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Overcoming Cultural Differences in Small Business Outsourcing
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Today the international business world resembles a global village where offices are no longer restricted by
geographical boundaries. It is possible for companies to work together for a mutual benefit and this is the very basis
of outsourcing. However
more than 50% of businesses have reported that cultural differences are the top most problem that may be
faced when outsourcing their projects to offshore locations. Coupled with bad management, cultural differences can be a
disaster for an outsourcing project; but not if small businesses take concrete steps to overcome the cultural differences
that exist.
Following are the general cultural issues small business may face while working with outsource service providers.
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Communication Issues
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Communication may be hampered due to cultural differences, for instance people in US and other western countries
may say "yes" to confirm a contract while outsource providers from India may say "yes"
to acknowledge that they had understood the client's
point of view, even if they didn't agree with it. Research studies have shown that inefficient communication result in
almost
10% increase in project time. The advances in Internet and other communication make it possible for people across
the globe to be in contact for most of their working day. Some BPO providers also work night shifts to ensure that they
are working in real time with their clients across the continents. Furthermore if required on site visits may be organized
to facilitate better communication and interaction.
Training
In a typical BPO project, small businesses may need to change its internal working process to accommodate the external
outsource service provider. It is necessary for both small businesses and the outsource service provider to train their
employees to understand the changes in their business processes so that both teams can have a realistic expectation from
each other. In most cases the training can be accommodated remotely using latest tools and technologies.
Service Provider communication
It is important to encourage the service provider to speak up freely and voice their opinions. BPO vendors from India
for instance have a tendency of agreeing easily to the proposals made by the small businesses and may not give a realistic
view of the situation and thus the small businesses may want to take this into consideration and ask for practical and realistic
deadlines that can be met under normal circumstances.
Superior-subordinate relationship
Generally service provider’s employees in India follow centralized decision structure; they typically follow the decisions
made by their supervisors without raising any questions about the decision. Employees in western countries have more decentralized
decision structure where each employee will question the decisions made by their managers. Small businesses should take this issue
in to consideration while coordinating the project plan between its own employees and with offshore service provider’s employees.
Data privacy and culture
There is a strong connection between culture and data privacy. In India their history is not concerned with privacy laws
and regulations. Problems like Identity theft, stolen credit card numbers are not a major issue. So what small businesses
considered invasion of privacy may not even be an issue with the outsource service provider. It is the responsibility of
small businesses to take this into consideration to make sure their business data is safe and secure with the outsource provider.
In the current growing global economy many cultural differences are fading, as people move between continents. However there are
many cultural differences do exist among the people living in different parts of the world. Knowing these differences and appreciating
it, will make the small businesses to have deeper relationship with their outsource service providers. This ultimately helps both the small
business and the outsource server provider to achieve success in the outsourced projects.
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