Business outsourcing has two major categories: onshore and offshore. Onshore outsourcing is where your look for business partners domestically. Offshore outsourcing is where you work with service providers from another country. Whichever route you follow, the benefits of outsourcing are undeniable.
The most obvious advantage is cost-related. By outsourcing, you get quality services while paying less than what you would normally do if you hire an in-house and full-time staff. That is the main reason why more and more businesses are doing it. They get to optimize their workflow while maximizing profit.
If you are considering outsourcing, it is best to start with the most common services that organizations assign to third-party service providers. Consider it your way of testing the waters. Here are some of those services.
Office maintenance
This is one of the few business services you cannot outsource offshore for obvious reasons. You need a domestic commercial office cleaning service provider. To land the best partner, ask about a prospective provider’s client list. If you see impressive names in that list, chances are you are talking to a pro. Sign that contract quickly.
Admin
Having an in-house admin staff is not cost-efficient. That is most true if you are running a small or medium enterprise where admin tasks are few and far between. You will need to pay full-time employee benefits, on top of other expenses. Those costs go out of the window if you outsource admin work.
You can pay virtual assistants by the hour. And you do not need to buy them a laptop or anything essential to their job. Plus, virtual assistants can accomplish a variety of tasks on your behalf. Even those not typically considered admin work.
Legal service
Only big organizations require an in-house legal team. If you’re operating a business with fewer than 20 employees, chances are you do not require lawyers as employees to consult with on a daily basis. A union’s out of the question with a limited number of workers, for example. Therefore, there’s no pressing need for access to quick and reliable legal advice day in and day out.
Outsource your legal needs. A lawyer on a retainer basis should do the job.
Recruitment
This is perhaps the most sought-after outsourcing service out there. These days fewer companies have an in-house human resource staff. Meanwhile, human resource firms have cropped up like wild mushrooms.
Those are of course understandable. Hiring is expensive. And if your HR staff does not do an excellent job, you’re bound to suffer a high turnover rate. Again, that equates to financial losses. When you outsource hiring, you rest assured that the job is taken care of by skilled professionals. No money gets wasted.
Marketing
Marketing is vital to tap your target market. Experts even advocate the 10 percent rule. That’s where you spend 10 percent of your profit for your marketing efforts. With outsourcing, you can spend less than that and still reap the rewards of effective campaigns.
You can partner with digital marketing firms to conduct SEO marketing and other digital marketing efforts on your behalf. These professionals know what they’re doing. Every penny you spend will be worth it.
IT services
IT professionals are some of the best-paid workers in any industry. Imagine hiring a team of IT people. It would require you to shell out a considerable amount of money to keep them on your payroll. Alternatively, you can outsource the job to IT firms. You get the same expertise without the usual costs. You can then maximize your profit margin. Use the money you save to explore business expansion opportunities.
This list is by no means exhaustive. In fact, it has only the most obvious outsourcing opportunities. There are many other business services for which you can get help from onshore or offshore partners. Top of mind examples include manufacturing, accounting, customer service, shipping and logistics, and research, among others.
Once you begin outsourcing you will immediately notice its many advantages. Aside from those already mentioned in the introduction, outsourcing also helps you focus on work that matters the most to the business that you do. For instance, if you run an e-commerce brand selling all kinds of consumer goods, instead of being inundated with repetitive admin tasks, you can finally zero in on boosting your product mix in such a way that will allow you to retain old customers and attract new ones. And that’s just the start of the rewards at your disposal.
