Essay On In-sourcing Or Outsourcing Support Desk Services: A Recommendation For Roell Customer Service.

Main Learning Objectives Being Utilized In This Assignment:

1.Communicate information accurately and credibly in oral, written and graphic formats.

2.Describe the advantages and disadvantages of in-sourcing (make) and outsourcing (buy).

3.Prepare a recommendation on supplier selection using the weighted-point evaluation system.

4.Describe some of the concepts of an effective Total Quality Management (TQM) program including: Continuous Improvement, Employee Empowerment, and Benchmarking.

5.Apply time management and organizational skills to facilitate the completion of tasks and to meet deadlines.

6.Discuss the determinants of service quality and how it can be measured.

1. a) Select five criteria for choosing between the two alternatives (insource or outsource).  Cost should be one of the criteria.  A total cost analysis chart should be shown to justify costs.  Totals and conclusions should be clearly stated for the reader
2. b) Then list and explain why you selected the four additional criteria that were researched.  Explain why each is important to consider when making this sourcing decision.  Ensure that these dimensions assist in differentiating between the 2 options. Be careful to avoid overlap between them.  Each one should be independent of the others.
3. c) Assign and explain a relative weighting for each of the five criteria. Explain why you chose to weight them like you did?
4. d) Assign a ranking to each of the two options (insource or outsource) for each of the 5 criteria.  Explain the reasoning for each of the rankings. (4 marks)Then, utilize the weighted matrix model to evaluate the two choices.

• State your final recommendation

Should Roell continue on as is or outsource its Customer Services?  Be sure to justify your answer based on your numeric and researched findings pertaining to advantages/disadvantages of insourcing or outsourcing.

• Benchmarking the Support Desk

Regardless of the outcome from your analysis, management is looking for ways to benchmark or evaluate their Support Desk.  Your manager wants to know how we are going to specifically measure performance of the online assistance whether we continue to insource or outsource it.  

You must provide four specific measurements (preferably quantifiable) for different metrics to measure the performance of your Support Desk.

Main Learning Objectives Being Utilized In This Assignment

In this report, an internet service provider company named as Roell Customer service is considered. The company provides its services in Ontario and east in two languages viz English and French. The RCS has received a proposal of outsourcing the support desk services from a company situated in the Bangalore state of India. There is a need to provide answers to some basic questions so that the RCS can take a sound decision regarding the proposal (Zerban, 2017).

Total current cost

The data provided above clearly mention that in-sourcing has more benefits for the company in terms of economy. But the RCS can consider Bangalore proposal as it will generate the profit only (Dawuda, 2017).

Cost-  The first criteria to be considered here is the cost. As stipulated above, the company has the sound financial situation so it can outsource its online support desk. There will be the generation of less profit comparatively, but the company will be able to expand its business. To get access to the new market, the company can ignore the slight difference in amount between the current support centre cost and Bangalore proposal.

Customer satisfaction- the next performance dimension to be considered in this case is the customer satisfaction. The RCS has reputed image as its experts provide the solution of technical problems within 8 minutes. This is the major trait for which customers seek the services of the RCS. This customer satisfaction has to be maintained in Bangalore proposal work also. If customers are satisfied, the RCS will be able to expand its business geographically (Kehinde, 2017).

Quality- Definitely, the quality of services matter very much. The RCS is known for its excellent quality. It provides state-of-the art office applications with high speed servers. This quality needs to be maintained so that customers remain satisfied. It will ensure the stability of the company in the market. In addition to this, it will give competitive advantage to the company. Many other competitors are there in market but the RCS provides quality services only though it comparatively charges more.

Environment deterioration has become a very important international issue. To prevent the company from any legal complication in future regarding environment norms, the company needs to follow sound environment strategy. All the environment regulations present in the particular state and country must be followed. In addition to these, there are some international requirements like the location of the server, electronic waste disposal etc. the RCS has to produce the minimum waste and that has to be discarded according to the national or international environment norms (KR, 2017).

Should Roell continue on as is or outsource its Customer Services?

The company needs to follow sound strategy so that the work-life balance of its employees is maintained. If they are happy, efficiency in the work will be increased. In addition to human resources, physical resources should also be considered. New innovation will provide the efficiency in the functioning of equipment also. There will be less depreciation cost which will save the total cost indirectly. The separate department needs to be assigned to respective persons so that no overlap exists in the working of employees and they can give their 100%.

The customer satisfaction is given the highest rating as it will decide the existence of the company in the market. Everything depends on customer satisfaction. If customers are happy, the company can make other changes with the passage of time. After customer satisfaction, the preference is given to cost. The RCS is present in the market to do business. Cost is one of the major factors in deciding the outcome of the proposal. Other three dimensions of quality of service, environment norms adherence and efficiency are given equal weight. There is no dimension which can be ignored so sound weighting is provided to each criterion (Javid, 2017).

• 5- Exceptionally well
• 4-excellent
• 3-good
• 2-average
• 1-poor
• 0-very poor

From weighted –matrix model. It can be ensured that Bangalore proposal has more weight and score. There is no service dimension which has gained zero scores as the company provides only quality services. Thus it can be inferred that the proposal will be viable for the company not only in terms of economy but also expansion and image building (Olabisi, 2017).

There are different provisions on the basis of which support desk can be benchmarked. These are as follows-

1.    Average time taken

For any response, the time taken should be within practical limits. The customer should feel that he has been provided quality time and his problem is addressed within least time possible (Ahmadi, 2017).

2.    Number of customers handled

In addition to quality, the efficiency needs to be maintained in the company. The company has to prevent itself from the loss so there should be the sound number of handled customers. There should be a win-win situation for customers as well as the RCS.

3.    Feedback rating by customer

Every person who will make a call to a company will be asked to give his or her feedback on the services of the company. Based on that feedback, the quality of services can be ascertained (Suleiman, 2017).

References 

Ali Ahmadi, M. S. (2017). The Corporate Social Responsibility of Family SMES: An Exploratory StudyBased on the Development of Knowledge. International Journal of Accounting Research,, 40-46.

Ayman Mohamed Zerban, A. M. (2017). Corporate Governance and Board of Directors Responsibilities: The Case of Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Accounting Research, 45-50.

Dawuda A, A. S. (2017). An Exploratory Study on Management Support Services and Its effects on the Quality Service Delivery of Internal Auditors in the Northern Ghana. International Journal of Accounting Research,, 45-50.

Javid, M. H. (2017). The Effects of the Earnings Management and Corporate Governance on Expense Stickiness. International Journal of Accounting Research,, 60-62.

Kehinde A*, O. A. (2017). Enterprise Risk Management and the Survival of Small Scale Businesses in Nigeria. International Journal of Accounting Research, 170.

KR, A.-A. (2017). A Need for Theorizing Corporation: An Accounting Perspective. International Journal of Accounting Research, 166.

Olabisi J, A. T. (2017). Audit Quality and Earnings Management among Nigerian Listed Deposit Money Banks. International Journal of Accounting Research, 30-34.

Suleiman, S. (2017). Debt Contracting and Conditional Accounting Conservatism. International Journal of Accounting Research,, 50-56.