As organizations look to offshore business functions to reduce cost, they generally overlook the glaring issues with the outsourcing environment. Having worked at some of the largest global organizations, we have seen how quality and ethics have taken a backseat to corporate profitability. Through the implementation of Lean and Global Resourcing, the quality of the labour force has deteriorated and the focus on client success has been set aside. Realizing that these large global enterprises were not going to change their behaviour, we decided to form MIAKL with two clear goals in mind. One – to be an advocate for the Clients and ensure their interests are being taken care of and Two – to force the Service Providers to change their negative behaviours.

The question for you is:

• Are you getting the right information from your service provider?
• Is your service provider behaving ethically?
• Does your internal team have the ability and desire to understand what is happening in the environment?
• Does your internal team know what corrective actions to take?

While there are numerous areas of focus, we have highlighted four key areas that you can use to gauge the performance of your Outsourcing efforts. Our goal is to help you identify what issues exist and how to resolve them. We are leveraging our intrinsic knowledge of the Indian culture (People, Language, Communication, Business, etc), coupled with strong North American/Global Delivery experience working in some of the largest Outsourcing Companies in the world, to assist you. We are confident that we can highlight the areas you need to focus on and address those issues to ensure you avoid problematic Transition, Transformation and Steady State Phases.

ITEM 1 (Staffing)

The Ask: You should have presence in India to oversee the Staffing efforts. As a result of pipeline issues and cost reduction initiatives, high caliber employees are no longer being hired. Shortcuts are being taken to hire resources to meet transition milestones, resources are not undergoing proper background checks, they are not being trained properly and proper support mechanisms are not put in place. This results in lower quality of resources interfacing with your End Users. Without on-site presence, you will be provided misleading information to ensure you are not aware of issues. If you request test scores, mock call results, background checks, resume reviews from North America, the data will be manipulated prior to being provided. An on-site focal can provide oversight to ensure that appropriate checklists are built and sign-off is occurring prior to moving to the next phase of the transition.

Warning sign: If you get resistance for travel to India or greater oversight involvement in transition activities, that will be a cause for concern. Customers have forced the Vendors to not only allow them to visit and observe but also allow them to interview resources prior to being placed on the account. Customers have also played a greater role in the removal of unsuitable resources. Any effort to prevent you from being physically present in India during agent training, mock calls and procedure reviews, is unacceptable.  Experience has shown that this is a signature of systemic issues in global delivery.  The offshore team does not want anyone to review their ramp-up quality control, not even the on-shore vendor team.  They are known to make substandard hires, drop reference checks, stage mock calls, and shore up their quality and readiness levels without actually delivering them.  Its a local management culture problem coupled with North America Executive team allowing India to manage the business.  Results are SLA attainment issues, SLA manipulation attempts by the GD team, huge drop in actual quality, loss of productivity and increased downtime, and eventually increased escalations leading to increased executive exposure. This is the same story on a plethora of accounts.

ITEM 2 (Tools)

The Ask: You should request a list of all tools required to support the account and review Tools Architecture, Support structure, and UAT testing results. Any resistance will be an indication of lack of readiness.

Warning sign: Lack of tool documentation, support information and UAT testing will result in service impact to your End Users. Resources who have not been trained properly now have to deal with tools that are not functioning properly, resulting in delayed resolutions, increased downtime, poor customer experience and increased escalations to senior leadership. India Management, North American Management and the Transition Teams many not share information pertaining to status of tools.

ITEM 3 (Processes & Procedures)

The ask: You should request to have the Service Provider present you with procedural run manuals (Desk-Level Procedures) for Global Delivery staff at all levels.  This is not the PIM, which only describes client-vendor interface processes at a macro level, but the actual run instructions for global delivery staff.  This request will demonstrate to you whether the staff have been trained properly, if they know the tools to use and how to resolve issues in a timely manner.

Warning sign:  Any delay in providing this material will be a clear indication that the Global Delivery team is not ready to begin Steady State activities. Training manuals, desk-level process documents, knowledge documents are a strong indication of readiness. In reality the global delivery teams don’t even maintain these vital documents, let along follow them, and in audits, have not been able to produce them on many accounts.  Makes it very easy for them to manipulate reporting and SLA, CSAT results and the like, and they do just that.  Results again are loss of productivity and increased downtime, and again eventually escalations leading to increased executive exposure. Many older onshore accounts would produce such documents promptly without question.

ITEM 4 (Reporting & Measurement)

The ask: You should request to have the Service Provider provide you with detailed reporting and measurements on all aspects of your operations. You should request that the underlying data be provided with zero filters. You should also ask for direct access to the ticketing system. You should also ask for how the raw data is transformed into SLAs/SLOs/KPIs.

Warning sign:  Any resistance in providing such information or access to tools is an indicator that the Service Provider is taking part in metrics manipulation. India Management tends to focus on quick recovery, by any means necessary, versus identifying the underlying problems of issues and correcting them. By applying pressure to the employees, and indirectly forcing them to manipulate the metrics or lose their jobs, the employees resort to manipulating the metrics as they are not trained nor equipped to perform their jobs adequately.

These items are four of the many areas that companies need to look at to ensure a smooth transition and avoid any steady state issues, when dealing with Global Delivery. You cannot rely on your North American Vendor to provide all the information because in most cases, they themselves are unaware of what is occurring overseas. The shift to Global Delivery is resulting in the removal of North American oversight and placing management control in Indian hands. Any controls that previously existed are no longer available. Now, any information that is provided by India needs to be vetted for accuracy. The NA Service Providers have invested in Distinguished Engineers and Statisticians to ensure that true root causes are lost in hundreds of pages of analysis.

We have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience of Global Delivery to identify and manage issues to ensure a successful transition.

‍

‍