Nowadays, one of the key decisions businesses need to make is whether to outsource parts of their daily operations. There are many benefits associated with outsourcing. You can lower costs, boost productivity, and improve the quality of your service.
However, this is only going to be the case if you outsource wisely. To determine if you should outsource a task, ask yourself the following questions:
Is the task preventing you from focusing on your core operations? There are many business tasks that aren’t related to the core of your business, i.e. what makes you money. Common examples include accounting or outsourcing to an IT support company. By conducting these tasks in-house, you are going to be wasting your employees’ time on something that could be done better by someone else.
After all, there are specialist companies that can ensure that your bookkeeping is kept on top of. And, instead, your employee could be adding real value to your business by putting their skill set to effective use.
Will you save money by outsourcing or is it cheaper to carry out the task in-house? Of course, money has to come into the equation. It is vital to determine whether it will be cheaper to carry out the task in-house, or whether you will save more money by outsourcing. When assessing the financial side of things, it is important to view costs as a whole.
Look at them over the period of a year, for example. You will find that outsourcing costs are usually always more expensive to begin with, however, in-house expenses can mount up over time. This is why you need to look at the financials over the space of a year to get a true understanding.
Does the task require specialist skills? Next, you need to determine whether the task requires specialist skills. For example, if you plan to launch a marketing campaign, and this is an area your team has no experience in at all, it would be better to outsource this project.
After all, marketing is likely to be critical to the success of the product or service you are launching, and you don’t want to risk it being a flop because you delved into an area that you have no experience in. Instead, let the professionals take control for ultimate peace of mind and to guarantee the best results.
Will the task be on going or will you only require it in patches? The final question you need to ask yourself is how frequently the task is going to be required. If it is a one-off task, or something you are only going to be doing now and again, it can often be better to outsource.
This is because you are only going to pay for what you need when you outsource. On the other hand, if you were to handle such a task in-house, you would probably end up spending more money on the time your employee has off, as opposed to the value they bring.
