What is outsourcing?
Outsourced in Your Company manes many unseen tasks that go into running a business. These tasks can be tedious, but they are extremely important. This is where outsourcing comes in. A business can’t run successfully without certain tasks being performed. But assigning employees to work on these tasks takes away too much time from other important business matters. This is when outsourcing comes into the picture.
Outsourcing is when a business hires another company specializing in a task to perform it for them. Now, the question is, which business tasks should be outsourced?
Outsourced These Tasks
Generally, these four tasks are the most outsourced.
Human Resources
Human resources deal with all aspects of managing employees. This can include interviewing, hiring, training, onboarding, payroll, benefits, and even termination. These are a lot of tasks that many businesses don’t have the time for. This sector of a business is usually the most outsourced.
Customer Service
As the name suggests, customer service deals with all things that relate to the business’s customers or clients. Outsourcing this portion of a business makes more sense for companies that conduct most of their business online. Many websites are equipped with a chat bar, allowing customers to speak with a customer service representative through text. Many companies also have a customer service hotline that customers can call. Because this involves an outside party dealing directly with your customers, it is extremely important that you make sure you take your time choosing the right company to deal with your customers.
Manufacturing and Shipping
Small businesses, in particular, may need to outsource this portion of their business, as keeping this in-house may end up costing them more money. In the same way, the company used for manufacturing products may also be used for shipping the products. Again, this is more relevant for companies that conduct most of their business online.
Marketing
Whether you’ve just started a small business or you’re getting ready to expand, you can benefit from outsourcing your marketing efforts. There are many components to marketing, especially digital marketing. There’s affiliate marketing, content marketing, email marketing, online PR, SEO (search engine optimization), and several other types of marketing. Professionals can help you with ideas, strategies, and understanding the ins and outs of marketing.
Keep These In-House
These two portions of a business aren’t usually outsourced.
Leadership
As the owner of a small business, you may not think that you’ll ever step down from your position as CEO of your company. However, as businesses grow and expand, this is exactly what happens in some cases. If you decide to step away from your company, it is not wise to bring in a completely new person to run your company. It’s best to go with someone in-house; someone with the same passion and vision as you, who wants the company to go in the same direction as you do.
Core Competencies
The core competencies of your business are the elements that are essential to the growth and success of your business. Core competencies are different for every business, but they are basically what makes a company successful, standing out from among its competitors.
Suppliers/Vendors
There are situations in which a company may hire or work with another company for business purposes but not necessarily hand over everything to that company. An example would be a construction company using a truck rental service for carrying their materials and equipment to and from the construction site.
Outsourcing isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though you do give up a lot of power. Keep in mind that every business is different, so some businesses may need to outsource certain parts that others don’t. Conversely, some businesses can (and prefer) to keep some, most, or all of their operations in-house. The bottom line is to do what is best for your business.
