(A) Meaning : Outsourcing is a process of allocation of specific business processes or functions to a specialist external service provider or agency for certain monetary consideration. In outsourcing, the service provider or contractor enters into an agreement or formal contract with the company or the firm for providing services against certain monetary charges. After this the service provider, will take the responsibility of carrying out the tasks as per the expectation of the company.
(B) Advantages :
The advantages of outsourcing are explained as follows:
(1) Overall cost advantages : Outsourcing reduces cost. Outsourcing avoids the need to hire employees in houses.
Hence, recruitment and training costs can be eliminated or minimised. It is also saves time and efforts on training the employees. Similarly, cost of outsourcing services is much less than recruiting work force for the company.
(2) Stimulates entrepreneurship, employment and experts : Outsourcing encourages and stimulates entrepreneurship, employment and expertness in the country from where outsourcing is done.
(3) Low manpower cost : In every organisation manpower is required to operate machineries, to do routine work, to perform jobs, to administer and manage business affairs. Recruitment and appointment of personnel on permanent basis are costly. Manpower through outsourcing is available at a lower cost. Outsourcing is beneficial in some portions of business process.
(4) Access to professional, expert and high quality services : Usually the non-core areas or tasks are given to the people who are expert, specialised and skilled in that particular field. These people provide better level of services. They commit less errors and avoid wastage and misuse.
(5) Emphasis on core process rather than the supporting ones : Outsourcing supporting the business processes, facilitates the organisation to concentration on its core (more important) areas to improve the quality of its products and services. This in turn leads to better profits and increase output and turnover.
(6) Investment requirements are reduced : By outsourcing the non-core areas, the organisation can easily save on investing in the latest technology. These organisation allow the outsourcing partners to handle the entire infrastructure.
Thus, the organisation itself is required to manage only remaining portion of business process. Hence, investment requirements of the organisation are very less.
(7) Increased efficiency and productivity : Many a time tasks are outsourced to the vendors who are specialised in their fields. Outsourced vendors have deep knowledge, experience, specific equipment and technical expertise. They give performance or do assigned task much better than the ones at the outsourcing organisation. As a result the tasks can be completed faster, with greater efficiency and with better quality output.
(8) Knowledge sharing : Most of the times tasks are outsourced to the vendors who are specialised and expert in their fields. While working together outsourced partners (vendors) share their knowledge, experience, technical expertise, etc. with the employees of the organisation. This is one of the prime advantages of outsourcing. Organisation also uses and shares particular kind of service. Thus, outsourcing helps to develop both the companies and also boosts goodwill in the industry.
(C) Disadvantages of outsourcing :
The disadvantages of outsourcing are explained as follows:
(1) Lack of customer focus : An outsourced vendor may be catering to the expertise needs of several companies at a time. In such cases, the vendors may lack complete focus on outsourcing company’s needs or tasks. As a result, the quality of the outsourced service may not be up to the mark.
(2) A threat to security and confidentiality : When an organisation outsources some portions of business process, it involves a risk of exposing its confidential information to a third party. Similarly, there is danger of the misuse of company’s confidential information by the contractors. So outsourcing involves security issues.
(3) Dissatisfactory services : In case the organisation does not select right partner for outsourcing, it has to face several problems such as substandard quality output, delayed delivery, inappropriate categorisation of responsibilities, etc. It has to compromise on the quality of outsourcing.
(4) Ethical issues : In some cases, the company outsourcing its non-core areas, ignores ethical issues related to outsourcing. When the functions of the organisation are outsourced to a company from another country, the employment opportunities from one’s own country get reduced, which in turn aggravates the unemployment problem.
(5) Other disadvantages :
1. Misunderstanding of contracts ultimately creates many problems for the organisations.
2. Lack of effective communication also creates many problems to the organisations outsourcing their functions.
3. Some times the quality of the outsourced service is not up to the mark, poor and delayed services. In such cases company has to suffer heavy loss on account of wastage.
