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Knowledge Based Outsourcing - The Real Winner For Small Businesses

Guest post by: Gourab Nanda

Article Overview: Outsourcing, the global phenomena ushering workforce effectiveness, has evolved from a stage of merely handling deterministic tasks to delivering knowledge based business solutions, thereby generating cost and growth benefits for many businesses that don’t just look at outsourcing as a process to get rid of all the non-core mundane activities, but something more valuable.

Knowledge Based Outsourcing - The Real Winner For Small Businesses

Outsourcing, the global phenomena ushering workforce effectiveness, has evolved from a stage of merely handling deterministic tasks to delivering knowledge based business solutions, thereby generating cost and growth benefits for many businesses that don't just look at outsourcing as a process to get rid of all the non-core mundane activities, but something more valuable.

This transformation of human cognition into business intelligence for answering the quintessential question of "What about the skills and subject expertise these vendors need to handle our core business processes?" is fast becoming the new definition of outsourcing services.

Defining knowledge based outsourcing To simply put, it is the difference between making a phone call for fixing an appointment vs. providing complete customer support over phone. The latter as you can see requires expertise and skills compared to the former, where a pre-defined text does the job. This is where knowledge based outsourcing becomes a vital source of business assistance, that can bring about a whole new dimension to the way business processes are outsourced.

Examples

Data entry tasks vs. research tasks; appointment scheduling vs. intelligent customer support; posting updates/articles/videos on your social media accounts vs. engaging your social media fan base; performing link building vs. drawing qualified traffic to your site, and a lot more.

Here you see a clear distinction between all the above compared tasks in terms of the knowledge needed to perform them. This calls for subject expertise, skills and a clear understanding of your business, its ethics, its customers and its objectives by the service provider.

Challenges with knowledge based outsourcing

Evidently the real challenge lies in the mind - the knowledge that the vendor possesses in handling the outsourced process the way you might have handled. Emulating you may not be completely possible; however there can be boundaries that can be crossed and objectives that can be met or even surprises that can be delivered, by bettering you on the job.

The challenge also lies with you in deciding what to outsource. You may at times get carried away and decide to outsource your key tasks which you should refrain from doing.

After zeroing in on the processes, the next obvious challenge is to find the right vendor. The common roadblock here is that you find lot of small vendors who offer regular services but lack quality when offering knowledge based services, this may force you to look for other vendors who may tag a bigger price for his knowledge based services. This situation has often forced many businesses to operate with multiple vendors to take care of all their outsourcing needs, of course while attracting all the challenges of managing multiple vendors.

Solution

This situation has paved way for vendors to come up with specific knowledge based outsourcing solutions that can take care of specific intellectual task while also offering other common services. This will also help them to give these services at competitive costs. These vendors are fast becoming the real winners for small and medium businesses, who consider knowledge based outsourcing as a strategic business decision for achieving excellence.

Small businesses might not need advanced knowledge workers for all the tasks, but some critical activities might require a certain level of expertise. Some vendors are offering a service mix which ensures a 360 degree outsourcing solution; through right-shoring, identifying global talent based on skills, geographic and cultural backgrounds, and pooling intellectual resources at optimum costs. The key benefit here, especially for small businesses is that they can simply rely on a single vendor or assistant for all their needs, at lower costs and headaches.

Clearly defined processes and expectations is the key to a successful association. But before that your task is to look for the right vendor. Choose vendors who deliver services in a niche. With appropriate knowledge workers you would be able to outsource the right tasks and get the work done in shorter timeframe and with better quality.

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Article Tags: small business growth, small business management, small business outsourcing, small business tips



Related Forum Posts
Re: Should a start-up outsource early? - Outsourcing is not a mature-business function. It's a process that can be utilized at any spot in the business life cycle. I think outsourcing is a fantastic way to reduce expenses, and maintain quality work. Small businesses can benefit greatly from outsourcing data entry, web programming, and other similar tasks.
Startup Challenges - Kevin - it's a great read - you should pick it up! John - what kind of services are you offering? Your signature says "Providing Big Business Resources to Small Businesses" I have always found big companies to be hard to work with and slow to make decisions but smaller companies are more risk-tolerant and understand the online world.
Hello all... - Hello everyone - this is just a short intro. My name is Evie Parsons and I'd just like to say hello to everyone. As everybody knows that nowadays forums are the best source of Knowledge, and through forums we can learn a lot. I look forward to meeting you all and wish you the best of success.
Re: First roadblock or finding the right market... - I love it Tom... Quitting... tuck tail and run... bury your head in the sand... write a letter!!! I've been accused by my wife of being a "Serial Entrepreneur"... In other words someone that is not satisfied with just one successful business idea and I'm always looking for others. I think that describes most members to this forum! That being said, I'm always finding myself being challenged by new business ideas and then searching for whether they are viable. The most important aspect of deciding whether it is viable is not always the competition in the first analysis. For me, it's more important to research how many people are actually searching for what you're looking for and there are a number of sites out there that can show you search information for specific keywords. If there is a strong demand for your idea (Based on search volumes), then you look at who is actually servicing the market, how big they are and if they have a national or regional presence. (PM me and I'll pass along a great link to work from). Most importantly, your idea needs to offer something different to what the existing suppliers are offering and that uniqueness, combined with a large enough demand, will allow for some room in the market for you. The worst case scenario would be lots of competition and no demand for the product or service. You got everyone fighting over a select group of customers and the big boys will always win with there unlimited marketing cash... (Real life experience and loses to prove this!!!)...
Re: What is your biggest challenge? Today? - Outsourcing and time management, but I'm continually making progress.


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