In this guide for COVID-19: Tips for reducing commitment with outsourced partners, we’ll be looking at some of the best pieces of advice for getting the most of your outsourced services, without risking your business to lose money.
Delegating some of your business functions might have been the best decision a few months ago, and everything might have turned out well, but in this 2020, each company has had to face a great challenge, which is the COVID-19 crisis.
This pandemic has forced many companies to reduce expenses and save costs in several areas to avoid going into bankruptcy. One of the main aspects that they consider to cut costs is by terminating the outsourcing services they receive, but is that the best decision for your business?
In this article, we’ll learn everything regarding the best strategies that you can apply so your business won’t get affected by the commitment you already have with outsourced partners. Let’s observe:
- COVID-19: Tips for reducing commitment with outsourced partners
- Tip #1: Make efficient savings
- Tip #2: Determine the value of each service
- Tip #3: Be realistic about decisions
- Tip #4: Establish priorities
- Tip #5: Termination isn’t the only answer
- Tip #6: Manage the crisis with creativity
- How can Connect Resources help you reducing commitment?
1. COVID-19: Tips for reducing commitment with outsourced partners
Although there are many benefits of outsourcing employees, there are also some considerations that each company needs to think when it comes to having a partner in a determinate area.
If you’re worried that your company might get affected by this crisis, you should know that private companies have many options for a remote workforce. The best part is that it’s a great solution to face the current economic uncertainty.
1.1 Why is it essential to make savings in outsourcing?
As a company, you might have several outsourcing arrangements, and you probably receive services from more than one agency. Perhaps you’ve delegated the Payroll tasks to one agency, and the IT service to another one, and at the end, you have many providers.
If you currently have many arrangements in place, the wisest to do is to reduce commitments in this area, so when things get better, you can respond quickly. But, you can’t make any decision when it comes to outsourcing; you need to think this very well, and for this reason, is that you need to evaluate the best tips.
However, it’s not advisable to get rid of all the outsourced services and opt for an in-house solution. Why is outsource so crucial for your business? Let’s observe the reasons:
- It can help you with day-to-day operations
- It can be critical for the success of the business
- It can help you achieve your goals
- It can reduce overhead costs
- Your in-house employees will be focused on core activities
If you make smart decisions when you delegate your business functions, you still can receive all the benefits of outsourcing relationship management. Again, you’ll be saving money, and this is going to impact your business positively.
1.2 How should your business respond to a crisis?
There are many ways in which a business can respond to a crisis, but if you’d like to achieve a great result and hold on while the economy gets back to normal, you should follow some smart steps. Let’s observe:
- Make a crisis plan for several scenarios: you need to elaborate on a crisis plan, where you should include what actions you should take in this case.
- Prepare your business for each scenario: make sure you have enough cash flow
- Minimize costs
- Secure cash flow
- Focus on a market and services/products during the crisis
- Consider all the health and safety measures
- Communicate regularly with your customers and staff
Remember that you have to bear in mind the outsourced employees’ rights, so you have to avoid making a decision that can be detrimental for your staff or your corporate image. For this reason, you need to think carefully about how to respond to this crisis.
Connect Resources is one of the top-leading outsourcing agencies in the UAE that is taking significant initiatives towards the COVID-19 crisis, and you can receive assistance from them so you can know how to apply it in your business.
1.3 What are the challenges of outsourcing during the COVID-19 crisis?
The main challenge that companies have with outsourced services is that they don’t know how long this crisis will take, so it’s hard to make predictions since the economy is going to take a while to recover.
For this reason, many companies wonder what the future of outsourcing is. Many companies have decided to terminate their commitments with their outsourced partners, but perhaps this isn’t the best for their business.
If you face this challenge in the right way, you’ll see all the benefits of outsourcing employees for your business, so it’s time to think everything very well so your business can continue operations.
Thanks to the UAE government initiative, there’s an excellent support for employers in the UAE during the COVID-19 crisis, so you need to be prepared during this time, and there are many options that you can consider to face these arising challenges.
2. Tip #1: Make efficient savings
One of the main strategies for meeting COVID-19: Tips for reducing commitment with outsourced partners is to make efficiency savings. It will allow your company to reduce expenses smartly.
- Get enough information
If you have several outsourcing partners, you need to know exactly how much you’re spending and with which one of them. It is going to help you reduce costs effectively because you can determine which one can be terminated. When it comes to lowering commitment, you need to act quickly, and the smart move is to identify where you need to focus so you can make savings.
