 2-4 weeks. Utilize that.

 Swap resources when opportunity arises, use “ last in first out” principle or drop your bottom most performers.  Constant ramp up and ramp down is usual on large outsourcing arrangements due to project needs or end of the year scenario or due to funding situations which goes up and down depending on your IT budgets and initiatives at any  point of time.

 Review your talent pool.  It should look like a pyramid with senior resources at the top and the fresher’s at the bottom.  Your middle tier should almost exactly fit your pyramid while top talent is at the top.  Make sure the talent at the bottom is moving up or moving out.  Review periodically monthly, weekly yearly whatever is the best for the size of  your arrangement.  Maintain metrics on dashboard, verify the data is accurate and covers all resources and distribute at all levels, solicit feedback and update it as needed. Include all relevant data points, use charges and graphs to interpret so it is not just numbers. 

Remember resources are the biggest expense on an outsourcing agreement and maintaining a healthy talent will pay for itself. 

Getting used to Outsourcing

The other day I was attending large PMI symposium with hundreds of career project managers in Tampa Florida. During one of the routine lunch breaks which is open of networking I happened to be seated next to a gentleman that worked for a large accounting firm that ramped its outsourcing over last two years to an India based firm, he was critical of the whole outsourcing. He kept on complaining how nothing is working, the challenges he faced in his job and how this will eventually collapse and painted a picture of gloom and doom and went on ranting for the next 45 minutes. I did listen patiently, finished my lunch and wished him good luck, patience and told him to seek early retirement since he mentioned it was on his mind.

First things first, I am not saying that outsourcing is not without flaws or pitfalls. But look at the benefits as a CIO or CEO would look at it, you cannot ignore the ROI not just from economic sense, but for the ability to source what you want, when you want at a competitive price. Being a technology leader myself I have been situations when I sent assignments to my offshore team and next morning it was ready to be presented to the clients often to their surprise, they would ask me if I lost sleep trying to complete their assignment, and when I tell them that I went to sleep after sending it offshore over a brief call with instructions in the email and they sent it this morning, their jaws dropped. Imagine being 24/7, support or working round the clock from three locations – you can delight your clients for sure while cutting costs.

Every outsourcing arrangements has pitfalls, you just have to have the right leadership, experience and the patience to solve hurdles as you come across. Don’t imitate outsourcing just because others are doing it. The one size fits all wont work. Every business is different, and every outsourcing partner is different in some sense, e.g. some specialize in banking, Insurance, while others specialize in healthcare, engineering etc. there are specialized firms today in everything you do from VLSI to space technologies, Aviation, retain, telecom, Geo mapping so on and so forth.

I covered previously in my blog what to watch for as you go about making outsourcing arrangements. It would make perfect sense not just economic sense to outsource and in some case a case for survival of the company more so during recession. A Sustained campaign to train your staff on embracing outsourcing is the key. There are many firms today that specialize in sensitizing your staff on managing across boundaries. Explain the benefits and the situational need to outsource and providing scientific evidence on dealing with different culture and developing appreciation for it are some ways to keep the resistance low. Seeing colleagues lose jobs as outsourcing ramps up in most companies is not a great scenario for motivation and morale. This was not the culture that we all grew up with. I have worked in companies where three generations worked under the same roof and was common if not rare. It does breed a culture of some employees resorting to bickering and bad mouthing the company like my friend did to me at the lunch. The workplace is changing and rapidly at that for some of us to adapt and retool.

Outsourcing is here to stay, you can wish it goes away with insourcing but no, I dont see that even on the distant horizon.