How Outsourcing benefits your business

What is Outsourcing?

Outsourcing is simply the art or process in which a business owner, individual, or business hires an outsider, an agency, or a third party to do a particular job for them.

A simple example is a situation where you hire a video production company to help you produce and edit your business promotional videos. Or engage the services of a graphic design agency to design your print and digital marketing media materials.

Outsourcing is the way to go for many businesses. It is modern, cheaper, convenient, and now way much more accessible and convenient than ever, thanks to the power of the internet.

What is Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)?

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is an innovative new method of outsourcing your business that considers all possible factors and ideas that could potentially provide the maximum amount of benefit to your business.

The factors that could hinder the rapid growth of organizations, whether large or small, are many.  For small organizations, one of many such factors is the limited expertise of employees for specific essential business tasks. It might, for example, be too expensive for the small business to employ a full-time employee with the required skill set, consequently limiting the growth of such a company.

For such expertise problems, the small business, following through with BPO, would not need to worry about hiring expensive in-house experts but rather, simply solve the problem by outsourcing for that expertise, and often at a much cheaper cost.

What are the benefits of Outsourcing?

There are several benefits of outsourcing parts of your business. It does not matter if you are a large organization, a small enterprise, or just an individual personal company.  The following are a few of the several benefits of Outsourcing to your business:

1. Provision of trained and competent experts.

Outsourcing helps in providing access to professionals that would have been almost or impossible to train in-house. This has the advantage of helping you get the quality of help you need without sacrificing low-quality outputs from improperly trained in-house employees.

2. Reduction in operational cost of doing business.

Another great benefit of Outsourcing is operational cost. With Outsourcing, the business does not need to employ a full-time employee for specific roles. For instance, to outsource a small business’s tax preparation needs maybe once or twice a year will be less expensive than employing a full-time staff that stays almost idle throughout the non-tax season of the year. Outsourcing helps businesses enjoy a flexible workforce. This will consequently reduce the cost of doing business for the company, and saved income could be channeled into other areas to grow the business.

3. Cost of Labor to Train employees.

In most successful and growing businesses, competent hands for specific crucial roles are always in demand to keep the business running smoothly. Nevertheless, these specialized skills and talents are often expensive to hire or train in-house. It is more economical to outsource such roles than shoulder the burden of cost, time, and labor to train in-house employees for such expertise.

4. Outsourcing helps the maximization of external resources.

BPO helps small and large businesses maximize their use of external resources. Costs of business operation could be reduced, for example, if a business moves specific business processes from areas where such resources are expensive to areas or regions where they are cheaper. Every region of the world has resources that are more competitively cheaper than other regions, and it will benefit businesses when they outsource to such regions. This may include staff, holding bay, warehouses, raw materials, shipping services, and logistics, only to mention a few.

5. BPO could help in maximizing the use of internal resources.

With proper Outsourcing, your business could free up valuable resources, and time it would have used in fulfilling those parts of the business that was outsourced. The freed resources could be potentially put into better use for the overall growth of your company. Once you can outsource those parts of your business that can run in the background to experts, you will have more resources to face important aspects of your business like staff training, salaries, accounting, and recruitment.

6. Outsourcing can expose your business to the global market.

Many global businesses enjoy the opportunity that Outsourcing provides. For example,  a business could have an increased income from international sales if the company decides to outsource part of its sales team to an overseas agency. This has the potential to expose your products or services to an international audience. Your business could also take advantage of timezone differences through Outsourcing to help your business run on a 24-hour schedule.

7. There is no initial investment when you outsource.

A company will have to spend a lot of money establishing a business function if it refuses to outsource a process that it could have outsourced. For example, a company will have to make an initial colossal investment in video production equipment, a studio, and train or hire the personnel to handle and produce its marketing videos if it decides to create its own videos in-house. On the other hand, if the company opts for Outsourcing, it will not have to invest in equipment and other resources necessary to produce videos.

8. Outsourcing helps a business to focus on its core competencies.

When you outsource some of your business functions to third parties, you reduce overhead costs of the business and leave you with more time that could be put into use in the core competencies of your business. Oftentimes, in-house operations for the company may become overwhelmed with many activities, staff stress, business funding, failed technology, and regulations, only to mention a few. In such a situation, it’s in the company’s best interest to outsource some of its operations for improved efficiency and effectiveness.

Who is Outsourcing meant for?

Outsourcing is suitable for all businesses, irrespective of the size of such a business. The benefits that accrue from Outsourcing are many, whether it is a small one-man business, a  medium-sized business, or a large one.

1. For Single-owner Entrepreneur.

The chief benefit for individual single-owner businesses concerning Outsourcing is the increased operational efficiency and business process speed. It is often difficult or unrealistic to handle all aspects of your business operations yourself and expect your business to be optimally efficient and successful. So individual business owners or solopreneurs should take advantage of the benefit of Outsourcing. A single-owner entrepreneur should consider outsourcing the menial tasks in the company to free up more time which the owner could channel to other parts of the business for optimal productivity and high quality.

