If the game has changed, who you gonna call?

Sometimes, the need for up-scaling capacity is part of a long term strategy, the talk of the boardroom for years before the wheels of growth are set in motion. Other times, the need for extra capacity arrives suddenly, only half-expectedly, like bloated charcoal rainclouds or a thief in the night…

We’ll get onto how outsourcing can quickly solve the flooding insurance crisis in a moment. But a major problem with thieves in the night: all too often it’s the same bloke. A Google search for “reoffending rates” reveals, of the top four pages, three are news stories headlined thus:

Nov 2010: Guardian: Reoffending Rates Top 70% in some prisons

May 2012: BBC News: Reoffending Rates Reach Record Level

Jan 2013: Independent: Reoffending Rate Increases

Granted, that’s a very quick and dirty assessment, but it sure paints a sorry picture…no wonder the private sector has been drafted in to have a crack at re-aligning recidivists with the straight and narrow. Privatising probation services might not cut reoffending, but even flattening out the reoffending growth rate would help us rest easier in our beds, and adding capacity to ensure lags who served short sentences also take part in probation schemes is a good idea - those guys should be easier to reform, surely?

Of course, it’s a wider issue than the probation service can tackle alone. What happens in jail, in terms of education and reducing drug dependency and alcohol abuse is vital. Society’s acceptance of rehabilitated offenders needs considerable work too. But if any option is equipped to take an objective, proactive look into an underperforming system, improve accountability, collect the right data and find ways to improve skills and processes, it’s outsourcing. So hats off to the government for daring to explore other avenues towards righting a serious societal problem.

The other big problem at the moment where the government needs an outsourced helping hand is flooding. There needs to be serious infrastructure investment, because we are calamitously under prepared every time rivers swell up. And in the meantime, for all those people anxiously waiting on insurance claims, how about a bit of plug-and-play BPO support, to build capacity and broaden the bottlenecks?

Tell the insurance companies that Mr Cameron, when you sit down to critique their sluggishness in getting compensation to those in desperate need.

The third news item that screams “Outsourcing to the Rescue” is one from Australia, where Sensis, the company that produces the Yellow Pages, has shed 800 jobs as it restructures to be more suited to a digital world. Because capacity doesn’t just expand or recede - it morphs and shape-shifts to adapt to customer needs. And if business leaders are in fear of ‘doing a Woolworths’, their antiquated offering getting consigned to a bygone era, then rightsizing and skilling-up by offshoring work to The Philippines and India shouldn’t be seen 800 jobs gone, but 2000 Australian jobs saved. And with unemployment on the rise in Oz, daring decisions that protect jobs should be respected, not decried.

Moving with the times, rolling with the punches and finding innovative ways to satisfy your customers are often something an organisation doesn’t feel equipped to go it alone. At times like these, outsourcing can step in and be the hero.