On 4 July 2019, Ludmila Shusterova, Director for Strategic Development, BDO Unicon Outsourcing, participated in the workshop titled “Specific Aspects of Procurement of Outsourcing Services, ITO & BPO” organised by the Association of Strategic Outsourcing (ASTRA) and CPO Club, an association of chief procurement officers.
Ms Shusterova talked about preparations for outsourcing tenders and held the interactive part of the event together with Yuri Yefrosinin, Executive Director of Kelly Services, during which the participants had to choose a single function to be outsourced and to discuss, as a team, how to organise and improve the procurement process in order to achieve the set goals.
According to the workshop participants, companies are ready to outsource any non-core functions in order to allocate time to key business processes. However, the transfer is complicated due to several issues, including employee resistance to change, working with false expectations (the customers often expect to replace their full-time employees hoping to reduce expenses significantly), and inability of businesses to communicate their goals.
In her speech, Ludmila Shusterova said that one of the complex tasks faced by the customer is to consolidate expectations and interests of multiple end customers of the outsourced services. “Sometimes, top management sets a goal to optimise a process, while the end customers responsible for outsourcing negotiations are not ready for changes. Chief procurement officers play an important role. They obtain data on internal needs and ensure dialog between the internal customers and the providers,” stressed Ms Shusterova.