2. For Small and Medium Scale Enterprises:

There is a popular trend in small and medium business enterprises that is gradually increasing rapidly. This trend is meant to boost the economic growth of these enterprises.

The trend also can grow exponentially and takes benefits from offshore activities.
As most people continued to have it that outsourcing services can be on the high side for small-scale businesses, several realistic ideas have proven that this suggestion is far from the truth. BPO is visualized as a cost-efficient business solution that can create an impact on SMEs and also large companies.

Like most large corporations, a small business can reduce its overhead running cost and payroll costs by outsourcing some business functions.

As for the smaller business enterprises, they are faced with several challenges concerning the skillfulness of their employees towards executing specific business duties. This issue usually slows down the company’s growth. However, BPO will create an enabling medium that will make SMEs worry less about assigning specialize tasks for their employees. For example, IT and accounting services require high-level expertise to handle the duty. When a business entity outsources some of its services, it will enable the company to obtain high-quality outputs from experts.

There are several benefits attached to outsourcing a business task for SMEs. One of the advantages is gaining high flexibility and financial freedom as well. Apart from the financial involvement in Outsourcing, businesses can easily save time, ensure efficient processes and improve resources. In line with that, it attracts freedom to business owners. As a business owner, you can separate the tasks you want to keep within the business from the ones you wish to outsource to service providers. This approach lessens the burden for your business, and you will have enough time to do other things.

3. For Bigger Corporations:

Most large corporations are difficult to handle. There are several tasks to be accomplished within every given time. Before the company succeeds, several factors are meant to conclude decisions. As a result of these factors, it is challenging for large corporations to experience seamless business operations.

The main reason why they should consider outsourcing some of their business tasks is to enable them to lower their operation cost. Outsourcing also decreases expenses budgeted for specific operations, such as equipment costs and manpower costs.

Big companies tend to have a massive number of employees than smaller corporations. They also have more traditional manpower costs such as compensation benefits and operation costs. But, when the company outsources its jobs, unavoidable costs like this can be minimized. The financial resources can be channeled to revenue-producing processes to actualize business growth.

A massive corporation needs to have a tight rein on their employees to ensure work efficiency is improved across all business functions. Outsourcing from these large corporations can easily make the business take advantage of time-driven operations and positively impact the organization. Outsourcing helps to remove the need for in-house employees. Business owners handling these positions can easily focus on developing strategies and competencies that would help them actualize operational demands.
No matter how massive a business has grown, there is no assurance that the business tasks must work with in-house employees alone. BPO tends to provide the business access to various trained personnel that specialized in numerous fields. These professionals tend to use their expertise to improve the business performance of their clients.

What business task can you outsource?

When you are searching for tasks to outsource, you should consider time-consuming and massive duties. When you prefer to handle these advanced tasks, it may slow down your business operation, and you will not move any further. Administrative tasks are usually considered the most straightforward tasks to outsource. Since no organization can survive without administrative tasks, you must outsource them to professional service providers. Some of these tasks are usually ideal for Outsourcing, and they include;

Invoicing: Outsourcing invoicing and other account operations can be done quickly at your pact. Several companies are willing and ready to accept these tasks and manage your invoice accordingly. These companies can also help you to follow up payments and in handling other similar activities.

Bookkeeping and payroll: If your company needs bookkeeping and payroll, you don’t have any reason to handle any of these responsibilities yourself. In a case whereby your business has grown exponentially, you need to take the bookkeeping and payroll activities more seriously by handing over the task to professional service providers. Like other business tasks, several companies are willing to effectively help you out in bookkeeping and payroll activities. The duties of these companies are to ensure that everything is done effectively and efficiently.

Scheduling: In a situation where you had enough trouble handling your schedules, the need for an assistant may arise. The need to hire assistance may come up immediately. A virtual assistant can help take up your scheduling tasks and carry them out effectively. The virtual assistance service can also help out in other administrative functions that will guarantee the growth of your business. It is the assistant’s responsibility to manage your schedules, set up interviews, and other activities.

Financial reporting, planning, and analysis: Your financial reporting requires special attention and a certain level of carefulness to ensure accuracy. A lot of time is needed to prepare these reports and figure out how the company is performing financially. As a business owner, you should outsource your financial reporting to save money in hiring an in-house accountant. You ought to make the financial process more efficient and accurate by outsourcing the task to professional virtual CFOs and other accountants.

Social media: Some businesses require social media to engage better with the audience. Since the company will need to keep its followers updated about the latest trend, it is time-consuming. However, some businesses may not experience exponential growth through these social media platforms. Sometimes, they cannot be able to focus on the bigger picture accurately. You can outsource the social media management tasks to communities that can handle the assignments effectively. These communities should also be responsible for managing your public image and help you make the necessary intelligent moves.

