5 things your business can outsource

When you hear someone talking about outsourcing, you probably immediately think about those annoying foreign call centres used by big companies. They may be cheap but wow they can be frustrating and time consuming.

Don’t let that put you off. Outsourcing is a powerful modern tool to help bring invaluable expertise into your business at a reasonable cost. It’s not just about getting some help. You are actually transferring the entire management and operation of a specific function to another business.

Small businesses can use this as a powerful way to grow without needing to take lots of specialists onto the payroll. In fact there are a number of small businesses today that only exist as a management function, employing other companies to execute all aspects of the day-to-day operations.

You might not want to go that far. But here is Bytestart’s guide to five things commonly outsourced by small businesses:

1) Finance

You’re probably starting a business because you’re good at what you do and want to do it for yourself rather than someone else. If that’s the case, why would you want to spend time learning and worrying about payroll or VAT?

We’re not talking about getting an accountant here, that’s a business basic. But many new business owners waste hours struggling with paperwork rather than use a bookkeeper. And it’s a crazy waste of opportunity. If you can charge £50 an hour for whatever you do and it takes you 5 hours a quarter to do a VAT return, surely it makes more sense to pay a bookkeeper £30 an hour to do it? They’ll get it done more quickly too.

Yes you should always be on top of finance as a small business owner. But that means taking an overview, not touching every single piece of paper.

2) Phones

The phone is a vital business tool and needs to be treated with the highest respect. These days people expect “real” businesses to have a phone number that they can call during the day, and speak to a human. If they hit an answerphone or engaged tone, they might not come back – especially if they’re a potential new customer.

If the phone gets in the way of what you do, why not outsource it? Call handling companies will answer calls in your business name, sort basic enquiries and take messages to pass to you. Callers will generally have no idea (although if you’re a one man band, avoid call handlers with noisy call centres, as it’s a dead giveaway). Call handling is also an excellent way to process response calls, such as those from an advert.

3) IT support

Just as you should use a bookkeeper to remove financial paperwork hassles, an IT support company will ensure your valuable computers serve you properly. Outsource your entire IT to a company and they will take a strategic overview for you.

That means understanding what you want to do and finding the right solution to achieve it, rather than you adapting to the software or hardware available. Your new IT partner will then install, maintain and repair your systems for you. When something goes wrong, it won’t be down to you to fix it. And most computer support companies have guaranteed service level agreements; for example they will aim to have you up and running within four hours.

4) Sales and marketing

A lot of new businesses fail not because the product is no good, but because the owners don’t know how to sell it (or are scared to). It is possible to outsource your entire sales and marketing to an external company, although this carries a strong health warning.

Not only is it likely to be expensive, it carries a fair degree of risk too. You are asking a company to take responsibility for revenue into your business. To them it may be just one of a number of contracts. But if they get it wrong your business could fail.

So you need a great relationship with a supplier before you do this. It may be worth testing how they perform with a smaller project first. And consider hiring a freelancer who relies on a couple of clients only, ensuring you get plenty of attention.

5) Production

If you’re really into outsourcing, why not get the core services of your business done elsewhere? This can make a lot of sense. If 80 per cent of your service is standard to the industry, why not get someone else to do it? You can spend more time on the magic 20 per cent that’s unique to your business. Or alternatively sales, admin, or maybe taking more time off! That’s got to be worth a small reduction in profit.

Thanks to the internet you have access to a skilled but cost effective workforce across the globe. If you used one of the growing number of outsourcing companies in India, you could email off work at the end of the day and have it completed by the time you get to work the next morning. Also consider getting freelancers to pitch for work at sites such as Elance.