4 Reasons Your Business Needs to Start Outsourcing 

4 Reasons Your Business Needs to Start Outsourcing  So, many people view outsourcing as a dirty word, but find out how successful business use outsourcing to their advantage.

Due to the accessibility provided by the internet, outsourcing is an area of business which is continually growing in popularity. Both small and large companies are now able to effectively utilize outsourcing for their own benefit. 

For the uninitiated, outsourcing is the practice of hiring a third-party to complete certain tasks for your business. For instance, your company might require graphic design work done for your website. Instead of doing this in-house, you can hire a design agency or freelancer to take it on. 

What are the advantages of this, exactly? Well there are many reasons to go down the outsourcing path – here are four of the main ones: 

1. It keeps costs down

For most, this is the point which sits above all else. 

When you outsource work, there’s less need to hire permanent employees. The result: it will significantly reduce labor costs. Bringing in employees is understandably an expensive outlay for businesses. Not only do you have to pay their set wages, but you also have to cover the likes of training and benefits. 

The situation is completely different when outsourcing. For a start, there isn’t a requirement to hire personnel on a weekly or monthly basis. You can simply pay them per project. This is especially advantageous when you only require assistance on occasion. 

2. Receive expertise

When you pick agencies or freelancers that have specialist skills, your business will obviously benefit from their expertise – the type you otherwise wouldn’t have access to in normal circumstances. 

Think about it this way: when hiring employees who will work in-house, you typically only have access to a local talent pool. When you outsource, that talent pool becomes a global one. Naturally, you are opening the door to receiving a greater level of knowledge and proficiency in a particular field. 

In addition, you can receive access to facilities which are otherwise unattainable. Say you require a specific piece of expensive software, but you fail a credit check and are unable to gain the necessary financing to make the purchase. Rather than doing without, you can still receive the features of the software by outsourcing – a much more affordable option, particularly in the short-term. 

3. An increase in efficiency

There are two main ways in which outsourcing helps with business efficiency. 

First of all, outsourcing means you can focus on your core activities. There’s no need to waste time on secondary tasks, the type which can seriously eat into your productivity levels. Hand them over to an agency, and both your primary and secondary tasks can be done concurrently. 

Secondly, vendors will be specialists in their respective areas of work. They will have the skills and tools to complete tasks efficiently and at a much faster rate than your employees – particularly if the latter doesn’t have extensive training in the same field.  

4. Flexibility and control

Flexibility is an important component of business. With the way the market continuously changes, you have to be prepared to react and change with the times. This is certainly the case if your business faces a significant downturn and cutbacks are required. 

For large organizations, such as those with centralized infrastructures, trying to chop and change can be difficult. If it’s mandatory for them to cut down on employee numbers for example, this can be a messy and expensive procedure. 

Yet when it comes to outsourcing, there are generally no issues such as this. Freelancers or agencies will usually be retained on flexible contracts – or even just a verbal contract. Consequently, cutting them from the budget is easy if cutbacks are needed. Additionally, and if the business experiences an upturn in fortunes, bringing them back into the fold is just as simple.

by Chris London of Pixel Productions Inc. The Everything Design Company