Simply put, business outsourcing is moving work from inside your company to the outside. But there are many types of outsourcing to fulfill varying needs. So, here are five examples that illustrate how businesses can outsource different tasks in various ways.
1 – Administrative Services
Entrepreneurs have so many responsibilities that getting a virtual assistant is just a sound idea. Not only you can get virtually anyone in the world-pun intended-but the feeling of getting some weight off your shoulders is also awesome.
Businesses owners can screen candidates fast online. But more importantly, they can find the right people to:
- call clients and arrange meetings
- filter their emails
- manage their calendar, online database, media content, projects, etc.
- post blog entries or promotional content on their social media
- send follow-up emails
2 – IT Support
Many hotels, restaurants, manufacturing facilities, and service providers struggle to find skilled IT people. So, they outsource IT support because deficiencies exist in all IT disciplines and need expert solutions. Here are some of the areas on which IT support specialists focus:
- cyber security
- networking
- programming
The reason why most businesses opt to outsource IT support is the range of available services. In fact, companies can choose between part-time and fractional services. This means they can choose to hire full-time engineers for a short while and switch to other professionals as soon as they change the technology they use. An IT support can be physically located close to a business or even further away. For example, a business in Leeds may prefer services from an IT support Leeds based company.
3 – Online Marketing
No website can make money without traffic. Why? Because without visitors, the business can strike no deal.
Some of the services that web marketers offer are:
- PPC (making ads that convert views into sales)
- SEO (creating content that attracts visitors and promotes word-of-mouth)
- Social Media Management (to enhance brand perception and get more followers)
As you can imagine, all these tasks are time-consuming. So, it is only natural for most companies to hire nearshore providers to leverage digital marketing and create better marketing strategies while paying less money.
4 – Bookkeeping
Hiring third-party bookkeeping services is standard practice for most corporations. After all, they employ people in areas where the workforce is cheap and only has to follow simple rules.
Unless you need tax advice (or to invoice clients regularly), this is a simple solution for small businesses, especially for companies with a low volume.
5 – Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
BPO is the practice of hiring other companies that help with supply chain management. (Over time, the term also defined both front-office and back-office services other companies may provide. But such distinction would be repetitive as we already discussed solutions for IT support, accounting, etc.)
While BPO is attractive for its tax benefits, product quality may become an issue. But in the end, it is a viable cost-reduction measure that needs careful planning and selection.
Every founder, technical lead, and product manager can outsource some tasks for better productivity. Perhaps, they may want to hire external IT support to enhance data security. Or involve local SEO experts to increase sales in a foreign market.
Business outsourcing is the secret behind how big companies make money these days. Why? Because outsourcing buys companies time. And time is the most valuable commodity there is. So, they use it to increase their revenue by creating more services, parts of which they outsource to speed up the sale process.