Things Small Business Should Outsource | Best Business to Start | Technowand

October 9, 2020

 

Your small business is starting to grow and you are finding it difficult to get everything done. Those ten-hour days are turning fourteen. You need some help, but is outsourcing more staff really the best option?

We will have a look at when you should outsource, what you should outsource, and look at five options that are likely to be good for most businesses.

When Should You Outsource?

When you need to is the simple answer. When you find yourself micro-managing every aspect of operations of your business and things aren’t getting done. As described before your days have become longer – you haven’t seen the wife and kids all week.

These all point towards one of the times that you should outsource – you need help. Your decision not to get it is likely stopping your business from growing. You’ll be amazed when you look back in six months’ time and your business has grown and there is no way you could imagine doing all the things that are happening now.

The second time that you should think about outsourcing is at times when you just need a bit more help for a short period. Outsourcing allows you to get that help without going through the process of hiring and firing someone.

What Should You Outsource?

Right now you can outsource almost any aspect of your business. Everything position from admin to CFO can be outsourced. But just because you can doesn’t mean that you should. If you outsource the wrong things you will lose what made your business special in the first place.

The first thing is to consider what is your core business. What are your core competencies and capabilities? What are your talents? What are your resources? These are the things that you should never outsource. For example, if you are in accounting you shouldn’t outsource this service. It is key to what you do.

Three Main Types Of Outsourcing

Highly Skilled

These are those at the top of their game – professionals and executives like the CFO discussed before. Continuing the example you probably can’t afford a full-time CFO but you could afford to outsource a contractor to come in a few times a year to look over the books and make sure everything is running smoothly.

Highly Repetitive

This is an area where outsourcing shines. We are talking data entry etc. Any basic tasks that need to be repeated over and over again. This is a great area to save yourself time to allow you to focus on your core competencies.

Specialized Knowledge

After you have looked at your business you know what you know. You also know what you don’t. The people with this knowledge are a great opportunity for you to utilize the outsourcing model. Things like accounting, IT, and marketing.

We have specialized knowledge about IT – Contact Us.

1 – IT

IT is a specialized area. If it isn’t part of your core business you should look at outsourcing this. An IT professional can help you save time and get results that you probably didn’t even know were possible.

Have a read of a recent article that we did on IT Managed Services for Small Businesses

Don’t believe us? Read about the pros and cons of outsourcing this vital service.

Learn about what the different IT Services are and what they could offer your business.

How Properly Managed IT Support Can Make All the Difference

2 – Accounting

You are likely already partly doing this with your sales and invoicing. You should look at using an accountant to help you with your bookkeeping and tax so you can focus on your core business.

Read 6 Reasons to Outsource Your Accounting Operations

3 – People

While you may excel in your area of expertise, there may be certain aspects of your business that require specialized skills or knowledge. In such situations, it becomes necessary to enlist the services of a specialist who can provide the requisite expertise to meet your business needs. There are freelancers in almost any field you can think of. Think of writers, interior designers, and admin experts. All of these people can do a job for you that will help your business grow.

Read 6 Reasons Why You Should Hire A Freelancer

4 – Marketing

You can end up spending a lot of time here that a professional could do much quicker and probably more effectively. If you are a small business you probably can’t afford a permanent marketing team. As such, outsourcing can be an ideal solution, enabling you to complete the task efficiently and effectively, whether it be during a promotional period or as part of your regular operations.

This is a good article on outsourcing marketing.

5 – Logistics

Logistics is fulfillment, warehousing, and delivery. Given that this may not be your primary area of expertise, it might be more efficient to outsource this task to a professional, which could save you significant amounts of both time and money in the long run. This will really depend on the sort of business you are in and the decisions that you make around what sort of logistics provider to use will be colored by that.

There is a good article on logistics here.

We offer lots of outsourced IT Services including IT Managed Services – Website Design & Website Maintenance.

We would love to talk to you about how we can help your small business – Contact Us.