Introduction
Vision and vigilance: See the benefits but don’t overlook the risks
The benefits of outsourcing are always there, yet it’s only really in times of economic uncertainty or instability, when there are fewer opportunities for growth, yet plenty for stagnation, that they come into sharp focus.
Nevertheless, those benefits remain constant and are constantly growing. In recent years the leading business process outsourcing firms have evolved from organizations capable of ensuring sufficient agents to answer every customer call to being end-to-end customer experience delivery experts. Today, outsourcing CX still reduces costs, but it does so while increasing customer insights, minimizing attrition, optimizing overall quality and opening the door to new tools, processes and solutions.
And, if your business is feeling the pressure and looking for solutions to lessen the load, it can be difficult to see beyond these capabilities — especially if you’ve never considered outsourcing your customer experience before — and instead examine the potential partner promoting them.
But look, you must, because a partnership is not a beauty pageant and irrespective of your need to control costs or to leverage a new technology or solution to seize a growth opportunity, you can’t lose sight of the potential risks, particularly those related to system and information security.
The frequency, cost and potential reputational damage resulting from data breaches and cyberattacks is rising. Even with a robust security strategy underpinning your existing operations, vulnerabilities can still arise through connections with vendors or suppliers who may have weaker defenses.
However, the increasingly interconnected nature of business makes operating in isolation an impossibility. What is possible, though, is to sharpen your focus when looking at potential partners so that it is clear to see which organization can deliver on your CX needs without increasing your cyber risk.