Can you measure it? The test every outsourced process needs

Key takeaways

Measurable process outputs are the single best predictor of whether outsourcing a process will work. If you cannot say what a good output looks like and check it, you cannot hold anyone to it. Agree four measures for every outsourced process: volume, speed, accuracy and the rate of escalations.

• Define the output in one sentence.
• Agree volume, speed, accuracy and escalation rate.
• Check a sample, not everything.
• Hard-to-measure quality needs a written standard.

How do you define the output of a process?

Write it as a finished result someone else can check: a supplier invoice coded, matched and queued for payment within two working days. Avoid activity words such as handle or manage. If you cannot write the sentence, the process is not ready to outsource, because the provider would be guessing what you want.

• Which business processes should you outsource?
• Acceptance criteria: define done for outsourced work

Which measures should every outsourced process have?

Four measures cover most processes. Agree a target and how it is calculated for each before go-live, and review them weekly for the first month.

• Volume: items completed per day or week.
• Speed: time from trigger to output.
• Accuracy: share of items right first time.
• Escalations: share of items sent back to you.

• Right first time rate: the quality number that cuts cost
• Turnaround time: what to agree with an outsourced team

What if quality is hard to measure?

Some outputs, such as a customer reply or a proposal draft, cannot be marked right or wrong. Write a short quality standard with four or five checks, such as correct facts, approved tone and a clear next step, and score a sample each week. Agreement between two reviewers on the same sample tells you whether the standard is clear enough.

• Quality assurance for outsourced teams
• Quality sampling: how many outsourced items to check

When does measurement say keep the process?

When the only measure that matters is a long-term outcome, such as whether a strategy works or a client renews in two years, and no near-term output tells you whether the work was done well. These processes are hard to hold anyone to, and usually stay in-house.

• Should you outsource brand strategy?
• Outsource, split, fix or keep: four process verdicts

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: agreeing the escalation rate early is what keeps an outsourced process honest. A rising rate shows the provider is sending back work it should handle, long before accuracy falls.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Measurement checklist

Agree these before go-live.

• The output in one sentence.
• Targets for volume, speed and accuracy.
• The escalation rate you expect.
• How each measure is calculated.
• Sample size and frequency for checks.

• The process selection score: outsource, split or keep?
• Outsourcing efficiency KPIs: prove the work got faster

Next step

Write the one-sentence output for your candidate process and send it to us. We will suggest the four measures and targets we would start with.