Article Contributed by Brian Zeng
Running a business as an entrepreneur is no mean feat. Acquiring new clients, managing the existing ones, supervising the employees, looking after the expenses, and several other crucial tasks need to be juggled. It is imperative to shed the load of some activities to shift focus to the growth of the business. Outsourcing certain services not only offers continuity of business, but also helps in risk management and managing operational expense control. With fewer things to handle, outsourcing improves your work-life balance as well.
Here are five tasks that you can easily outsource and contribute to your business growth extensively:
- Administrative Tasks
Various administrative tasks such as data entry, appointment scheduling, and making travel arrangements can consume most part of your time daily. While administrative services are essential for the smooth functioning of your business, they don’t constitute as the core activities. Outsourcing them to a virtual assistant or administrative service agency helps you save a lot of time to focus on the strategic aspects of your business.
- Social Media Management
Managing an effective online presence is vital to the existence of a business in the modern era. Social media management alone involves tremendous expertise and complete dedication. Outsourcing it to a specialized agency takes the load off the entrepreneur and allows him to focus on core business areas. Not only social media management, digital marketing also involves various critical tasks such as A/B testing, web analytics, search engine optimization, and more. Outsourcing these jobs allows entrepreneurs to get specialized services and adds value to your brand.
- Content Services
With an increasing number of people searching for businesses through search engines and mobile devices, it is important for entrepreneurs to create content that makes it easier for customers to find your business. Professional content writers understand the importance of the right communication strategy and use SEO-friendly language to help your business reach prospective customers. Outsourcing content services to specialized agencies or freelancers doing remote jobs allow entrepreneurs to avail expert services and enhance their business prospects.
- Design and Maintenance
Creating a powerful Web presence involves a series of crucial tasks requiring specialized services. Web design, while being an extremely crucial part of your company’s presence, is tremendously time-consuming. It requires the expertise of website hosting, HTML/CSS coding, wire framing and designing, hosting services, and a lot more. Maintaining the website is a continuous process, involving troubleshooting tech issues, regular upgrades, additions, and improvisations. This is a specialized area of business, but it may prove to be costly to have a full-time employee for this function. Outsourcing design and maintenance services make it easier to avail professional services at cost-effective rates.
- Payroll and Taxes
Specialized accounting firms/individual professionals can help take care of the financial aspects of the business such as invoicing, accounts (receivable/payable), bookkeeping, creating and analysing financial reports, and managing taxes as well. Whether your company has 5 or 50 employees, payroll processing alone is an extremely demanding job in terms of time, money, and expertise.
Also, payroll is a potentially risky and complex business function. There’s always the risk of identity theft and funds embezzlement for personal gain, even with the most trusted employees. Outsourcing payroll allows entrepreneurs a safe haven for managing confidential data as the providers invest in state-of-art systems and software to store and protect your interests. Outsourcing payroll offers enhanced security and compliance with government regulations.
Advantages of Outsourcing:
Whether your business is in its nascent stages or growing rapidly, the right time to outsource varies from business to business. While some may outsource to hire contractual employees for short-term projects, others may need help with daily administrative services. Irrespective of the nature of service required, outsourcing offers numerous benefits to small businesses. Some of these are listed as follows:
- Outsourcing helps in controlling capital costs – Outsourcing helps to convert fixed costs into variable costs, thereby allowing you to avoid large expenditures during the initial stages of your business. Also, outsourcing makes your company more lucrative to investors as they know that their investments will be directly pumped in driving business growth.
- Outsourcing reduces labor costs – Hiring personnel for peripheral or short-term projects can prove to be extremely expensive for small businesses. Outsourcing allows them to pick the best man for the job, while saving the business from the hassles of hiring on payroll, and training and retaining staff.
- Outsourcing reduces business risks – Every business has to weather risks such as volatile market, stringent government regulations, unstable financial conditions, and rapidly evolving technology. Outsourcing helps entrepreneurs delegate tasks to experts who manage these risks more efficiently for your business.
- Outsourcing helps businesses start new businesses quickly – Starting a new in-house project may take weeks or months. It takes time for a small business to hire, train, and procure the required resources. However, outsourcing firms are well-equipped with the resources required. This helps the business to focus its attention from the peripheral activities to the core functionalities.
Conclusion
Outsourcing a job may require more time initially, and this is totally is justifiable. Time should be taken to carefully analyze the capabilities of the outsourcing party to ensure long-term benefits for the company. Outsourcing can help entrepreneurs enjoy specialized benefits at comparatively lesser costs, and allows them to focus on growing the business with a relaxed mind.