A Great Combination

The global economy requires companies to provide non-stop, multilingual support for their IT-dependent workforce, but many are unaware that they do not need to go it alone. Kevin Burke, TechTeam Global, explains the advantages blended sourcing can offer.

Today's increasingly global businesses need to support a more complex, multilingual, technology-dependent workforce.

However, while two-thirds of companies invest in staff and technologies to deliver IT support to their global workforce, many with multiple facilities, few can articulate their actual costs for providing this support and even fewer can provide meaningful metrics on their operations’ efficiency.

Most companies operate their own internal IT service desks because they believe it is their only option. Yet global companies can receive excellent and cost-effective support by choosing an outsourcing partner with an efficient blended-shore model.

THE ADVANTAGE OF BLENDED SOURCING

Where traditional offshore outsourcers operate from one low-cost location, typically India, blended-shore outsourcers establish IT support centres in multiple global locations, including within the US. This gives them the ability to deliver a full spectrum of services and savings. They can quickly ramp up or scale back depending on the customer’s incident volume, enabling companies to consume services based on a utility model.

Blended-shore outsourcing firms can extend many services that would be cost-prohibitive for companies, such as after-hours coverage, support in multiple languages, platform or application expertise, business continuity options, advanced technology and comprehensive reporting analysis.

The blended-shore approach offers a number of benefits:

COST SAVINGS

Companies do not have to manage relationships with providers in multiple countries. Blended-shore providers can deliver savings of as much as 20% through better use of support staff and tapping into lowercost labour markets. Perhaps most importantly, competent outsourcers know how to measure the relevant metrics to drive operational efficiency and meet business objectives.

IMPROVED FLEXIBILITY

Many companies assume that outsourcing their IT service desk is an all-or-nothing proposition, and fear the risks involved. With a blended-shore approach, they can roll out programmes to individual countries or operating divisions. Companies can take advantage of global macro and microeconomic factors because providers are not locked into any one country for support – when one low-cost labour market becomes more expensive, for example, it is easy to tap into another market in the outsourcer’s network.

COST-EFFECTIVE MULTILINGUAL SUPPORT

A blended-shore approach offers the right balance of languages, specialties, time-zone support and cost reduction. Call are routed to the most appropriate agent to serve the customer in their native language, ensuring that clients do not have to work with an agent who is barely understandable. Agents speak at least three languages, boosting productivity and maximising scale.

IMPROVED SCALE

Blended-shore outsourcing providers can transfer calls among multiple facilities to balance out call volumes, maintain consistent response times, deliver native language support and handle call spikes. They have enough volume of incidents to better manage staffing, so they tend to be more efficient, thus saving costs.

BUSINESS CONTINUITY

Natural and manmade disasters can threaten any facility, no matter how well protected. Blended centres manage such risks by routing calls to other facilities in the network. If one centre is offline or overburdened, another one picks up calls, ensuring that service is uninterrupted.

Global companies need global sourcing to thrive in today’s economy. With a blended-shore provider, companies can have it all: excellent native language support in multiple languages, reduced costs and extended services.

Companies can rely on an effective, efficient blended-shore IT services provider to make the investments in technology, training and facilities to deliver the scope, services and scale they need at a competitive price.