Over the last 14 years Outsourcing has mainly evolved concerning Communication and Quality Standards.
Kevin Dean has been ahead of WSI Net Advantage for the last 14 years supporting companies with their on-line footprint, meaning the Web Site, Strategy, SEO and PPC.
Kevin starts by explaining that Outsourcing is one key pillar of WSI’s Core Business.
Communication is pointed out as the main focal point that ensures a winning project and a positive relationship with clients. Nevertheless, communication is interpreted and expected in different ways by distinct clients.
Which is your Outsourcing criteria?
Since content is the main component of WSI service and because written content requires fitting the local lexicon, the option is to have on-shore freelancers developing such content whereas other portfolio components (such as development) may be outsourced Offshore.
In fact, WSI is a Full Outsourced structure, so, with exception of the CEO, the entire company is absolutely Lean since it is a full Outsourcing, and a successful one over the last 14 years.
Can the extent of WSI Outsourcing component be made transparent for the market?
Definitely! At the end of the day, a client just wants to be sure that service will fit the need.
Delegation is mandatory when one perceives a given task to be successfully hand over to a third party.
Nevertheless, the client direct contact is kept as a Core Competency with Kevin himself, and the main reason pertains the need to ensure that communication mistakes do not undermine the relationship.
Kevin explains that his own life experience has proven Low Price to mean nothing but “being cheap” and incurring into potential additional costs, since you end up sacrificing Quality or available resources. The focus needs to be on making clients trust you, because that is what will generate new clients by having existing ones advocating for you.
When Outsourcing, one must have clear processes, a systematic approach and common “lingo” in place (meaning common words to define concepts), and this is a major topic in terms of communication, if the same thing has different “call signs” in different organizations, that may prove to be a mess all together when attempting to work in partnership.
Lessons learned
Instead of jump starting with new technologies or approaches as they come out to the market, it is prudent to let someone else take the lead while having the new solution maturing so when the time comes to step in, all the “bugs” and “errors” have already been corrected, not only software wise but mainly Business Process wise.
One clear example in Kevin’s own words was the event of Social Media, that everyone considered to be “the next biggest thing” and then “all of the sudden” there were specialists in Social Media all over the place vouching for lots of approaches and solutions that are no longer around.
Key Message
Outsourcing is, in fact a Good thing, but there are scammers and one needs to be aware that Outsourcing does not mean low price, it means having something done with a profit when compared to doing it in-house.
Usually the “latest tune” bears a risk level that is just not worth it.