February 2011

Executive Offices GroupOutsourcing Tips & Information

Contents

• Find The Right Provider For Your Business• Make Sure Outsourcing is Justified• Measure Your Outsourcing Success• Plan to Bring Your Work Back In-House• Resources and Links

Outsourcing Tips & Information

Find The Right Provider For Your Business

• It’s important to find the right service provider for your business

• Try looking for recommendations through online services such as LinkedIn and endorsements from previous clients

• Suggest an initial face-to-face meeting

• Never be rushed into making a decision - remember that you’re the client and you’re in control

Outsourcing Tips & Information

Make Sure Outsourcing is Justified• If you’re looking into outsourcing, you’ll

have already reached some conclusions in your business process and planning

• Your business might need more flexibility in terms of work/time ratio, or need skilled contractors to perform a service/function that can’t be done in-house

• Some outsourcing jobs are straightforward can be done with minimum fuss, while other require considerable planning

• Whatever your reasons for outsourcing, always make sure you’re doing it to help improve your business and not to gloss over internal issues

Outsourcing Tips & Information

Measure Your Outsourcing Success• “There should be financial benefits [to

outsourcing], but other reasons for outsourcing are harder to quantify” - BusinessLink.Gov

• How do you measure the success of outsourcing without resorting to financial comparisons? This could take a variety of different formats depending on the outsourcing provider

• Have some key performance indicators (KPIs) in place to help you evaluate the success of your outsourcing

• KPIs don’t need to be complicated - a few simple (but important) ones work best

Outsourcing Tips & Information

Plan to Bring Your Work Back In-House• For any number of reasons, at some point your

business might wish to bring any or all outsourced processes back in-house

• Throughout the life of any project, it’s vital to have everything written down to safeguard yourself and the outsourcing company

• This is SLAs (service level agreements) come into play

• BusinessLink.Gov makes it known that your SLA should contain a “clear exit strategy” - this will help your business and the outsourcer part company in the smoothest possible way

• Make sure your SLA includes the all-important notes about division of responsibilities to make sure that nothing get forgotten or overlooked when the working relationship finishes

Outsourcing Tips & Information

Resources and Links• Business Link

• Business Wales

• Microsoft Business

• Nasdaq Outsourcing Tips

• Executive Offices Group London Serviced Offices, London Meeting Rooms and London Virtual Offices