Crime pays if you outsource it

Kobayashi-Hillary: we outsource everything these days

I bought a new bicycle last week, and the first time I rode it into central London, someone stole it.

Anyone who has been a victim of crime knows that the first step is to ensure a police report is filed and a crime reference number produced for the insurance company. In the past, I have had to wander into a local police station, queue up and give my details to an uninterested desk officer.

This time, I checked out the web site of the Metropolitan Police and found they have automated the entire process for a whole range of crimes, mainly theft without violence, such as the theft of my bike.

It’s now possible to sit at home with a coffee and enter all the details online, with the Met system immediately despatching the details to the nearest police station – just in case there is any chance of following up on the crime. They have reduced the effort required on the reception desk in local stations and outsourced much of that work to the crime victims. Outsourcing really does crop up in all manner of places.

The outsourcing of tasks to the client of a service is becoming a lot more common these days. Just think of how shops worked a few decades ago. You would call in with your shopping list, chat to the grocer and maybe have a cup of tea as he fetched the items you need – and if you didn’t have time to collect them in person, the delivery boy would drop them at your home.

Now we all drive to stores that are the size of aircraft hangers and spend hours selecting from a dozen different types of potato. This means that, in effect, we are now doing the work of the grocer.

This concept has been used in business for supply chain improvement. Companies with extensive buying power have found they can improve efficiency by standardising purchasing systems, and forcing the suppliers to interact with that system if they want to continue receiving orders. Retailers now have such buying power that even established companies would be taking a chance if they questioned the way they need to interact with the buyer.

The launch of the new Harry Potter book is an interesting case in point. Supermarkets are offering the book to customers at a lower price than the trade wholesalers can sell it to small independent bookstores, so expect to see your local bookstore manager filling his Tesco trolley with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The rise of peer-to-peer services encourages this trend even further. By eliminating a bank or retailer in the middle of a transaction, we are now happy to spend time buying and selling products online, packaging them, shipping them and offering refund policies. It’s a whole new world, where the services of companies have been outsourced to the consumer.

As you package up your latest eBay sale, just remember to call Crimestoppers if a bloke in a pub offers you an almost-new Genesis Day 03 in silver with flat handlebars.

What do you think? Read the outsourcing blog at: markkobayashihillary.computing.co.uk