Running a business can be extremely hard work at times – that’s not new information to anyone who’s tried. Sure, there are so many perks that come hand in hand with being your own boss and running things your way. You get to be the main decision maker, you get to determine what you do and who you work with, what industry you operate in, what hours you work, where you are based and so much more. But when you run your own business, you do have to become a jack of all trades, understanding all sorts of areas of operations and general business processes. You need to come up with a product, ensure that it’s designed well, brought to life, marketed, sold, shipped and everything in between. It’s not all too surprising that you’re going to start to feel overwhelmed and feel it’s difficult to keep up when you start receiving a lot of orders and experiencing demand that makes your workload increase. At this point, you need to take on help. This is where outsourcing can come in useful.
What is Outsourcing?
If you haven’t heard of outsourcing before, it’s something that could completely change the way your business operates. It’s a common business practice that involves distributing work your company needs to complete to a third party. This third party could be a freelancer, an agency or simply another company. Someone else will carry out the work for you for an agreed rate, rather than you having to do it yourself or you hiring part or full time staff to do it for you. You can outsource writing to a copywriter, photography to a product photographer, design to a graphic design, IT work to an IT consultant and so much more.
The Benefits of Outsourcing
So, why should you consider outsourcing as opposed to the other options available to you? Well, as we’ve already established, as your business grows, it will become nigh on impossible to complete all the work you need to be carried out yourself. Outsourcing can lift this weight from your shoulders. It also means that you benefit from the experience and expertise of a professional in your chosen task or field, rather than having to learn new skills yourself. Finally, when you outsource, you don’t have to invest in equipment or tools to complete a job yourself. Instead, the freelancer, agency or company tend to already have the equipment themselves. For example, if you need goods manufactured and choose to outsource this process, you can save yourself having to buy expensive factory equipment and machinery, as well as a factory or warehouse space. Your alternative option is to hire part or full time staff, but for many businesses, outsourcing outweighs this in benefits too. You may not be ready to take on a staff base, having to train them up yourself. You may not be earning enough money yet to commit to the benefits of hiring staff, such as annual leave, sick pay, parental leave and more. Instead, when you outsource, you skip the responsibilities of having to pay staff and their benefits. You just agree a rate and your outsourced workers will commit to completing your projects, even if on a one off basis, for that exact sum of money.
As you can see, outsourcing could be a great option for your business. Hopefully, some of the areas of focus above will help you to get started in this area!