Significant cost cuts experienced by transportation publishing client when outsourcing product coding to PeopleForce
A leading provider of commercial maritime data developed a significant backlog of product data coding, and they did not have the staffing to code the products to meet their deadlines. Shipping volumes fluctuate over the course of the year, however their customers still expected the information to be processed on a timely basis. With a limited staff, the client was unable to keep up with the data flow during peak months.
The Challenge
The client had a fixed staff that was unable to keep up with the work volume during peak periods and was under-utilized during slow periods. In addition, the client’s training procedures required months to get a new employee up to speed.
PeopleForce was initially brought in to help clean up a significant backlog of work.
The Solution
To get our community of workers up to speed, we scanned all the client’s training documents and made them available on our community’s website. We created videos of training sessions given by one of the client’s senior trainers and made them available to our community on our website.
Within two weeks, our community members were doing basic coding. Within a month, they were doing more complex coding. Several of our community members were trained to do the more time consuming clean-up work, which was the most complex work. Since our community keeps their own schedule, not strictly business hours, they pared down the backlog in record time.
The Results
When the client looked to cut costs, they decided to downsize their internal staff and hire PeopleForce to process over one million records a year. The reduction in wages, people management and associated resources has enabled the client to grow their business by re-focussing assets.
