Mr Ranjay who got placed in HLL after passing out from TISS in 1993 has been with Unilever for the past 13 years. During this span, he has handled various challenging roles and responsibilities. He has worked as a factory manager, handled compensation and benefits and currently he is the Director for Organization Effectiveness and Change at Uniliver and is based out of London.

The 90’s has been a decade that has witnessed an evolution of HR in terms of the roles that it plays in organization. In this context outsourcing has been one of the trends that has gained much importance. Companies now a days outsource much of their transactional work and focus on what is popularly known as playing the business partner role. Ranjay spoke in depth about the kind of HR functions that are getting outsourced. It started with Payroll outsourcing and now companies outsource training, recruiting and performance management. When asked as to what HR does after all these functions are outsourced, Ranjay said that HR does the most critical job – Brand Management. In functions like Training, the training needs are identified by HR, training modules are designed by the HR and the rest of functions like arranging the faculty and conducting training programs are outsourced. In Recruiting, the campus visits, the interviews are done by the HR people of the company. In short all those functions that are related to a company’s brand or all those functions that constitute the core competency of an organization’s HR are done by them and the rest is outsourced.

After that Ranjay explained the economics that went behind the entire process of Outsourcing. He explained some of the reasons why companies are going for Outsourcing. Most of the companies outsource functions to get cost benefits. Organizations also outsource functions that are not their core competency and once these are outsourced, they focus on their core functions and hence add value. He went on to explain the roles that most of the HR professionals are playing today – Strategic Partner and HR Specialist. He gave suitable examples to explain these roles which made all these terms which otherwise appear as mere jargons quite comprehensible.

Ranjay also spoke about the current and the future trends in Outsourcing. The number of HR-BPO deals has skyrocketed which speaks volumes about an industry that is in its incipient stage – HR Outsourcing Industry. He also compared the advantages that outsourcing gave vis-à-vis in sourcing. He said that in sourcing is good for a single product company wherein shared services can be used whereas for a large multi product company shared services would be difficult and hence outsourcing is better.

The board room resonated with the sound of a huge round of applause as the session ended. “One of the best sessions that we have ever had”, said one student, “awesome”, chimed in another.

The session no doubt was one of the best we ever had. Perhaps the greatness lay in the simplicity and the lucidity with which he provided insights into HR Outsourcing.