Outsourcing Communication Best Practices

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If anything can go wrong in outsourcing, chances are, communication is to blame. People tend to take communication for granted and assume that much of it is adequately conveyed through presumptions when nothing could be further from the truth. Fact is, communication in outsourcing is as important as the outsourcing project that it supports. Here are some ways in which you can use it as an instrument of success.

1. Use communication as a vetting tool.

Thoroughly vetting qualified service providers is one of the most important things you can do as an outsourcer, and although most vetting processes focus on skill and delivery, the ability to effectively communicate with them mustn’t be ignored. Quite simply, communication can indicate how well or how poorly a candidate will perform.

Consider the prospect of For recent events, check our Newsoutsourcing abroad section, for example. Offshoring introduces a unique set of language barriers section that could bring about detrimental misinterpretations – misinterpretations that could create delivery delays or worse, development errors – all based on a translation mistake. That’s an obvious instance of communication failure, of course. What isn’t so obvious are risks embedded in communication style.

You needn’t outsource overseas to suffer from communication problems, after all. Even syntax and semantic differences between you and your service providers expose outsourcing projects to the same risks as those introduced with foreign service providers.

2. Use communication as milestone tools.

Depending on what’s written inside an outsourcing contract just isn’t enough for some projects – especially projects that are deeply complex. Intricate outsourcing contracts need milestones to not only identify and correct problems, they additionally need milestones to ensure parties are on the same track.

It isn’t unusual, after all, for a project to sway off track despite its contract terms being seemingly specific. Effectively reconfirming a contract’s terms via timed communication (i.e. milestones) helps bring a project back on track and ensure that its tasks are completed as intended.

3. Use a stable communication vehicle.

All efforts to identify appropriate candidates and establish a mutual understanding would be for naught, of course, if their delivery were faulty. The ability to communicate, in this case, is just as important as what is communicated.

Telephones, fax machines, couriers, server databases, email devices, and all other communication devices must, therefore, be in working order at all times. And if potential problems exist, upgrades, alternative tools, and anything else required to establish a stable method of communication become a priority.

Continued…