What Business Tasks Should You Outsource?
Business outsourcing enables you to get more done in less time. It allows you to trust crucial processes and tasks to professionals without the need to grow your in-house team. More than a third of small businesses today outsource at least some of their operations.
What Is Outsourcing?
Outsourcing means when a business gets a service or product from an outside provider rather than doing it in-house. It helps you keep costs under control, focus on more critical parts of the business, and enhance efficiency. So that you can actually enjoy what you are good at.
At some point, every small business needs to hire a team if they want to grow their company to the next level. You can outsource services on a regular basis, such as accounting services, or as a one-time service such as web design or development.
By outsourcing different duties, business owners get more time to focus on their specific industry and on the bigger picture.
Following are some of the top business areas where you can consider for staff augmentation.
Marketing
When you want to grow your business, taking help from an outside marketing firm can do it more quickly. They can handle content creation, social media posting, and ad design on your behalf. As a result, you will get more time to focus on the crucial internal functions of your business. Moreover, outsourcing companies have professionals and expertise to help you come up with some amazing strategies and creative ideas you won’t otherwise have access to.
IT Management
IT is one of the largest outsourcing services around. Most small businesses don’t have the resources to support an in-house IT team. But they definitely need an expert to set up the systems and all the apps that the business might need. You can outsource your IT tasks to a firm that provides on-demand assistance and handles all of your tech issues. They can fix hardware and software issues as needed.
Customer Service
Businesses dealing with customers over the phone or online can outsource their customer service strategy to an outside chat service provider or a call center. To outsource your customer service, you need to have all the processes in place and ensure to offer precise and clear instructions to the company that will deal with your customers directly.
Logistics and Shipping
One of the outsourcing benefits is that you can have your own separate drop shipping service or a manufacturing facility that takes care of the handling and shipping of your products to the customer. It is a great option, particularly for e-commerce sellers, that enables them to focus more on the marketing aspects of their business.
Human Resources
All the business tasks related to onboarding, managing your team, or hiring new talent falls under the category of HR. The most common type of outsourcing in business is to work with a recruiting agency to help bring qualified candidates for a new position. Additionally, you can outsource other tasks as well, such as time and attendance issues, payroll, etc.
Accounting
Outsourcing your accounting tasks proves to be a valuable decision. If you are not good at accounting and finance, you’ll need a lot of time, skills, and effort to learn and handle the processes on your own. It is also tricky to learn the compliance standard that the company must meet. However, an experienced and skilled accountant can manage this area conveniently for multiple businesses. It saves money on your end and enhances efficiency.
Sales
Small businesses sometimes lack the expertise or personnel to make sales calls or set up certain processes and funnels geared towards closing the deals. When you outsource to sales professionals or firms, you can rest assured that skilled individuals take care of these tasks and will surely bring in more business.
Administrative Tasks
Virtual assistants are becoming very popular these days. Entrepreneurs and solopreneurs who work out of a home office especially prefer to work with virtual assistants. There are different VAs who can handle everything from social media posting to scheduling and management. It is one of the cost-effective options as there are VAs who only charge up to $10 per hour. But if you opt to work with a particular specialist or a skilled Virtual Assistant, the cost can go between $30 to $75.
Manufacturing
Setting up a dedicated manufacturing facility can be costly for you as a small business owner. That’s the reason most companies opt to outsource these tasks. You don’t have to go for an offshore firm. You can find a domestic outsourcing partner to keep your operations nearby.
Research
Whether you are expanding your business into a new market or plan to launch a new product, proper research is always critical for success. You need to learn about the industry as a whole and your customers. So, if you don’t want to spend days or even weeks scrolling tons of online content or surveying your target audience, you can outsource the research part to a firm. They have more resources to bring valuable insights.
Conclusion
Outsourcing offers you access to expertise that would otherwise cost you a hefty amount if you had to hire in-house employees of similar knowledge and expertise. But before choosing any outsourcing firm, ensure to do proper research and check references.
Today, as most businesses are operating remotely, outsourcing can be a business saver. No entrepreneur can do everything by themselves. There’s always a time when outsourcing tasks becomes the necessity to take your business to the next level.
If you are looking for an outsourcing partner, contact Xavor Corporation. Xavor has been in the market for nearly three decades and has all the expertise you need to grow your business to new heights. Marketing solutions, technology solutions, design and development services, embedded systems, AI and ML solutions, business consultancy, and whatnot. The vendor helps you in handling everything related to your business.