Skills and Knowledge Transition

Outsourcing is a major growth industry and all indications show that outsourcing will continue to grow at a healthy pace and despite the recent scandal in India.

Organisations are increasingly seeking to outsource selected services both in the UK and internationally.  As well ensuring that the right decisions are made about whether to outsource and what to outsource, reference must be made back to the organisation’s business strategy. i.e. does the decision to outsource enhance the business plan?  If so, then the other key activity is the need to address the skills and knowledge transfer to the chosen outsourcing partner. Regardless of the chosen outsourcing partner and the scope of what is to be outsourced, this activity is of paramount importance to deliver the expected benefits.

iCore’s outsourcing consultancy services have been designed on our cumulative experience in numerous outsourcing transition projects. This covers both UK and international, extending from delivering whole or partial service outsourcing through to transitioning just the services (and not the people).

Transitioning partial organisations to alternative suppliers brings a host of new challenges and usually new ways of working for those that are ‘being transitioned’.  Often this starts with determining who should be transitioned and, on the face of it, this should be relatively simple but as we all know individuals not only carry the knowledge of a specific role but also knowledge of the organisation and its services. The negotiation of who should ‘be retained’ and who should 'transition’ can be very difficult.  At the other end of the scale where it is just processes/services to be outsourced, the challenges are different but can still present significant risk to the success of achieving the outsourcing goals.  Just how much information about the organisation and the services does the new supplier want, need or get?

At iCore, we have assisted in developing those transition plans, have managed the transition process, have worked with both parties to ensure knowledge transfer happens and have even put in place interim teams to work alongside the ‘old’ organisation whilst at the same time providing resource to the ‘new’ organisation to begin the transitioning of services.  This ‘bridging’ approach has helped the outsourcing organisation release valuable organisational expertise to focus on those things that are important to them and demonstrates to the new supplier the level of skills and knowledge required to effectively deliver the ongoing service.