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Global Delivery can present significant risks and challenges, such as a decline in the quality of the labor force and a lack of focus on ethics and client success.
These risks can have significant negative impacts on your business, such as reduced quality of service and dissatisfied clients. It is crucial to address these issues in order to achieve success in the Global Delivery model.
By following the insights and strategies outlined in our guide on "Navigating the Risks of Global Delivery: Insights and Strategies for Success," you can effectively address these challenges and achieve success in your Global Delivery operations. This includes being an advocate for your clients and holding service providers accountable for their actions, as well as implementing best practices to ensure the quality and ethics of your labor force.

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The decision to outsource business functions to reduce costs is a common one for organizations, but it is important to be aware of the potential risks and negative impacts that can come with it. These risks can include a decline in the quality of the labor force and a lack of focus on ethics and client success. We have seen firsthand, through our experiences working at large global organizations, how these issues can arise and take precedence over the well-being and satisfaction of clients.

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The implementation of Lean and Global Resourcing practices has been known to contribute to these negative outcomes. These approaches prioritize efficiency and cost-cutting over other considerations, such as the quality of the labor force and ethical practices. As a result, the focus on client success can be set aside, leading to a decline in the overall quality of service being provided.

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It is crucial to be an advocate for clients and ensure that their interests and needs are being taken into consideration. It is also important to hold service providers accountable for their actions and push for necessary changes in behavior. By addressing these issues and working towards better practices, organizations can strive for success while also prioritizing quality, ethics, and client satisfaction.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The transition to Global Delivery can bring many benefits, but it is important to carefully manage the process in order to avoid any issues that may arise. There are several key areas that companies should pay attention to in order to ensure a smooth transition.

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One of the challenges that companies may encounter is the lack of visibility into what is happening overseas. North American vendors may not have complete and accurate information about the operations being outsourced to other countries, so it is important to have a system in place to verify the accuracy of any information provided. This is particularly important when management control is being transferred to Indian hands, as the loss of North American oversight and controls can make it more difficult to ensure quality and adherence to standards.

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Another issue to be aware of is the potential for North American service providers to use elaborate analyses and specialized personnel in an attempt to obscure the true root causes of problems. It is important to carefully evaluate the information provided by these sources and ensure that a thorough and accurate assessment is being made.

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Overall, it is essential to be proactive in addressing these and other potential issues in order to ensure a smooth transition to Global Delivery and ongoing success in this model.

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