Managing Offshore Outsourcing Risks
As global tensions continue to rise, business is anything but usual for companies that have grown dependent on offshore outsourcing programs. Not many years ago, risk mitigation was primarily focused on protecting intellectual property and assuring continuity of business operations. Today's geopolitical issues create an expanded list of serious business risks for companies that have operations outside the United States. If you haven't reviewed your risks and mitigation plan lately, now is a good time to some obvious and some less obvious areas of risk.
Location and Travel Access
Over time, the stability of a city or country in which your outsourcing provider is located may decrease significantly. Cities in Asia, eastern Europe, and South America can experience political, demographic, or accessibly changes over a short amount of time. Managers must be aware of how susceptible a location is to disruptive events. Lack of safe and reliable travel routes to and from your outsourcing location can impact productivity. If your operation requires personnel to work onsite for training or co-development activities, consider the impact to projects if the airports or other travel routes were unavailable for days or weeks. There may also be times when sending corporate personnel is simply not safe regardless of travel routes.
Security
Physical and electronic security must also be reviewed on a regular basis. High profile companies are particularly vulnerable to security breaches and malicious activities. There are techniques to lessen the profile of your outsourcing operation. Consider the risk/benefit of a highly visible outsourcing operation in a foreign country. Defining the relationship profile and how security is managed should be part of the plan before outsourcing operations are significant.
Disaster Recovery and Redundancy
In the past, disaster recover plans contemplated natural disasters, fire, or erratic electric infrastructure. It is not unreasonable for companies to plan for a complete loss of operations at a particular location. A large magnitude event could impact a city's infrastructure - sewer, water, electricity - and render a location useless. Events in other parts of a region could severely limit data connectivity and also result in complete loss of productivity. Building operational and technical redundancy into the outsourcing model is essential in assuring maximum uptime.
Our Services Mitigates Risk through Planning
Our experience helps you build an outsourcing program that provides maximum business operations continuity. By understanding the risks associated with outsourcing programs and including program features that allows you to manage through complex issues, we can save your company significant time and money.
We work with outsourcing programs in any phase of maturity. Contact us today to improve your outsourcing program.