Paulo Ferreira

Outsourcing took off in the 1990s. In Brazil, everyone went after it. Managers saw a great opportunity to reduce costs while increasing their competitiveness. Some organizations were successful, while others failed completely.

A few years later, the issue resurfaced: is it better to centralize or fragment a company’s activities? Fortunately, these doubts require a different way of thinking for the 21st century. A way of thinking that allows us to honestly see that organizations have enormous difficulties in dealing with changes, so what about innovative changes?

As a rule, once again in Brazil, it was cost reduction that led most companies to move towards outsourcing. A world that limited this strategy to “I pay you this much and you give me this much”. We spent the 1990s boycotting speech and listening, the multidimensionality of experiences and the contribution of an outside perspective to innovation from within. Reserve to maintain our positions of power, fear of assuming that the habit loses its passionate look or pure laziness and relaxation. Either way, we are only now taking our first steps – like children who stop crawling and start seeing the world from a new perspective – in relation to sharing and dialoguing “eye to eye” with our outsourced employees.

It is funny that in life we ​​agree that the outside perspective adds unparalleled support. Just look, in a football team the coach is never a player, in chess the one who watches the match has a more refined perception than the one who is imbued with making the next move and in emotional relationships, how many times do we call on friends, when we are at a crossroads, to allow us to vent and give us advice. In all these examples, examples of life, we really don’t want to know the cost of our outsourcing, like: you’re going to tell others about my weaknesses, you’re going to feel superior, you’re going to think you know more than me. We really want to know if this Saint outside our home can really perform miracles – add value.

The company, the organization, whatever you want to call it, is increasingly similar to life. And the life that doesn’t seek out other lives that provide it with new horizons, perspectives, innovation and creativity, closes itself off from the world, tends to get old and depressed. The same thing happens with organizations. Unfortunately, we have been trying to understand beauty as a physical trait and how many plastic surgeries have been performed in this sense. When beauty is the ability to produce and share light. This is what people expect from organizations, something that ignites in them the pleasure of a happy experience. This is what other lives can bring in terms of knowledge and development to our lives.

Models, methods, parameterizations, in short, the company has undergone a number of plastic surgeries that end up not bringing beauty. Modern and contemporary outsourcing can really be this new culture and will be for many. Because they will do as mothers do when they decide to choose pediatricians for their children. In addition to the specialist, a friend must be there. Forget about partners and think from now on about friendly companies (Strategic Alliances). Successful outsourcing, whether for means or end products, only exists between friendly companies. Because only a friend you call will think about your problem before thinking about fees.

The people who control the numbers must already be thinking about the cost of all this. Friends really are not things we find on the corner and many times their price is much higher than what the market pays. That is why outsourcing to be successful must always be a careful choice. So, build a life without friends and try to think about your results. The company is no different from life. Because there is life in the company.