Growth continues in the outsourcing market, alongside a trend toward re-shoring activities. As organizations continue to consider these options, there’s a lot to be learned from top-performers that have already taken that first step.
In a webinar, we heard how AOL partnered with Liberty Source, an onshore outsourcer employing spouses and veterans of the military community, to re-shore Finance. AOL and Liberty gave insight into what made the project a success, but also outlined what they would’ve done differently. Here are 6 key learnings AOL and Liberty Source took away from the project:
- Avoid too much scope too fast. The problem wasn’t so much the number of people but the number of processes being migrated: 16 across 120 days. Richard Ziller, Director of Account Services at AOL, says: ‘We did it for business risk mitigation, but it was aggressive. We made it through, but we would have loved to have a little more time.’
- Reconfirm measurement calculations prior to migration. The company inherited measurements that had been carried out off-shore for 8 years. Stephen Hesley, CEO at Liberty Source, says that in retrospect they would liked to have ‘looked under those calculations a bit more before adopting and replicating them. But we began to tune, modify and improve them where needed.’
- Job proficiency is #1 priority. Early on in their training modules Liberty Source did a lot of training on end-to- end thinking, but decided to re-sequence the training design to prioritize individual job proficiency before moving onto end-to- end thinking and project design. Stephen says ‘When inheriting great end-to- end processes like we have at AOL, the value is really about connecting the dots between the different functional areas. We found that people were hyper-focused on just learning their job first before really thinking end-to- end.’
- Prepare and plan resources for coverage and unplanned work. Richard says: ‘We held Liberty Source very close to the costs that we could do – it had to really be cost-neutral. I think this was a major contributor for the lack of a bench team. Going forward we should’ve allowed more in terms of finances to have a slightly larger bench size to handle coverage and unplanned project work. That should’ve been done.’
- Accountability goes both ways. A collaborative approach is essential to a successful outsourcing project, but it’s important not to let collaboration prevent important formal check points. Stephen found that a collaborative approach ‘got ahead of us at times… [and] hurt both parties because we maybe skipped over some more permanent formal checks or sign-offs that might be engrained in a typical business process outsourcing (BPO) customer relationship. It prevented some of that healthy discussion that surfaces real issues. Those check points are there for a reason.’
- Insert legal team reminders regarding co-employment. This helps to ensure the accountability of both parties and formalise responsibilities. AOL inserted a legal reminder that, following the transition, Liberty Source needed to own the work. Liberty Source made it their initiative to remind the AOL team ‘to hold the Liberty Source managers accountable. That shifts the discussion from how work is happening and who is doing the work, to “what is delivered to me and when.”’
Watch the webinar for AOL’s full outsourcing story and to find out about:
- Why AOL made the decision to re-shore and why they chose to partner with Liberty Source
- The scope of work outsourced to Liberty Source and how this was executed in terms of ownership and knowledge transfer
- How re-shoring has impacted AOL performance, vendor engagement, and continuous improvement
- How organizations are becoming more conscious of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and how Liberty Source’s vision plays into these objectives
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