Clients must understand the present to be able to implement the future

In outsourcing projects clients always face two challenges, understanding the present and estimating the effort to implement the future.

Challenge 1 – understanding the present. Clients rarely fully understand how the process the want to outsource (e.g. payroll, time and attendance, employee data) is managed and performed today. If a global solution is being looked at then this means understanding how everything works in every single country. Not every country has the same requirements, processes or ways of doing the same activity.

This means the client must do an extensive internal investigation of their global needs and wants before they start talking to potential outsource providers. If not, this investigation will be done after the contract is signed and could result in gaps between the service that has been bought and the needs and wants of the client.

Challenge 2 – estimating the effort to implement the future. In my experience clients underestimate the level of effort and commitment of resources needed to implement an outsource solution such as payroll, time and attendance, HR system etc.

Even if clients have experience of one type of outsourcing solution such as payroll, they will still underestimate the level of work and commitment of resources needed to implement another solution such as a Software As A Service (SaaS) e.g. time and attendance. In my experience a SaaS project can be 10 times more work than a payroll project.

The outsource solution sales team and implementation experts can give clients a high-level idea of the work and effort involved but until the client explains in detail their requirements and understands where all their data and processes are stored any time line or estimation of effort is subject to change.

In conclusion, it is vital that clients clarify and understand how they manage the activities, processes and functions today that they want to outsource in the future. By understanding the present, they can then calculate the required internal effort involved to implement the future.