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Outsourcing/ Data and Analysis
Outsourcing is contracting a third party to do services for a company. These services can be broken down into three categories. The business process outsourcing (BPO) is the outsourcing of a specific business process task, such as payroll. This can further be broken down into two categories: back office outsourcing, which include internal business functions such as billing or purchasing, and front office outsourcing, which includes customer-related services such as marketing to tech support.
Information technology outsourcing (ITO) is a subset if business outsourcing. Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) involves processes that demand advanced research and analytical, technical and decision-making skills. The KPO works in pharmaceutical R&D, data mining and patent research. We will focus on the BPO form of outsourcing with the focus on Human Resources (HR).
Weighing the pros and cons of outsourcing varies and is not right for every organization, it is an option that should be considered and evaluated by managers on a periodic basis. Studies show significant cost and strategic benefits, include:
• Reallocation of staff for concentrated focus on content development and program management.
• Enabling learning executives and staff to spend more time with line managers and field operations
• Freeing resources for measurement, evaluation, and overall operational and quality improvement in training programs.
• Greater flexibility and responsiveness to meet business demands. (Bersin 2002).
Some disadvantages of outsourcing include:< ...