Before the pandemic, few would have predicted the great resignation.

During the recent lockdowns, many Australians (and countless people around the world) spent time reassessing their careers. This led to employees changing jobs en masse.

This global trend has come as a bit of a shock to many organisations and companies. (Some suggest it might also be a symptom of deeper social issues.)

Yet, as with all disruptions, there are opportunities cloaked in challenges.

Change is as important as the air we breathe, and once a new idea has taken root, it is nearly impossible to dislodge.

Outsourcing offers a solution

Outsourcing is an obvious solution to many of the challenges raised by the pandemic (including the great resignation), because it provides your organisation with business continuity.

The benefits of outsourcing are well documented. Take a look at my previous article for a great example.

Covid has helped to change many people’s perceptions about outsourcing. The organisations that embraced outsourcing have responded far better than those that haven’t.

As the idea of outsourcing has taken root, and the benefits are seen, organisations often ask one question: “Why didn’t we do this years ago?”

The limits of traditional outsourcing

In parallel to this increase in outsourcing, another big paradigm shift is underway.

A number of major businesses, especially telcos, have started moving their customer support roles away from India and the Philippines. They are bringing these services back onshore in Australia.

Clearly, there are challenges that come with outsourcing important customer-facing roles to an overseas partner, especially if they don’t use your organisation’s internal systems.

But the interesting thing to note is that, although the telcos have bought many roles back onshore, they haven’t necessarily moved them back in-house.

This raises an important question: How do you get the benefits of outsourcing, without the drawbacks of offshoring?

The third option: Insourcing

The good news is that, alongside in-house and outsourcing, there is a third option that’s often overlooked: insourcing.

At first glance, the insourcing model has many similarities to outsourcing.  In both cases, you partner with a third party that performs tasks for your organisation.

However, there is one vital difference between in-sourcing and outsourcing: collaboration.

An insource supplier becomes part of your team, utilising your organisation’s IT infrastructure, CRM, and donor management systems. They become your data centurion, ensuring a high degree of data cleanliness and integrity.

As a result of having a closer partnership, you get a cross-pollination of expertise, more automation, and a deeper understanding of where improvements can be made to your internal processes.

Why insourcing is better than outsourcing

Quite often, an outsourcing partner is not privy to your internal systems and organisational plans. This can place limits on the value your partner provides, including restricting progress on system improvements.

The insource model promotes a much closer relationship. This collaboration, in turn, speeds up the streamlining and automation of services, while reducing the need for expensive scoping exercises.

Insourcing is a proven model

Insourcing is not a new concept. During the early ’90s, IT giant IBM realised they were in trouble, as the move from mainframes to desktop PCs gathered momentum.

IBM knew it had to change and adapt. It became an insource provider for a lot of large organisations, providing enterprise-scale IT solutions to accounting and banking firms.

New businesses were born as a result of the migration away from mainframes, including CCDATA.

Of course, this wave of innovation hasn’t stopped — in fact, it feels like it is running at light speed!

How your nonprofit benefits from insourcing

Here are some of the key benefits that you’ll gain from insourcing:

• Your insource partner becomes a member of your team. This provides fertile ground for collaboration and frees up your staff, enabling them to provide a higher level of donor care, including following up on those valuable bequest leads.
• Expansion of your in-house knowledge and expertise. As collaboration increases so does clarity regarding which processes can and should be automated and streamlined. This, in turn, leads to greater efficiencies and cost savings.
• Fewer staffing issues. Your insource partner never takes annual leave or sick leave. They help to provide stable staffing levels, especially if your organisation is under-resourced.
• Provides a path forward to streamlining internal processes, opening the door to increased automation.
• Improved expertise with data management, deduping, merging, and maintaining a high level of data hygiene.
• Provides flexible coverage, from a few hours a week to full time or more.
• Provides a centralised solution for your back-office tasks, such as donation processing, analytics, donor management, maintaining ownership of your direct mail appeals, analytics, as well as processing surveys online and offline.

In short, insourcing is the perfect way to give your organisation the flexibility to overcome challenges like the great resignation. It brings you all the benefits of outsourcing and in-house, without the drawbacks.

For more information on how to streamline your organisation, contact David Packenas and his team at Crystal Clear Data.