Outsourcing is people's business: Meeting Indescon

Is outsourcing model something new for you? Do you have to deal with it – and think how to influence key employees? Or maybe you have problems with not clearly defined goals and objectives in an outsourcing engagement? Or… Maybe you like Murgh Dansek or Alu Channa Masala and want to extend your network?

If you ask yourself these and similar questions, you should definitely have visited the meeting organized by Indescon and held a few days ago in Frankfurt, Germany. And if you could not attend the meeting, read the story and get the feeling about the meeting, outsourcing, networking possibilities, and Indescon itself.

Hot weather has not deterred us from joining the event which took place in Mayur Restaurant – an Indian restaurant located in Frankfurt (thank you for your hospitality and good food served to us!). Ashant Chalasani, the President of Indescon and Pramod Reddy Atla, Director at Indescon have presented the history of the organisation and its objectives. We could also find out many interesting details about themselves: their coming to Germany a few years ago, their engagement to get the Indians living in Germany together and to establish a community, and their business initiatives, understood as a bridge between Germany and India.

Pramod has also presented the reasons why many outsourcing projects fail. Then we could discuss our experiences regarding critical factors in outsourcing initiatives. The results of this (creative!) brainstorming session are as follows:

How to manage an outsourcing model which is new for you? It is important to be well informed: not only about the advantages but also about possible risks. It makes sense to collect best practice cases and to try to implement them. Learning by doing is crucial as well.

How to influence key employee attrition at the vendor? A very sensitive subject, isn’t it? In fact, people make success happen – and not technology, processes or structures. Therefore it is very important to set objectives, to communicate them (in both: formal and informal way) and to consider the cultural aspects of the undertaking: how different people think, interpret facts (as agreements for instance) and react. Incentives are of big importance, too. In companies with high personnel turnover rate a question can be asked who are the key employees?

How to deal with not clearly defined goals and objectives in an outsourcing engagement? Personal relationship between the vendor and the buyer is very important in this context. It is also possible to have independent party between them both to manage the relation. And once again: communication, communication, communication – as much as possible.

What additional measures can be undertaken to protect intellectual property rights? First, the legal framework is very important here: legal circumstances and system of penalties should help a lot. Many companies ask the question about data security while outsourcing them – in many cases the vendors have even more experience with protection of intellectual property than the buyer. Regarding the question of data security and the way: data – information – knowledge I can recommend you another text: Paper-free office – efficient model for a modern company?

How to deal with a service delivered that does not fulfil the expectations? Our team has come to the conclusion that such parameters as quality, quantity and the delivery conditions should be defined in the service level agreement. However, we cannot precisely define everything and we cannot predict everything. Therefore one thing should be clearly communicated from the first day on: that what is delivered is never a finished product, it makes sense to work in a phase system, where the project in dealt into many phases which are subject of delivery to the client. It also makes sense to express realistic expectations by both sides: the vendor and the buyer. And giving the customer the possibility to manage vendor’s team makes it possible to control the results and the project progress.

Meeting Indescon: Open and creative brainstorming session

The atmosphere of the meeting was very open and interactive and we had a very good networking opportunity. We could exchange our ideas about outsourcing, India, innovative business models as IT flat for instance (that will be for sure a topic of another text I am going to prepare) and many more.

Such meetings will be held every month. And I am really happy to attend the next meeting at the end of September – I will write a small report from this event, too.

Posted by Magdalena Szarafin on August 22, 2009