The Challenges of Procurement Outsourcing

With the growing importance of Strategic Sourcing and Procurement within organizations, business process outsourcing providers (BPOs) are becoming increasingly popular as a way to manage sourcing needs. Companies oftentimes contract several different BPOs in order to attain the right combination of resources.

Despite the fact that they serve as a valuable resource, the challenge lies in finding the right balance of the different BPOs in order to satisfy various sourcing needs for the company.

To dive further into the challenge of balancing different BPOs, there are several drawbacks associated with the use of traditional BPOs:

Contingent Labor
When it comes to contingent labor, finding the right contractor can be quite time consuming. Additionally, companies typically find that they need multiple contractors to fulfill several tasks, which increases the time spent finding qualified contractors even more.

Traditional Large Firms
Despite appealing to companies who are seeking expertise in the industry, working with traditional large firms usually involves long-term contracts. Additionally, deliverables from these firms tend to come in the form of standardized reports with little actionable insight on how to move forward.

Analyst-based Benchmarking and Intelligence Companies
Subscription services from analyst-based benchmarking and intelligence companies are thought to be a useful way to gather information about the industry, but the market intelligence provided through these companies is often genericized. The data is not catered to client specific needs or industry requirements, and therefore does not provide much guidance.

The best way to combat these challenges is to consider a one-stop-shop – a cross-functional BPO – that will provide all of the necessary tools your company needs when it comes to knowledge, market intelligence, on-demand labor, and more. These types of cross-functional BPOs come in the form of boutique-style procurement providers.

Source One Management Services recently released white paper, Redefining Procurement Outsourcing: Looking Beyond the Limited Resources of Traditional BPOs, which goes into greater depth about the potential to expand from traditional BPOs to a more comprehensive, all-inclusive outsourcing strategy.

For more information regarding the opportunities that boutique-style procurement providers have for your company, check out the white paper or visit our website, www.sourceoneinc.com.