Email: Most companies prefer to keep email communications with their customers. As a business owner that likes to keep this form of communication, it makes a lot of sense, for example, to outsource your email and other mundane communications tasks to service providers. Email communications require individual attention from a business owner to create more impact. If you do not have enough chance to respond to clients the way you should, you may lose some vital figure from the market. Outsourcing the email task can help you focus on other duties.

Customer service: Customer-related services like email will make more sense if you outsource to other service providers. While you outsource this job responsibility, ensure that the right policies and other considerations are put in place.

Website design: In recent times, the need for a website has been increasing per day. A proper website design can make your online presence to be more interactive. In a case whereby you are not a professional in a particular field, website design will become a challenging task to execute. Therefore, it is necessary to hire a professional website designer that can bring your imaginations to reality. Apart from saving time, professional website designers will also guarantee quality contributions. A quality website can also provide your business with better customer satisfaction.

Graphic design: If you are not a professional graphic designer, you should outsource this task to professionals who can supply quality content. When the need for digital presentation also arises, you have to outsource the job as well for quality and efficiency.

Web development: Even if you have a little knowledge of web development, it is always advisable to outsource web development and maintenance responsibilities to professionals. Rendering this service can require a lot of time and effort. And business owners are supposed to focus on handling their jobs effectively and carefully.

Software development: There is a need to outsource software development tasks to other service providers that handle such responsibilities with accuracy. Hiring an in-house software developer may attract a considerable cost to the company. Therefore, companies looking at saving more funds should not waste time outsourcing this job.

When can we outsource?

When it comes to outsourcing jobs, most companies have different schedules and plans. For most companies, hiring in-house employees to execute their daily responsibilities is preferable. However, when they came to realize that most new projects do not actually warrant another full-time employee to complete, they began to need to outsource. In a situation where your current in-house employees cannot deliver satisfactorily, you should focus on outsourcing the job to attain greater height.

Cost/time calculation is one of the best ways to decide whether to outsource a particular business task to a professional. If working with an in-house employee will cost you more time and money, you should outsource the job without having a second thought. For instance, you may plan to employ in-house developers to help improve your software design flexibility. However, you still need to update your website and back-end system before going over to the next stage. Within the short term, you can outsource the project and develop a long-term objective of hiring in-house developers.

When there is a need to carry out one-time events, you should focus on outsourcing the job responsibilities. If you are to rebrand, you will have chances to work with your current team members who have great experience in graphic design. If you take this particular project to an agent, it may cost more money to develop the graphics.
If you utilize your outsourcing opportunities, you can streamline your business operations and grow exponentially. You can utilize resources strategically, drive towards essential growths, and use your time wisely.

How do you outsource some business tasks?

Small businesses do not have to feel disturbed about this. Generally, SMEs do not have to worry so much about demanding specialized job roles from their employers. Some of these special tasks, such as accounting and IT services, should be outsourced through BPO for high quality.
As most people strongly believed that Outsourcing can be pretty expensive for small-scale businesses, experts have proven that this is not true at all. BPO works on SMEs and large companies as a cost-efficient business solution. When SMEs focus on Outsourcing, it can cut several operational costs and boost performance within a specific period.

Small businesses are faced with several problems when it comes to hiring employees to perform specific business tasks. This attitude tends to slow down the growth of the company.

The process

The process of outsourcing various business tasks has been made easier than ever through internet platforms. In fact, every business is supposed to be grateful for the presence of the internet in our world today. Companies can easily hire a professional freelancer who is also known as an independent contractor from another country to execute the business tasks. The entire process will be completed online on an open and reliable platform. Hiring a freelancer is more affordable and convenient than hiring a permanent employee.

Outsourcing has given business owners an opportunity to free up their employees’ valuable time and focus on other responsibilities within the company. They can have more time to create more strategies that will take the business to the next level.

The primary aim of outsourcing jobs is to attract external professionals and wisdom to execute the business functions with their expertise. These professionals reduce the task lists of a company and use their expertise to boost the company’s productivity and efficiency.
As a business owner, you should understand how Outsourcing can transform the face of your business structure and take you to the next level.

Conclusion

Most businesses do consider outsourcing business tasks as a way to save more money. However, Outsourcing can do more for the business than just decreasing expenses. When your business expands, you should see Outsourcing as a way of accessing new expertise, promoting innovations, and disrupting your industry to change your company’s position in the market.

Whenever you consider outsourcing your job, limit yourself to the amount of money saved by working with cheaper service providers, think of a way to concentrate more on the value the professional attracts to your business. Whether you focus on advertising your company, or expanding your production, or disrupting your industry, Outsourcing can take your business to another level. You can always stand above your competitors when you outsource business tasks to professionals.

As you proceed to outsource business tasks, channel your resources, time, and focus towards your company’s core competencies. You need to make use of your time wisely by setting new achievable goals. You should find a way to actualize these goals fast enough.