Effective outsourcing / offshoring

Woven Solutions is a boutique business process outsourcer (BPO) servicing over 800 clients from 4 UK & 2 overseas locations. They had acquired a specialist overseas organisation and so wanted to take advantage of these skills across the group and gain the benefits of offshoring.

The key to successful outsourcing of any kind is to understand what you have, what you need, what you wish to gain and to start by moving repeatable processes that can be fully documented.

Challenge

• Since the group had developed through acquisition, there was a lack of consistent and formal processes to offshore
• Needed to ensure an effective approach for people and process in order to achieve the business case benefits

Solution

• Agreed approach to offshoring supported by workshops to gain an understanding of current state and future state requirements
• Review of functional objectives to ensure alignment
• Development of stages / approval gates with weekly updates

Outcome

• Successful Phase 1 transfer of resources with plans designed and handed over to the business to manage future phases once the timing was agreed
• Savings of >40% of OPEX in Phase 1 plus additional savings for further efficiencies gained in the process

"Whilst we accept many people offshore for cost saving, in this instance it was about getting a better outcome by being very selective over the type of work being selected. Then of course come the way you go about it. Too often it can become a tail wagging the dog situation" Nicola Collister, Founder, Custerian