A huge misconception about running your own business is the thought of finally breaking free from employee-related worries. You might think that you would no longer have to bear the pressure of delivering an assignment right on time or the fear of getting reprimanded if you don’t.
But the truth is, the overwhelming responsibility and workload of owning a business can be so much to make them wish to be an employee again who gets paid enough and doesn’t need to worry about constant threats to his or her business.
Today’s world of booming startups and flourishing small businesses has created a fiercely competitive field for young managers who are trying to put an idea into motion and sometimes don’t quite have all the resources they need to keep their edge in the market.
One of the solutions that’s been around for some time now and has not made the big break it was promised, is business outsourcing.
It means trusting a business outsourcing partner with a part of the job that otherwise would bog you down with unreasonable man-hours to reach the level of proficiency you would need to do it.
Unlike many sources you might bump into when you google business outsourcing, we don’t just want to go on a spiel about the benefits of outsourcing. Here we want to flip the coin both ways.
We will have a go at the advantages of business outsourcing for managers first. Then we discuss the downsides that have been holding the trend back from being the once-thought blockbuster it is expected to be.
Finally, we’ll say if all the buzz around business outsourcing is still yet to come or if it is doomed to failure.
Here are pros and cons that answer this question: What is outsourcing in business and how good is it?
The advantages of business outsourcing
- Cut the costs, a whole lot
Business outsourcing lifts a long list of responsibilities off your shoulders as the manager.
You won’t have to bear apprenticeship and tolerate the human capital learning curve as an in-house team requires. So according to statistics, labor cost slumps by 20 to 30 percent when you when you do business process outsourcing for a part of your service, comparing to when you do it with a full time team in house.
Not to mention all the overhead expense of things like pension and customary bonuses for in-house employees.
- Be agile and change course way quicker and with minimum risk
When you design your firm or startup to do business outsourcing on some of its functions over a simple contract, you are practically detaching yourself from anything inside the box of that outsourced part of your business.
So, if it comes to it, you can just as easily replace the box with a new one when you’re changing or growing your services and plug yourself to a new group of business outsourcing partners.
- Save time for the core of your business
Everybody’s good and special at something.
So, asking for help on something you’re not quite best at and you want to be perfectly done, is nothing to be ashamed of. If you think about it, it is actually a way for you to focus on what you are best at.
This way, you’re sure all the various teams you’re directing for a final product are best at what they do without getting yourself involved with how they’ve come to learn their job.
- Having the benefits of a partner without dealing with an actual partner
Business outsourcing is a way to pick new perspectives on your problems but secure the last decision as your prerogative and yours only.
An expert team that does their job well, can give you great insights along the way.
You’re actually enjoying the benefits of having a professional associate without having to deal with the headaches of an actual contending partner.
- Business outsourcing can guarantee your sustainability
The market for small businesses and startups has been a busy field in the past decade. This thriving environment means a harder route to survive and succeed.
By choosing business outsourcing as a rather cheap way to carry your weight, you will up your chance of success and prosperity in a booming market with too many competitors.
- Buy expertise, and buy it cheap
Hiring and supporting full-time technicians in house is expensive. Especially in today’s high-demand competitive professional market. So, business outsourcing such services can go a long way.
Since all the best business process outsourcing firms bring an experienced, talented team together, employing the collective, specialized support of such firms would make much more sense than having a handful of high-priced full-time technicians in house.
The specialized world we live in is the macro visualization of such phenomenon. Industries and businesses thrive by leaving each part of the job to an expert section of the workforce that all collaboratively work together.
Being able to effectively communicate and collaborate on different portions of a project is another ability good outsourcing firms are best at. So, with the right business outsourcing partner, you’ll have expertise brought to you all the same and better, and the crux of it is lower net-cost for the project.
Check out how you can remarkably cut your costs through our outsourcing services here.
- Boost your firm’s productivity
Most firms don’t just work on a single project at a given time. Passed a certain point along the development of your small business or startup, there’s usually a pipeline of projects that have to be dealt with simultaneously.
We’re not speaking out of terms here, because such description that leads to the need for business outsourcing is usually what happens to companies with such caliber. The ones that have gained enough fame by securing good projects will naturally have sufficient financial support to outsource parts of those projects.
By business process outsourcing, such firms can put their focus on what they do best. Leaving some of the labor-work to a trusted third-party business outsourcing firm and make sure quick revisions can easily be made.
Plus, popular destinations for overseas business outsourcing mostly root back to countries in south or south-eastern Asia.
So for instance, the time difference can play to your business’s benefit which is in Europe or the US. For example, you can have an end-of-the-night order ready by the next morning when you enter the office and all the work is practically taken care of, when your team are off the grid, spending family time at a restaurant.
- Make room for marketing
On the same note as boosting productivity when a firm does business outsourcing on particular components of a project, the freed time can be allocated to marketing campaigns for the company and brandishing its outstanding work.
The time can be put into properly promoting their business in the emerging market they are competing in.
See how you can take back a big chunk of your firm’s time and energy back into marketing your genius right, when you efficiently outsource the right part to us.
