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Bill Hackos, PhD
Vice President, Comtech Services, Inc.
www.comtech-serv.com
Your management has told you to outsource some of your
documentation efforts to save headcount and money. Initially, you are appalled
and upset. You will have to cut back on your staff and select an outsourcing
supplier. What to do?
Before you do anything else, it's important that you
explicitly describe for yourself just what is to be outsourced. You need a
statement of work. Do you want to hire contract writers from an outsourcing
agency that you will have to equip, house, and manage yourself? Do you have
enough managers for that? Or, do you want to hire an outsourcing organization that
will do the entire job, including housing its own writers, providing its own
equipment, and doing its own management? Are you more interested in saving
money, or are you looking for special expertise? How much is it currently
costing you to do the function that you intend to outsource? How much would it
cost you to develop your own expertise to perform the function?
If you decide to outsource, you will need to develop a Request
for Quote (RFQ). Then you can send the RFQ to a series of vendors and make a
selection based on criteria you have developed.
Remember that your management is expecting you to save money
and bring in expertise without adding to headcount. Don't be tempted to base
your selection on criteria that are irrelevant to your management's goals. There
are a number of consultants, books, and white papers that can help you. Here
are a few pitfalls that you should avoid at all costs.
Pitfall 1: Selecting only Local Suppliers
You probably already have staff that is not in front of you
everyday. Some of your staff are telecommuting. Some work at other company
sites. Your company may have acquired another company recently, and you are
managing their writers remotely. Your printer and graphics vendor may not be
local. You are well qualified to manage people remotely. You have excellent tools,
phone, fax, server, Internet, and intranet. What advantage does a local vendor
give you? You can see the vendor staff in person, and the vendor's staff can
come to your office or a developer's office on short notice. However, you may
have to choose between a vendor who does high quality work but is not local and
a mediocre local vendor. You should always choose in favor of quality. The cost
of phone calls or travel a remote vendor may incur is usually small compared to
the cost of fixing quality problems created by a mediocre vendor. If you insist
on a local vendor, your pool of candidates is greatly diminished and the
likelihood of a quality outsourced project is also diminished.
Pitfall 2: Selecting Friends
You have just been downsized along with other companies in
your neighborhood. Some of your friends are looking for work. You know they must
be good writers because they are fun to be with. Besides, you might need a favor
from one of them someday. They get together and form an ad-hoc documentation
outsourcing company or make contact with a body shop. What should you do?
Hiring your friends rather than using an established
outsourcing organization is risky for you. You have an obligation to your
management and your company. Why risk failure just to help your friends? At the
same time you are risking that friendship if your friends don't perform well.
Pitfall 3: Selecting the Lowest Price
We all have a natural urge to save money as well as a concern
about being ripped off. However, you should control these urges and remember
that management wants to save money while maintaining quality. You wouldn't
think of going to a camera store and purchasing the cheapest camera, because you
know that not all cameras are alike. You ultimately strike a balance between
cost and quality. You should do the same for the projects you outsource. When
the cheap vendor produces poor quality, your management isn't going to praise
you for saving money.
Many managers are concerned that their outsource vendors may
be making too much profit. Your concern should be how much you are saving while
maintaining quality, not how much your vendor is making. It may be that the
vendor making the most profit is also the one that saves you the most while
maintaining high quality. If your outsource vendor is making a healthy profit,
it will be more attentive to your concerns than if it is only eking out a small
profit or losing money. The best situation is one in which you save the most
money while maintaining quality at the same time that your vendor makes a good
profit.
Pitfall 4: Meddling with Your Outsource Supplier's
Management
You want your outsourced project to go well. So you want to
know all the details about how it's doing. The temptation for a manager is to
try to manage the details of the outsourcing. Remember that if you have chosen
an adequate outsourcing vendor with a good track record, its management knows
more about managing outsourcing than you do. Let your vendor manage. Many
outsourcing projects fail because an amateur in outsourcing, you, meddles in its
management.
Your job should be to do quality control on the results. Is
the documentation accurate, usable, and well written? If you detect a problem,
go back to the vendor management and let them resolve it. If they're making a
fair profit on your project, they will be eager to resolve problems and please
you.
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