5 Tips For Increased Outsourcing in Europe

The Netherlands Foreign Ministry funds an organisation called The Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries – or CBI for the short name. CBI facilitates trade between Europe and developing countries as a way of stimulating those economies. It’s the old argument of ‘trade not aid’, but now as government policy.

CBI recently published research on the outsourcing market in Europe and how attractive it is for companies to work within at present. It’s interesting because they are focusing mainly on demand – are more companies likely to outsourcing inside Europe and if so, how would they do this?

They identified five key factors. This is advice to supplier companies who want to win business from customers inside Europe. They are quite insightful comments and especially when this is a government research project – not private sector companies already involved in outsourcing.

1.    Innovation; I was surprised to see this in a government report, however they are correct that the client and supplier relationship has moved on. Companies are not looking to just outsource business-as-usual, they want a partner who knows their processes inside-out and can offer new ideas and ways of improving those processes.
2.    Focus on Verticals; don’t claim you can offer solutions to any business. Choose the verticals you know and focus on marketing in these areas. Service providers are now expected to know far more about the business than ever before – you need to be suggesting better ways your client could be working.
3.    Open Standards; use very open publicly available delivery methods such as the app store and cloud-based systems. This makes it extremely easy for your clients to find solutions and install them – without the need for complex installation and maintenance.
4.    Smaller customers; it is not only big companies looking to outsource today. Actively targeting smaller companies with automated solutions can be a great way to tap into new business.
5.    Output based pricing; don’t charge by the number of employees you put on a project. Charge the client based on outcomes. Their success is your success.

CBI noted that nearshoring is a much more popular strategy than outsourcing across a long distance. There is a lot of opportunity for companies to engage more in Europe and this advice really demonstrates some good ideas about how to improve the client and supplier relationship.