Choosing to outsource or outsource various tasks can help small businesses scale. Some companies do not have the bandwidth or capacity to complete all tasks in-house. Often it is better to outsource certain efforts to professionals trained in that area of expertise to save money or avoid the hassle of doing it yourself. Here are seven sectors of a company that can easily outsource to high-quality suppliers or partners.
What is outsourcing?
What is outsourcing? Subcontracting (outsourcing, outsourcing, or simply outsourcing) is when a company subcontracts a job or function to a third party. This could be for the company to save money, and time, or fill a staffing gap. Services can be outsourced on a regular basis, such as bookkeeping services, or as a one-time service, such as web design.
What are the benefits of subcontracting or outsourcing?
When a business outsources work to third-party contractors, freelancers, and agencies, they gain flexibility. By outsourcing various functions, business leaders have more time to focus on the big picture and their specific industry. Outsourcing also ensures that the company gets an expert to complete specific tasks rather than someone from the company taking on responsibilities that are outside of their knowledge base.
By outsourcing various functions, business leaders have more time to focus on the big picture and their specific industry.
What tasks can small businesses outsource?
Small businesses can outsource many parts of their day-to-day functions; in fact, you can help scale the business by doing so. Below are seven parts of a business that can be easily outsourced.
1. Accounting
When it comes to bookkeeping services, it is best for any small business to outsource them to a professional if there is not a dedicated accountant on staff. Bookkeeping and tax preparation can be time-consuming and must be done correctly in accordance with local, state, and federal regulations. If not completed accurately, errors could have huge financial implications for your business. Accounting services include bookkeeping, tax accounting, and payroll processing, among others.
2. Information Technologies
Most small businesses don't have the resources to support an employee or internal IT team. However, you will need an expert to help you set up your devices, systems, and all the apps your business may use.
Once all of your technology needs are set up, your business can turn to an external IT team for technical troubleshooting and fixing any hardware and software issues as needed.
3. Customer Service
If your business has a lot of customer interactions but doesn't have the staff to keep up with demand, you can outsource your customer service responsibilities to an outside call center or online chat service. Initially, you will need to train, provide resources, and create processes and workflows for the vendor or third-party handling with your customers. Once those resources are in place, your partners can help their customers in the most seamless way possible.
4. Research, Shipping, and Logistics Planning
Research can help a company learn more about its customers and industry trends. It's an incredibly valuable process that can help improve different aspects of a business, such as logistics and shipping planning.
However, it can take a lot of time and resources to accumulate that data. By hiring an external research and development team, you'll be working with experts who know how to efficiently collect data and provide valuable insights to help scale your business.
5. The Administration
Small business executives can be so involved in growing their business that small administrative tasks can fall by the wayside. These include responsibilities for keeping a business organized, such as making appointments, managing office logistics, answering the phone, and creating travel itineraries. Executives can hire a virtual assistant or outsource their needs to a company to take care of all their daily administrative tasks.
6. Human Resources
In small businesses and startups, it is generally the responsibility of the executive to handle all human resource needs. However, to streamline workflows and efficiencies, companies may outsource human resource needs, including insurance and benefits management, recruiting, compliance enforcement, and employee training to companies that specialize in these responsibilities.
7. Marketing
Marketing plays a key role in growing your business. As you scale, you'll want to spread the word to attract more customers and clients. Because there are so many components to successful marketing campaigns, it is more advantageous to outsource your efforts to an entire company rather than have a dedicated employee who may not be able to produce the result that an agency can.
Marketing agencies focus on their ad design, content creation, social media posting, branding, and campaign execution to keep their team focused on performing essential business functions.