No matter what size of business you run, whether it’s a small startup or a larger organization, chances are that you’re always looking for ways to increase your profits – that’s no secret. But finding the right path towards future growth isn’t always easy.
A method that more and more businesses are using to stay competitive and boost revenue is outsourcing. Although it might seem daunting at first, especially if you’ve never outsourced before, there are so many benefits that you can reap from doing it. But which areas should you consider outsourcing?
To help guide you in the right direction, here are 8 notable areas that are worth looking into if you’re looking to thrive within your industry:
1. IT
One of the most significant areas that people are outsourcing within is IT. Why? Because by outsourcing you’ll be able to support your current IT employees on issues such as cybersecurity. This gives your in-house staff more time to spend on other tasks within their role; which will, in turn, increase productivity.
By outsourcing to managed it services, you’ll also be able to save money in the long term. How? Because you’ll get expert advice for a fraction of the cost of hiring more in-house employees. You’ll also not have to buy new software (a huge benefit due to the fact that it’s ever-evolving).
One of the biggest worries that businesses have with outsourcing IT is that they will lose control of the department if they do this. But this isn’t always the case. Through outsourcing with a high-quality and reliable IT service, you’ll be able to receive regular updates of the work that they are completing and can have a direct input into decision making.
2. Marketing
To succeed in the modern-day, you need to have an effective marketing strategy in place at all times. And while marketing in-house can be an efficient way of creating this to start with, you may want to consider outsourcing it in the long term.
Similarly to outsourcing IT, by opting for external marketing services you can reap the benefits that come with utilizing the skills and experience of a professional. With the knowledge of how to make your business stand out from the crowd, you’ll have a brilliant marketing campaign in no time at all.
Bridging the knowledge gap, they understand the ins and outs of marketing, including what it takes to successfully manage your social media channels. As this plays such a vital role in the world today, it’s important that you take advantage of this.
By partnering with an external agency, you’ll be able to create a relationship with them that could last for many years – without having to worry about paying an annual salary to each of the professionals. This is something that you would have to do if you hired solely in-house.
3. Website Development
If you’ve not already got a website or you’re looking to reinvigorate the one you already have as it’s outdated, consider outsourcing this task to an external agency. As it’s the first thing that customers see, you want it to be eye-catching and fully functional – therefore, it’s not an area that you should compromise on.
With years of experience, they can create a website that increases revenue over time. However, with this expertise and on-going maintenance there comes the cost. Websites aren’t cheap to create. And although there are free building tools, if you’re looking for one that’s professional and striking then outsourcing may be the way to turn. Just make sure that before you do this, you budget out the costs and weigh them up against what it would cost to hire a full-time web designer.
4. Customer Service
One area that often gets overlooked, but should be prioritized within any business is customer service. No matter how established you are within the industry, you need to have exceptional customer service to guarantee that customers continue to stay loyal to you.
Therefore, you need to constantly look into ways to improve it. One way you can do this, while cutting costs, is by outsourcing. That’s not the only benefit that comes with it, however. Through doing this, you’ll also improve customer engagement and can reach more customers by offering multilingual support.
All valid benefits that you should pay attention to, it can be the difference between long term success and failure.
5. Bookkeeping and Accountancy Services
As your business starts to grow, you’ll need to ensure that someone keeps an eye on the accounts so that they are up to date. If you don’t do this, it’s likely that costly mistakes will be made, not to mention you may be in trouble if you don’t pay your taxes in time.
Even though you can, of course, hire a bookkeeper and accountant in-house, this can be a very expensive endeavour. From the initial hiring to paying their yearly salary, you’re looking at upwards of $70,000 depending on their experience and skills. To lower these costs while ensuring you still get a skilled professional, outsourcing could be the right path to take.
Of course, in the modern-day there is software that will revolutionize this process. But it’s worth alongside this software to have a professional that’s monitoring it and actioning anything that needs to be done.
6. HR (Human Resources)
This might not be the first thing that comes to mind, but it’s still one of the most important areas that you could outsource within your business. HR can be a very costly area to invest in when doing it in-house. Not only do you need to pay a yearly salary, but for every employee that they successfully hire.
Therefore, you may want to consider outsourcing it. Helping to process your payroll while offering better employee benefits, a Professional Employee Organization (PEOs) is a type of outsourced business that can run the majority of your human resource functions externally. Legally compliant, the costs are typically minimal in comparison to in-house solutions.
7. SEO
Although this should already be included as part of your on-going digital marketing strategy, at times people will choose to outsource these services separately due to the importance of it. In the digital age with the amount of competition that businesses are facing online, they need a way of generating traffic and expanding their reach.
And this is where SEO plays it’s part. Helping you to hit the ground running with optimized content, consistently improving practices based on data and delivering faster results, outsourced SEO services can prove to be invaluable for many businesses. The fact that they are outside of the business also means that you’ll get expert advice that takes into account all factors, rather than a biased approach.
8. Legal Services
All businesses require legal services – regardless of their size. From expert lawyers to attorneys, you may require their services throughout the years when an issue comes up.
But hiring in-house is incredibly expensive – especially as you’ll only require their services ever so often. Of course, if you have the budget and you require a certain amount of volume of legal work then it might make sense to hire internal employees. Although if you don’t require them regularly, you can opt for an external professional to complete the task for you.
Final Thoughts
So, there you go. Those are 8 key areas that you could consider outsourcing within your business. The areas you outsource, of course, are up to you and will depend on several factors, including your budget and what professionals you already have. But no matter what step you take towards outsourcing, you’ll start to see the benefits of your decision almost instantaneously.