Did you know that outsourcing is no longer considered to be a rare incident? According to the analysis of the global outsourcing survey, organizations will continue to lead with outsourcing stating that they will use more outsourcing tomorrow than today. Moreover, the research suggests that outsourcing is expected to see growth across all functions surveyed, particularly IT, Finance, and HR.
Why Do Companies Outsource?
Low labor costs, better efficiency and the ability to focus on core business functions are the most important drivers for outsourcing. Another advantage of outsourcing is a so-called ‘staff flexibility.’ For example, if you need to find an accountant during auditing period, there is no point in hiring the accounting department. Outsourcing these functions will help you with these additional specialists for a short period of time. Cost savings is another significant plus. Especially for a small or startup business, any cost reduction opportunities will actually save you time, energy, and help your company grow.
Many entrepreneurs do not know what business functions they can outsource, so here are five areas that you can easily delegate to external agencies in order to free up your time for more important tasks to develop your business.
Business Functions to Outsource
IT
Did you know that according to the research conducted by Deloitte, IT outsourcing is expected to grow by 77% next year? Such prediction seems quite real as nowadays, hiring a full-time web developer can come at a price. If talking about a whole IT department, the costs can be even less affordable. That’s why companies choose to outsource the development functions. For example, using web application development services can save up to 20% of total development costs when working with a digital team remotely instead of hiring developers in-house.
Accounting
A lot of companies need financial specialists; however, they do not need them all the time. Sometimes they need a bookkeeper for a tax season, or for a specific project, and that’s when outsourcing becomes a good solution. Today the most commonly outsourced services within accounting are payroll accounting, accounts payable, and accounts receivable. Of course, you can always use an accounting software, or hire an accountant. However, if you need to manage something more complex than your day-to-day activities, for example, prepare your taxes, you might need a professional help from an external agency.
Design
If you have a small business, creating eye-catching and effective design can be affordable even without hiring a full-time specialist. You can now outsource pretty everything from logos and business cards to ads and even social media graphics such as your Facebook profile and cover images.
SEO
There are a lot of questions about how to outsource SEO functions. When you outsource your SEO it is very important to make sure that you work with thought leaders and people who are actually very active in the community and understand what the trends are. Another point is that the company you work with should be able to hire and then train a team of people who can actually do the work for you. Ideally, that team cannot be a jack of all trades; they need to have a specialization. For example, content writers are not usually good at technical analysis, and people who specialize in paid search campaigns are not necessarily good at running a social media campaign.
Public Relations
Although many of us think that PR is only a news coverage and communicating with media, there are a lot more functions required to run a successful communications campaign. Having a team that will help you create PR strategy, news hooks and organize the events will considerably save you time and help you build a better relationship with journalists.
Takeaway
As an entrepreneur, you have to figure out that you are not capable of performing all business functions by yourself. Whether you need a help of a professional designer or a web developer, you’d better outsource as learning how to do it on your own can take months of your time. Practically, once your business starts growing, you can delegate certain tasks to focus on the bigger strategic challenges to drive your business forward.