Discussing outsourcing roleplay meeting

Discussing outsourcing roleplay meeting

Discuss company functions such as those below and try to find at least one of which:

• should be fully outsourced (and isn’t by your company now)
• should be partly outsourced (and isn’t outsourced at all by your company now)
• should be (fully or partly) brought (back) in-house/ insourced (but is outsourced now)
• should be left as it is

If you work for the same company, try to agree on the categories above. If you work for different companies, remember similarities and differences to share with the class.

Suggested functions to outsource or bring in house

• Building management (cleaning, etc)
• Compliance
• CSR (carbon offsetting, checking diversity, etc)
• Customer service
• Dealing with staff complaints/ Whistleblowing
• Downsizing/ Restructuring
• Finance/ Accounts
• Helpline(s)/ Hotline(s)
• HR
• IT (IT support for staff, maintaining and improving the websites, app development, etc)
• Language (proofreading, translation, interpreters, etc)
• Legal (checking contracts, chasing up copyright infringement, etc)
• Lobbying
• Logistics/ Deliveries
• Marketing
• Outsourcing (choosing who to outsource to, running the bidding process, etc)
• Payroll
• Pensions (investing the pension-fund money, etc)
• PR
• Procurement
• Production/ Manufacturing
• R&D
• Recruitment
• Sales
• Training (language training, management training, etc)
• Travel (booking flights, booking hotels, etc)

Compare your conclusions as a class.

Ask about any topics above which you don’t understand, can’t understand the connection to outsourcing of, etc, discussing the best outsourcing policy each time.

Roleplay a whole meeting on the four topics above (things to outsource, bring in house, etc), smoothly starting and ending with greetings, small talk, etc.