Keep the decision, outsource the admin around it

Key takeaways

To outsource admin and keep decisions, split each process into three parts: prepare, decide and record. A provider prepares the information and records the outcome; a named person in your business makes the decision. This works for payments, hiring, pricing, refunds and most other processes owners think they must keep whole.

• Split every process into prepare, decide and record.
• Outsource preparing and recording; keep deciding.
• Give the decider a short, consistent pack to decide from.
• Set a response time so decisions never become the bottleneck.

Why split decisions from admin?

Because the admin is usually most of the hours and the decision is usually most of the risk. Owners who keep the whole process spend their time on chasing and typing, not deciding. Owners who outsource the whole process lose control of the decision. Splitting keeps the risk inside and moves the hours out.

• Which business processes should you never outsource?
• The never-outsource test: five questions for any process

What goes in the prepare, decide and record steps?

Prepare means gathering what the decider needs: the invoice and purchase order, the shortlisted CVs, the customer history. Decide means the yes, no or change, made by a named person. Record means updating the system, sending the outcome and filing the evidence. Only the middle step needs your judgement.

• Payments: provider matches and batches, director approves, provider reconciles.
• Hiring: provider sifts and schedules, manager interviews and chooses, provider issues paperwork.
• Refunds over a limit: provider prepares the case, manager decides, provider processes.

• Supplier payment runs: outsource the prep, keep approval
• Candidate screening: outsource the sift, keep the choice

How do you stop the decision becoming a bottleneck?

Agree a decision time, such as same working day for payments and 48 hours for hires, and a standard pack so the decider can say yes or no in minutes. Set limits below which the provider can act without asking. Without these, keeping the decision simply moves the queue to the owner's inbox.

• Approval bottlenecks: when sign-off holds up the work
• A decision rights matrix for outsourced work

When should the preparation stay in-house too?

When preparing the decision requires judgement that only insiders have, such as reading a key customer's mood or knowing which supplier is about to fail. In those cases the provider can still gather the facts, but an insider shapes the recommendation.

• Supplier relationships: why the owner keeps the key ones

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a director spends Friday afternoons on purchase approvals. Once the provider sends one consolidated list each morning with documents attached and a clear recommendation, approvals take 15 minutes and nothing waits until Friday.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Prepare, decide, record checklist

• Map each process into prepare, decide and record.
• Name the decider for each decision.
• Agree the pack the decider receives.
• Set limits the provider can act within.
• Agree a decision response time.
• Log every decision in the system of record.

• The never-outsource test: five questions for any process
• You can outsource the work, never the accountability

Next step

Pick the process that takes most of your week and write down which single step really needs you. That step is what you keep.