3. Tip #2: Determine the value of each service
When considering the COVID-19: Tips for reducing commitment with outsourced partners, each company needs to determine the value of each service that they receive from the agency that is carrying out some business functions for them.
What is the correct way to do this? Let’s observe:
- Determine all the services you receive and what each provider is offering you
- Quantify how valuable the services are
- Ensure that the services are accurate
- Identify the vital services that you consider to be valuable
- Identify if some services can be delivered in another way.
Additionally, you should always consider how to align your remote team’s goals, so you can obtain the most out of each service that you decide to maintain outsourced.
4. Tip #3: Be realistic about decisions
Another of the excellent advice for COVID-19: Tips for reducing commitment with outsourced partners is that you need to be realistic about the decisions that you’re going to make to have a better outcome of your business.
- Why are you outsourcing?
You should ask yourself why did you decide to outsource in the first place, and this is going to help you make a better decision. Perhaps you had a great reason to delegate a determinate business function, but sometimes the cause might not be good enough, and if that’s the case, then you can opt for an in-house solution.
- Are you willing to get the burden back?
Outsourcing doesn’t just mean to have a third party doing a specific task for you, and it also means that they’re going to handle all the administrative and logistical burden, so if you decide to terminate that business relationship, you’ll know to have to deal with that burden.
If you contact Connect Resources, they can help you with the business functions that you can’t handle, and this also means that its team of experts is going to take care of everything, so you don’t have to worry about anything. If you decide to terminate it, then you need to be prepared to handle the entire burden by yourself.
You need to be realistic about the implications of terminating an outsourcing relationship with an agency.
5. Tip #4: Establish priorities
Establishing priorities is a great way to face COVID-19: Tips for reducing commitment with outsourced partners because you’ll be able to determine where you need to cut costs and what services are going to continue being outsourced.
Are you planning to reduce your commitment to outsourcing? Let’s observe the two questions that you should ask yourself to do it based on priorities:
- Is the service business-critical? If you have an external provider doing this determinate service for you and it’s critical for your company, then you need to find another solution. It’s not advisable to terminate a relationship with an agency doing a vital business function for your company.
- Can you manage the outsourced service? If you consider that your in-house team can do the business function that you’re outsourcing, then you don’t have to find an alternative, and it could be an excellent decision to terminate it.
If you don’t know how to establish the priorities of your business correctly, you need to know how to do outsourcing in the UAE effectively, so you can understand how to receive the benefits from this business relationship.
6. Tip #5: Termination isn’t the only answer
In this guide of COVID-19: Tips for reducing commitment with outsourced partners, it’s important to note that termination isn’t always the best solution for your problem; it means that you don’t necessarily have to cut relationships with the agency since together can reach a better solution.
6.1 What other options might be possible?
One mistake that companies make regarding outsourcing is that they feel like termination is the only choice, and the truth is that there are many options that you can consider instead of terminating your business relationship with the agency.
What are some of the other options you that could work on? Let’s observe:
- Reduce service levels
- Have a reduction in fees
- Stop some elements that aren’t considered vital at this moment
- Make temporary reductions in services or fees
If you’re planning to keep some business functions outsourced, such as Payroll or any other, you can always learn the best tips for Payroll outsourcing, so you can know how to find a better solution for your problems.
7. Tip #6: Manage the crisis with creativity
Every business is going to face a crisis once in a while, and right now, many companies don’t know how to manage the current crisis that is affecting the entire world. For this reason, as a business owner, you need to think creatively and with agility to find quick solutions that can be the best for your company.
How to think creatively in your business with regards to reducing commitment? Let’s observe:
- Consider what services can be done in-house temporarily and which ones can be permanently
- Evaluate the changes that you can make to your workforce
- Avoid placing a burden on a specific team. Think about another solution that won’t affect your staff.
Keep in mind that your outsourced employees’ rights are something important, and if you’re planning to make a decision, you need to consider how it’s going to affect your staff, whether it’s in-house or outsourced.
8. How can Connect Resources help you reducing commitment?
If you have many agencies providing you outsourced services, then you need to make a smart decision and choose one that can help you with everything you need to keep your business going.
With Connect Resources, you’ll receive all the benefits of outsourcing relationship management since you’ll have a team of specialists working with you to help you achieve your company’s strategic goals. Additionally, you can receive all the services that you need from a single provider, and this can help you save costs.
Would you like to contact Connect Resources for assistance with your outsourced services? You can call at +971 433 166 88 or send an email to contact@connectresources.ae, and you’ll talk to one of their representatives that will gladly answer all of your questions.
