Resilience in the business context is not about just surviving through a disruption; it is about continuing to deliver service to the customer base and to make good decisions even while facing unexpected situations.

In Australia, for instance, there are many ways that an Australian company may be disrupted. Key employees may exit; technology may fail; demand may increase suddenly; suppliers may not be available; and internal teams may be too busy during peak times.

It is not about whether an Australian company faces disruption but what is its level of preparedness for doing business when disruption strikes?

Outsourcing can enhance resilience through diversification of risks, continuity, and independence from single individuals. Outsourcing is thus much more than a cost management process – it is a risk management process.

Diversifying Operational Risk

There are a lot of organizations who do not even realize that they concentrate their risks in a small group inside the organization.

The knowledge of doing a particular process could be possessed by one of your employees.

The manager could have the relationship that is very crucial with the client.

One of the team members could know where the important documents are stored or where certain processes should be carried out.

It could be fine for you in case of no problems. However, the trouble arises in case the relevant person is not available.

The outsourcing would enable you to share your responsibilities with more people in the delivery model. In other words, it means that instead of being dependent on internal availability, you should have an external route to deal with certain processes or tasks.

Let us look at your current activities.

What tasks will be interrupted if your employee is not available?

What processes will be interrupted due to lack of documentation of the related knowledge?

What processes make your life difficult when there is need?

All these aspects highlight the areas of concentration of risks.

Protecting Operational Continuity

Continuity of operations refers to the ability of an organization to perform essential tasks even in the face of any sort of disruption.

Professional outsourcing will offer additional capabilities in the case where the internal staff feels stretched. Outsourcing will help ensure the smooth operation of business activities during the time when employees are on holiday, delays in recruiting more staff, and increase in load due to seasonality.

In the case where a professional services firm finds itself facing an increase in client issues, and at this stage its internal staff is already busy with work, then there is likely to be delays in completing tasks, slow response time and the senior staff members could end up doing administrative tasks.

Outsourcing helps to ensure that the proper task gets outsourced without rushing in the recruitment process.

Resilience comes as a result of prior preparations.

However, for those companies that have already made preparations for outsourcing, there is a chance of being better prepared as they will already know what to do before the critical situation arises.

Take a moment to consider the following:

Is your organization able to rapidly outsource the core support operations of the organization?

Will the third party organization be familiar with the standards?

Does everyone know what he/she is supposed to do?

All this has to be done prior to the problem arising.

Strengthening Knowledge Retention

One of the underestimated business risks is the improvement of knowledge retention.

A person who leaves the company means that all knowledge gained during many years goes.

The knowledge retention is not about the rules described in manuals.

It involves customers’ preferences, the ways how to perform some operations, how to prepare the reports and documents and why some actions have been made.

The outsourcing can help reduce the risk of knowledge loss because of formalization of the process.

In order to outsource a process, it needs to be formalized – described, explained and analysed.

This could involve creating the checklists, templates, instruction and quality controls.

As a result, the process becomes formalized.

The knowledge, which was confined to the mind of only one individual, becomes a part of the business process itself. All the employees can be trained based on the same standard. Outsourced employees will be aware of what is expected from them, and the managers will be aware of what needs to be improved.

As an example, let us take a business where there is an employee who prepares an important monthly report for the organization.

Under such circumstances, the lack of documentation puts the company at risk.

However, through documentation of the process, the company gets access to all the details associated with the report. Here the employee becomes very important, but not the only important person for the organization.

Practical Business Scenarios

Outsourcing can be utilised in a law practice to assist with document formatting, filing, and administrative processes. This would decrease the chances of fee earners being swamped during busy times.

An accounting practice may make use of outsourcing to help with the processing and organising of tax returns during busy reporting times. The internal team will maintain control of the process while increasing its capacity.

A business that is expanding can outsource routine back-office tasks when recruitment is taking place. This will ensure that business continues without overburdening existing staff.

This is an example of a key concept: resilience arises from having alternatives.

A business which has only one option of how to carry out its vital activities is at risk. A business that has defined processes, delegating structures, and support available is more resilient.

Creating an Action Plan

To begin with, pay attention to the main processes in your business. Consider the processes responsible for the customer satisfaction, money flows, reports, and so on.

Secondly, make an estimation of your dependencies. Attempt to define whether there are some processes which depend highly on particular persons, systems or unwritten knowledge.

See whether you can delegate this process without loss of control. You can take into consideration all these repetitive processes that require much time.

Make an estimation of the state of process management before delegating the process. Point out the aim of the process, the input and output of this process, deadlines, time for process evaluation and process escalation.

Define the policy of the process communication. Make an estimation who should give instructions, evaluate the result and answer any questions concerning the process.

Begin with the area in which you can manage the process of your team.

Lastly, always control the stability of your outsourcing relationships. Risks can change with the growth of the number of people in your company, the complexity of the services provided and customers’ requirements.

Resilience Is Built Before It Is Needed

A business cannot outsource its risk; rather, it generates more ways of handling risks.

Through diversification of risks, assurance of continuity and maintenance of operational capabilities, the business will be protected against over-reliance on any one person and thus will be adaptive.

It should be noted that the best organizations do not avoid disruptions but are ready to adapt to them.

The ultimate question is: “Can you continue without any worries in case of disruption of an important component of your organization?”