Exclusive Interview with "Lorena Ortiz de Zevallos" - CEO, Tekton Labs on "Top App Firms"

In this exclusive interview, She shared her insights on outsourcing and several more things. Let’s check her success story and thoughts.

1. What are the different types of outsourcing?

In our case, we have two types of outsourcing. Staff augmentation: one or more of our experts join the client's development team. In this case, the client is in charge of managing the developers and the assignment of tasks. Agile Dedicated Team: a full multidisciplinary team is assigned to the client. Product Owner, Developers, QA Analyst, UX UI Designers.

2. Why do you think companies outsource, what benefits does outsourcing provide them?

These days you can't be good at everything, so you need to partner with different specialized companies to achieve your goals quicker. That is the main reason that companies outsource their needs.

3. What would you say are the top risks of outsourcing?

I think the risk goes in several areas

Poor Communication: If both companies can’t communicate it will be hard to adapt to the process and improve in the long term bringing issues.

Not the right fit: When you outsource the company needs to be aligned with your culture that will define in most cases the success of the relationship

Not listening to the feedback: Feedback is key everyone talks about it but if you don’t listen and apply that it will destroy the trust and the relationship

Maturity mismatch: Besides culture you need to find a partner that is in the right maturity that you need, hiring the biggest is not always the best if you are not ready for them.

4. What are the top 3 questions a company should ask a potential outsourcer?

Culture, Process How to recruit talent Biggest challenges

5. What industry sector outsources the most?

After covid, all but the biggest areas are Healthcare, Financial Services, and Retail

6. What are the top 5 reasons organizations outsource?

Speed Quality Knowledge Gap Technology is not focus Mindset gap

7. What challenges do offshore outsourcers face that domestic ones do not?

I think one of the biggest ones retain talent, there is a huge gap in talent…

8. What are the key drivers for companies to outsource offshore?

Speed Quality Knowledge Gap Technology is not focus Mindset gap

9. What would you say are the top 5 questions a company should ask a prospective outsourcer?

What is the purpose of the company (culture fit is key) What is your onboarding process? How do you recruit and retain people on your team? Explain to me your process end to end How do you train your team?

10. What industry sectors tend to outsource more than others (e.g. financial services, utilities etc)

Financial Services, Health Care, Retail, Logistics mostly.

11. What management and motivation challenges do outsourcing companies face with their staff?

The most common and important are: Having the right projects for the team Having the right clients for the company Do a proper onboarding process for every member of the team Keep the team motivated with the same project Maintain the culture at all times.

12. How can outsourcers and clients ensure a fair partnership agreement?

This will depend on the maturity of both and previous experience the idea is to create a common ground but we can summarize as follow

Establish a good time for onboarding and ramp-up Define a clear process to start the partnership (retrospectives and feedback) Define standard from tech to talent Define payment process

13. What are the main advantages of using brokers when considering outsourcing some, or all, of your contact center functions?

They help to do the due diligence and betting process otherwise you will have to test several companies and each mistake cost money so is key to have brokers especially if you don't have experience outsourcing

14. What is the role of service standards when outsourcing?

This allows the company to be able to select in a better and easier way the right outsourcing company again according to the characteristics that we mentioned before.

15. What role do associations play in helping companies select and use outsourcing services?

Have you seen any trends in your area on the type of outsourcing companies that have established themselves in your area and what would you attribute this to?