A gateway to legal outsourcing learning

The National Outsourcing Association (NOA) has predicted that education will be a critical factor in 2009 for ensuring that outsourcing professionals maintain quality and continuity in their industry. With the global recession taking hold, NOA director of professional training Yvonne Williams told IP Review Online that the UK trade group's outsourcing education scheme offers important benefits for the legal support services sector, including IP work and legal process outsourcing (LPO).

'About three years ago,' said Williams, 'we noticed that people were coming into outsourcing from all sorts of backgrounds, such as legal, procurement, IT and sales, and people seemed to be working in silos of specialism. Outsourcing is a very complex business, and the NOA thought that understanding of end-to-end contract management would help to improve the industry in general.'

The NOA rolled out its training over three strands: Gateway, which offers a high-level overview of the outsourcing trade, plus the more advanced Pathway and Diploma stages. 'We worked with our members to develop a training programme that we hoped would have a cradle-to-grave dimension,' said Williams. 'This would suit people who have just come out of university and are seeking a first job in outsourcing, or people who have been working in outsourcing for years, with no special training, and may be frustrated that they keep having to remind themselves of some outsourcing details.'

With such a diverse pool of personnel and partnerships involved, LPO poses a host of special challenges. In a realm where lawyers and non-lawyers must collaborate across time zones to fulfil the requirements of legal and corporate clients, monitoring individual processes is crucial. Following best practice particularly at a challenging time for the world economy enables all parties to make the most of their outsourcing deals. According to Williams, Gateway's content is of particular use to people with LPO career plans, as it will help them 'to understand the life-cycle of an outsourcing relationship and have that end-to-end knowledge. In relationship management,' she said, 'knowing what other people do is a very positive step in the right direction. We think people in outsourcing should be as flexible as possible.'

Course material relevant to LPO is likely to be developed as the sector itself becomes more visible. 'I think, as with any qualification, it grows by demand,' said Williams. 'If the LPO market proves to have particular requirements, we would tailor the certificate or make it more specific. Outsourcing training should be a moveable feast, able to react and adapt to markets as they grow. And ideally, the skill-set should be transferable from one sector to another.'

Williams said that the practical aspects of NOA training are key to raising efficiency in global business. 'What we are keen to do is make the qualification useable in the marketplace,' she says. 'It is work-based training, so people will be able to feed that work experience into their qualifications. If people understand all the processes involved in outsourcing and not just their little bit, it can only benefit all of us. With so many global companies looking to make cost-savings especially now outsourcing can help them keep their cutting edge.'