Frequently Asked Questions
What Are Outsourcing Services?
Outsourcing refers to the practice of hiring teams of experienced and skilled professionals to complete operational or administrative tasks within your business. These tasks and processes are often those that can be completed in-house, but outsourcing provides access to top talent without adding strain to your onboarding, training, and management load. Instead, it provides a cost-effective turnkey solution so that you can focus on other key areas of business growth and development.
How Does Outsourcing Help Businesses?
Outsourcing often means lower costs because teams are assembled, trained, and managed by a third-party service provider who then provides packaged or fully customized pricing to businesses. However, while cost-cutting is a major reason why many businesses choose to outsource various processes, it’s far from the only advantage. Outsourcing also helps to reduce the workload for your in-house managers and employees, freeing them up to focus on more important tasks. You could choose to have an in-house accounting manager, for example, but then outsource the accounting processes – this would ease the workload for your manager and also keep costs lower.
How Can Outsourcing Reduce Cost?
Outsourcing service providers employ talented individuals from markets across the globe. Outsourcing offers access to expert-level professionals with cutting-edge technologies at a lower cost than purchasing everything you need in-house. Labor rates and the cost of doing business are often times far more competitive overseas, providing significant cost savings to organizations. In addition, businesses that outsource don’t have to worry about training or onboarding or paying benefits and other tax contributions as those are handled by the outsourcing provider.
How Does Outsourcing Affect Employees?
From experience, the businesses we work with find that their employees are happier and more productive as they are able to focus only on tasks that best suit their job descriptions. This helps them avoid burnout, and it helps their employers avoid the time and monetary cost of employee churn.
What Do Outsourcing Companies Actually Do?
There are numerous possibilities when it comes to outsourcing. From customer service, payroll, and accounting, to lead generation, website design, marketing, and more, companies that outsource these services free up substantial amounts of time with minimal management responsibilities. Regular check-ins are encouraged so that everyone remains on the same page, but otherwise, outsourced teams and individuals work in the background to support the business in any capacity required.
Who Does Outsourcing Benefit?
Outsourcing provides a variety of benefits to businesses that provide services to either other businesses (B2B) or to customers and end-users (B2C). If you have a lot of manual processes or repetitive manual tasks, outsourcing can help you and your employees work more efficiently while your outsourced team does the heavy lifting, so to speak.
Why Is Outsourcing Important?
In a world where employees and managers are busier than ever keeping track of daily tasks, outsourcing provides relief, support, and flexibility. It also connects a global market of highly talented professionals to businesses that need performance and are focused on sustainable growth.
Can Outsourcing Improve Performance?
Yes! Take a look at your average day as an example. By outsourcing time-consuming manual processes, you are free to spend your time on tasks that help you achieve your goals. Outsourcing works by removing recurring tasks from your plate, allowing you to gain the ability to focus on the areas of your business that require full attention (the same goes for your employees, too).
Which Is Better, Outsourcing or Subcontracting?
Subcontracting is similar to outsourcing in that you are hiring an outside individual to perform specific tasks. However, you still need to manage, delegate, often train, and keep track of that individual, as well as monitor their performance. A subcontractor is more similar to an employee, the difference being that they aren’t technically employed by you. Outsourcing is intended to be a turnkey solution where you hire a specific company that provides highly trained and experienced individuals who don’t require close monitoring or costly training. They are there to perform a job quickly, efficiently, and without your constant involvement.
Is Ongoing Outsourcing Or Short Term Project-Based Outsourcing Better?
Outsourcing is utilized by many companies for ongoing processes, while others use it to fill gaps for specific projects or time periods. You might hire an outsourcing provider to assist with an acquisition or migration, for example, or, you could hire them to handle your payroll on a long-term basis as your company grows. Regardless of your needs, outsourcing is fast, efficient, and affordable by design so that whenever you need it, it’s there and ready to perform.
Can outsourcing work for small businesses?
Yes! Your business doesn’t have to be raking in millions of dollars in profits or have national recognition in order to take advantage of outsourcing. The business model can adapt to the needs of any size business, and small to medium-sized businesses are able to enjoy many of the same benefits of outsourcing that massive companies do. Outsourcing is especially great for small businesses during times of massive unplanned growth because it ensures they don’t get too overwhelmed by increasing demand.
Who uses outsourcing?
Businesses of every size in practically every industry use outsourcing. This is because every industry has tasks that don’t require face-to-face interactions with customers or other businesses, like accounting and payroll, that can be done by an outsourced professional. Additionally, many of the benefits of outsourcing are things all companies would like to enjoy.
Will outsourcing grow more important in the future?
Outsourcing is still relatively new to the business world, but so many businesses are either aware of the benefits the model offers or experienced them firsthand that many industry experts agree that it will only continue to grow in importance. Outsourcing will also grow more important to offshore firms and will grow as a result.
When is outsourcing recommended?
Outsourcing is commonly recommended for companies that are growing very fast, companies that want to focus on more business-critical tasks, companies that need to lower salary costs, and companies that lack expertise and experience in a certain area. Outsourcing is also recommended for tasks like customer service, payroll, accounting, web design, lead generation, marketing, and over the phone customer service.
How can outsourcing improve an enterprise’s effectiveness?
Outsourcing can improve an enterprise’s effectiveness in many ways. Firstly, it reduces the stress that an overwhelming workload can cause employees, giving them more time and energy to spend on more crucial tasks. Secondly, outsourcing connects a company with subject matter experts that know the best and most effective ways to tackle an issue or achieve a goal.
How can outsourcing benefit accounting firms?
Outsourcing benefits accounting firms by providing them the ability to scale up their operations and handle more workload when the business hits a peak. Additionally, scaling things back can happen easily with little to no lag. Accounting firms will also enjoy all of the other typical benefits of outsourcing, like reduced labor costs, additional time to focus on mission-critical and core business issues, and enhanced quality of service.
Why outsource your medical billing?
In addition to saving on labor costs and giving you more time to focus on other, more critical duties, outsourcing your medical billing also helps ensure the process is up-to-date, error-free, and completed and submitted in a timely manner. The reduction in billing errors also helps to improve customer service and overall patient satisfaction.
What does outsourcing do in the short term?
In the short term, outsourcing can provide quick fixes and immediate solutions to pressing problems. Encounter an issue you’ve never experienced before that needs to be solved quickly? Outsourcing can connect you to an expert in the matter. Growing much more quickly than anticipated? Outsourcing time-consuming tasks like payroll, accounting, and other administrative tasks until you’ve found more permanent solutions help you avoid getting swamped. And who knows, outsourcing might become that permanent solution!