Casseo’s Transformation Podcast Series – Episode 1

Have You Considered Embarking On The Business Process Outsourcing Journey? Or Are You Currently Involved In A BPO Programme?

If the answer is yes, then today’s podcast is for you. In this episode, Ed Coonan and Liz Doyle, Casseo Directors, discuss BPO from the perspective of the Change Manager.

Listen here:

We at Casseo see greater numbers of organisations viewing Business Process Outsourcing as a fundamental part of their strategy. There can be significant drivers and benefits to be realised; cost base reduction, incremental profitability, higher standards of service and service levels. A lot of it comes down to stripping out the non-core activities or non-value-add services in the organisation and allowing the company to spend their time and efforts focusing on their key strengths & primary business. In today’s business climate, the flexibility to scale up or scale down is something our clients value and BPO can really deliver in this area.

BPO relies on the executive management team to be fully aligned on the decision and supportive of the outsourcing strategy. Agreeing the process, the structure and the decision making criteria is vital to success. This ensures there is no ambiguity and there are no delays as the organisation moves through the various stages of the change programme.

Often a third party project management company are better placed to undertake BPO assignments due to their level of experience with managing significant change programmes across organisations, or where the internal change team may not have experience of managing the scale or type of business change required.

In addition third party consultancy firms are experienced in the area of internal organisational communication around programmes such as BPO and address this at each stage of the change process. That said, it is virtually impossible to construct a communications strategy & plan that’s going to keep everybody happy and tick every box for every person, but the key is to constantly gather & consider the feedback and improve the communications as you go, whether that be content, frequency, method of delivery. If you want people to buy in & support the initiative; they need to understand the fundamentals behind the change; they need to be given the opportunity to ask questions and get the necessary clarifications. The importance of clear, concise and transparent communications should never be underestimated.

BPO as with any large-scale transformation/change programme is not without its challenges.There are some fundamentals that must be right from the outset to ensure success; referring in particular to areas such as the Programme Sponsorship. The Governance Structure that’s in-situ to ensure effective management of the Programme and whose members have the necessary decision making authority to support the programme throughout its journey. Proper Stakeholder Analysis is another key element to be considered and which often doesn’t get the attention it deserves. For any Transformation/Business Change Programme to be successful you must have the right team in place to affect delivery and team selection is of paramount importance.

All of that aside, as a business, we are firm believers that it has got to be right first time or it will lose credibility and you will find it very difficult to advance once that happens. Ensuring that you resource the project from the start is of crucial importance. In the case of a BPO initiative, we at Casseo believe that if a client hasn’t done it before, they should leverage external parties with a track record in this area to provide the necessary supports & give them the best chance of success.