Navigating the complexity of today’s sourcing options requires that organizations apply the same rigor necessary for all strategic business deals to the evaluation, management and execution of any outsourcing commitment. Outsourcing decisions have far reaching implications to the growth of the organization, requiring new strategies and approaches to help ensure success.

Our suite of KPO offshore consulting services is designed to help businesses decide on the appropriate model to rapidly set up and run offshore operations in India. Depending on the client's specific requirements, we offer end-to-end project execution and modular services in the following fashion:

Giving Business Insights

You've just discovered that making the decision to outsource is really the easiest part of outsourcing. Now you need to take decisions about what to outsource and which vendor to go with. You need to plan for project tracking and integration issues by developing the outsourcing or shared service transition plan. We help you preparing initial site selection and geographic analysis, finalizing business terms and also finalizing key performance metrics and controls.

It must be acknowledged that outsourcing decisions always make staff anxious -- and understandably so. It's crucial, therefore, that staff who are affected by the decision, whether they are moving or staying, be communicated with frankly and supportively. Once the dialogue gets past the anxiety stage, people are eager to look forward to the future and the new opportunities that may unfold.

Outsourcing Alignment and Feasibility Assessment

KPO CONSULTANTS analyzes your current business environment to determine the best sourcing options to meet your business objectives. A range of alternatives, such as business process outsourcing or knowledge process outsourcing, among other options, may be considered. KPO CONSULTANTS can review an existing outsourcing or offshoring arrangement against the established service levels and industry leading practices. This may include a service level / billing review, performing benchmarking on the current sourcing strategy to ensure value is being delivered, ensuring security and privacy compliance is being met and ensuring the ongoing fit of the relationship.

Evaluating the Array of Options

Offshoring can be managed through the setting up of captive units, entering into a Joint Venture (JV) with a local partner or through a Build Operate Transfer (BOT) operation. We can help you evaluate which sourcing strategy(s) – business process outsourcing (BPO) or knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) is the right option for your organization.

Although cost savings are often touted as the most obvious and achievable benefit of outsourcing, we prefer preparing an apples-to-apples comparison of the costs and benefits of keeping a function in-house, or insourcing (keeping it in-house but moving to a lower cost location), versus outsourcing.

Location Analysis and Vendor Selection

Working with your team, we can help you select the right locations and vendors in the country, as well as assist you with contract negotiation and development of service-level agreements. We carefully research a vendor's history, capabilities and competitors and definitely follow up with their references. We on your behalf speak to the peers here to see what works and don’t and get additional referrals. Contacts outside of the legal profession can share a wealth of information from their experience, since vendors have been providing outsourcing services for sometime now.

Manage Your Outsourcing Strategy

Once the vendor has been selected, we create a detailed roll-out execution plan for your purposes. We want you to understand the role that sourcing and its various options can play in meeting your business objectives. We compute on your behalf; how much you will really save if you source through the selected BPO or KPO model. We help in letting you know what steps you should take to ensure clear accountability and authority to make the project a success. Further, we thoroughly evaluate the work product during the transition phase - including setting up a "shadow" team that performs the same tasks for comparison. We consider having an on-site project manager from your vendor who will be available for daily communications and who will understand your business.

Risks Evaluation

Outsourcing is an important business strategy that is increasingly part of how companies manage costs and gain access to scarce resources. However, outsourcing is not without risks. We help you identify the risks associated with each sourcing option. We advise on the scope of RFP with service provider – whether BPO or KPO vendor. In pursuance to our understanding, we establish contractual agreement covering governance and compliance processes and assist in managing the RFP and service provider selection process. We make thorough due diligence process for you and negotiate, if required. Depending on the function, we advise to use vendors with law firm experience because they will be familiar with handling confidential information and complying with particular ethical rules.

Tackling Transition Phase

Once the transition is handled, many fail to achieve the potential benefits because they fail to properly manage and monitor their vendors. We, as consultants, assist in managing the transition to a new environment, including support in the following areas: business continuity plans, service delivery plans, governance models, communications plans, change management processes, service contingency plans, and organizational structures. We advise crafting an agreement that explicitly documents service requirements and specifies the processes and deliverables up front. It is critical to watch increasing costs over time, as any cost savings that you initially achieved can be quickly eroded. We assist in developing and effectively managing communications and human resource challenges in the transition process.

We also, make sure your contract includes a clear exit strategy, with well-thought-through provisions on how information will be accessed and data gets returned.

Development of Processes

We understand your business and help you outsourcing business process whether knowledge based or otherwise. We, in this case, assist in development/deployment of service management and governance processes. We help defining process checkpoints and quality measures for go-live date across people, process, and risk. For your purpose, we benchmark sourcing operations against existing SLAs and prevailing industry practices and identify any gaps in performance. We make sure; you successfully perform periodic risk and compliance audits. We also optimize existing sourcing services arrangements (ITO, BPO, SS) through development and implementation of an improvement plan to close gaps in performance.

Other Specific Services

Outsourcing arrangements are multifaceted processes that require attention to business goals, human resource issues, technology and overall project management. Whether you decide to venture across the globe or keep things across the street, consider all of these issues and regularly revisit your goals to ensure the arrangement is meeting your ever-changing needs.

• Infrastructure Services
  
  o Provision of secure facilities
  o Infrastructure deployment
  o Scalability options
   
• Human Resource Services
  
  o Recruitment of agents / consultants
  o Designing compensation packages
  o Designing HR policies and procedures
  o Training and development of personnel
  o Establishing HR and payroll systems
   
• Development and monitoring of quality processes
  
  o QA and testing services
  o Quality certifications/audits
  o Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery
  o Full operational management
   
• Financial Services
  
  o Financial reporting and control systems
  o Billing
  o Compliance services
  o Cost management