Outsourcing plays an integral part in today’s global economy. As competition becomes more and more intense with each passing day, businesses outsourcing part of the work can save both time and money. This allows business owners to focus on growing their business and scale to new heights. It’s not without its pitfalls though.
Here are 5 tasks that businesses could outsource and their consequences.
1) Outsourcing Customer Support
Customer support is an integral part of any product or service-based company. It can make or break your brand and so involves a lot of effort and money.
Advantage – Outsourcing can allow the company to stay lean and trim without hiring dozens of employees and setting up the required infrastructure.
Disadvantage – If the people you hire for customer support don’t do it well, it would tarnish the reputation of the company. It is therefore vital to only hire reputed firms that have a great track record of establishing great customer relations.
2) Human Resources
Hiring new staff and constantly being in touch with the employees to help them out when needed is an ongoing requirement for several businesses out there.
Advantage – Outsourcing the H.R. department could save a company a lot of time and money. Specialized firms that handle such work often have a lot of contacts through which they can find high skilled labor.
Disadvantage – It might prevent you from getting valuable feedback from your employees regarding their experience in the company. Conducting face-to-face exit interviews might give some insight to improve the company culture and persuade employees to stay.
Related: Parks and Recreation Management: The Role of Outsourcing
3) IT Support Outsourcing
IT support is a must-have for any medium or large business. However, it can be very expensive to maintain as it requires a good number of people and infrastructure.
Advantage – Outsourcing can save companies a substantial amount of money and manpower.
Disadvantage – There is a risk of sensitive information or data getting compromised. So it’s quite important to only hire specialized firms who have a solid reputation for providing a quality service.
4) Online Marketing
In today’s digital age, perception is everything. Marketing is one of the most crucial parts of any product-based company. It elevates one brand over the other and can lead to exceptional sales. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns need to be run to advertise the business and create brand awareness.
Advantage – By outsourcing it, a company can hire an agency specialized in marketing to get great quality work.
Disadvantage – As the team will be working from outside, there might be an issue with accessibility which in turn could lead to delays or inferior quality of work.
5) Accounting Outsourcing
Accounting is another key factor of a business which is a time-consuming task and incurs a lot of effort from different individuals. By outsourcing accounting, business owners can focus more on figuring out different ways to expand the business.
Advantage – It can prevent a lot of stress and save money as well as time.
Disadvantage – There might be a possibility of hidden costs snowballing into a giant sum later on. To prevent this from happening, it is vital to set expectations at the very beginning and review it on a month-to-month basis until a solid trust is established.
Outsourcing, just like any other aspect of a business, has both advantages and disadvantages. However, the overall outcome is fairly positive and it will end up saving a lot of time and money for your company or business. The negative consequences should never scare anyone from going for it. Every problem that appears always has a solution for it. All one has to do is plan it properly and act with caution.