- Setbacks are not as time and resource-consuming anymore
Since you don’t have any concern over the quality and performance of the results you get from a trusted business outsourcing partner, a firm itself that comprises professional team members, frees up some time on your packed schedule behind a deadline and so setbacks and major modifications won’t take as long or at least you’ll have time to handle them correctly.
Plus, you’re on the brink of a road that your professional business outsourcing partner has been down to, a bunch of times.
So they know their way around the part they are assigned to and the chance to come to revisions in the first place will be much lower. Another worry you can to check off your long list of to-dos.
- Have constant care and support
It’s customary for all well-established business process outsourcing providers to offer 24/7 support services. So, one of the other benefits of outsourcing would be the time-independent communication with your partner; something you probably can’t have with a full-time technician that leaves after the end of the business day.
- It’s what makes sense
Down the road, it always comes down to the fact that money usually calls the shots. Outsourcing overseas can be all the rage since it helps the global economy and makes demanding, labor and cost-intensive projects feasible and all the more financially reasonable.
Plus, fees for the same service can vary greatly in different countries for reasons we won’t get to here; but the upshot is that the finished price for the same service can vary greatly by outsourcing; making it a benefit of business outsourcing.
Take a look at our wide team of architects and designers in Asia and Europe and see their impressive cost-saving record in every project with almost any scale.
Downsides of business outsourcing
- It might jeopardize your firms’ long-term interests
Cynically put, dependence might mean liability and would be at odds with self-interest for your firm that’s trying to secure and expand their hold in the market.
On a broader scale, business outsourcing might mean dependence to foreign labor which would raise patriotic or security concerns. One of the reasons for resistance, especially to outsourcing overseas is just that.
- Lack of deep knowledge on your own product
By business outsourcing each section of your project, you’re disentangling yourself from the bottom-line job and that might seem like a relief. But you are also distancing yourself from a deep first-hand knowledge and consequently control over your own product.
That might pose threats and cost you your leverage when you face your customers and need to make adjustments based on their need.
- Chance of intellectual property leak or other forms of business abuse
Depending on where your business outsourcing partner resides, and that sometimes could be far far away, you will need to make sure their intellectual property protection laws are up to your home standards.
Since business outsourcing firms don’t work for a single client, your data in their hand might mean giving up all your leverage to your competitors on a silver platter through your outsourcing associate.
Of course, this doesn’t mean all business process outsourcing companies will do it. You just have to be wary of the risk and make sure your partner’s trustworthy.
- Overhead logistic expenses
The actual distance with your business outsourcing partner might cause issues too. Aside from ineffective communication and their insufficient knowledge which we will get to in a second, long distance relationship as we all know it, needs special care to work smoothly.
You, as the manager of your own business might require to appoint employees to oversee your partners’ work offshore. That is not cheap for sure since you might need to offer premium pay for the job as an effective incentive.
Logistic issues like good transfer can be tricky and cost way more than you initially expect; especially when manufacturing is your product instead of services.
So, make sure you check the expenditure for offshore shipping before you choose your business outsourcing partner.
- Ineffective communication
Patriotic or national security concerns might seem like a bit of a stretch, but one of the most raised issues with business outsourcing that’s withholding its full big break is unproductive, unwieldy communication among the employer and the business process outsourcing company you’re choosing.
Of course, not all outsourcing firms are perfect and live up to world-class standards. So that might be why a lot of sources have voiced ineffective and frustrating communication with a business process outsourcing firm that makes the employer forget about their decision altogether.
- Foreigners’ lack of knowledge
Let’s imagine you’re carrying out a building project in Ontario, Canada, and you are pondering outsourcing a part of your structure design to an architecture outsourcing company overseas where they don’t particularly have too many trees and so not a lot of lumber around for sure.
Your outsourcing partner probably wouldn’t have too much experience designing in such fashion and that would mean longer delivery, faulty final results on the first try, and missing deadlines for the revisions that follow.
The inadvertent lack of knowledge by business outsourcing partners that are unfamiliar with domestic ways in design and building has been cited as another reason for companies to avoid outsourcing, decades into its initial boom.
- Only medium steps of a project can be outsourced
The whole purpose of business outsourcing will be squandered if the outcome of a trusted outsourcing partner had to be over-checked and repeatedly handed back and forth for revisions.
So, parts of a project that are too subjectively reliant on your firm’s specific touch and style, cannot be trusted with a third-party company.
Usually, the final presented results to your client, fall into this category and therefore, only routine stages of a business process outsourcing project can be handled by a partner and not the final result.
Conclusion
Business outsourcing is not the solution for every overwhelming job your small firm or startup is dealing with. But given the specific circumstance and shortage of resources, it might be your best chance to get a hang of your firm’ just the way you want it to be as the owner of your business.
It cuts costs through less staff and office space, cheaper software and hardware run and support when your work is service based rather than manufacturing-based.
Business outsourcing also offers competitive fees and more productive revision-proof handling of your project. Although, inefficient communication, lack of knowledge through having different standards, and long-term dependency concerns might be the caveat to business outsourcing that all can be properly taken care of by choosing the right partner.
Now you tell use. What encourages or makes you paused about business outsourcing part of the job at hand in your firm? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
Plus, you can see our record as a trustworthy outsourcing partner by reading about us.
Comments