Why outsourcing isn’t a dirty word for business owners
If you are a business owner, the thought of whether or not you should outsource key roles or tasks within your business will have crossed your mind. It is common to also feel hesitation about following through, with some stigma still existing around moving outside of your internal business structures to achieve the best results.
Outsourcing typically involves contracting business processes to third parties. There are many common misconceptions around outsourcing, and by not exploring the benefits of this industry for your business, you may be limiting yourself and your organisation.
The outsourcing industry has grown significantly over the last few years, despite the many ups and downs we’ve all endured. Research from Statista shows the global market size of outsourced services has increased from $45.6 billion (USD) in 2000 to $92.5 billion in 2019 - an increase of over 100%.
So what does that mean for you as the budding business owner? In a post-pandemic environment, the way we all do business has changed significantly. Whether you’re pivoting to prioritise cost-efficiency, or now questioning the necessity of traditional office structures, the biggest trends for outsourcing right now have been to meet these needs.
As you might expect, savings are on the mind of many clients. Cost reduction has seen a sharp increase as the main driver for outsourcing, particularly in the face of pandemic-induced global recession. While Australia experienced a brief COVID-influenced recession last year, some businesses, big and small, felt the impacts of the pandemic.
It’s not all about the bottom line though. Corporate agility has also been one of the biggest drivers for an increase in outsourcing. You need to be able to maneuver quickly and cleanly in order to get ahead. Impacts to domestic and global shipping and importing, increased customer expectations and ever-changing restrictions mean that businesses must become more agile.
So, let's first bust some of the myths around outsourcing, and then focus more specifically on how outsourcing your marketing could help transform your business and help you kick your goals for 2022.
Myths of outsourcing busted
For business owners, outsourcing may be seen as a “dirty” word due to pressures to accomplish everything in-house. But what you need to understand is that outsourcing is not about replacing all of the parts that you have, but it's about adding the essential pieces that you need.
These are some of the most common outsourcing myths, and the truth around how it may benefit your business.
MYTH: Outsourcing means replacing staff
FACT: It helps your internal team operate at a higher level
Are there areas of your business you want to grow that your team has not had time to focus on? Are you feeling weighed down by tasks that perhaps would be better serviced in the hands of someone else? By hiring externally, you can better free up your and your employee’s time so that it is spent more efficiently.
There is a misconception that outsourcing equates to replacing your internal staff with remote workers. But by outsourcing functions within your business, you may actually help your internal team operate at their best. Think of it as complimenting your existing workforce, not substituting them.
If, for example, an employee's time is being directed away from a major project due to other time-consuming admin tasks, outsourcing this work will help them re-prioritise the big ticket items. This is how outsourcing provides businesses with a greater capacity to grow, and kick goals.
MYTH: It could mean lower quality products and service
FACT: Product and service quality can improve while you reduce overheads
One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing for any business is that it may help you to reduce overheads. It facilitates your ability to operate smarter, not harder, and look more carefully at cost-margins. As one of the biggest ongoing expenses for any business are salaries, including wages and superannuation contributions, finding ways to reduce these costs is ideal - particularly in the first years of a business and for small businesses.
Let’s say you’re looking to produce a series of flyers, advertising your business locally. You could find and skill-up a new in-house team member to eventually account for your graphic design needs. However, as you’re just looking to fulfil one task, maybe the budget put towards this staff member’s hypothetical income might be better spent just hiring an experienced, external graphic designer on a one-off basis to complete the project.
Cost saving should not come to the detriment of the quality of your products or services - and this can be one of the biggest misconceptions around outsourcing. Instead of framing outsourcing as ‘cutting corners’ as some may do, it’s actually about increasing the quality and standards of your business, while being more financially responsible.
MYTH: It’s too hard to coordinate with remote teams
FACT: Most people are working remotely, even post-pandemic
If your business had to pivot to a work-from-home environment over the last 18 months, then you know that the idea of offices being fundamental to business growth, and productivity, is outdated. If a barrier preventing you from considering outsourcing is the perceived frustration around communication between remote workers, then you simply need to ask yourself how your business has adapted to COVID-19.
Nicholas Hastings, CEO of and founder of offshore solution specialists - hammerjack, wrote that with more and more people working from home, “the pool of talent for your business should stretch wider and deeper than ever before”.
“The recruitment of new staff no longer hinges on the postcode in which they live. There has also been time throughout the pandemic to iron out any operational wrinkles with regards to remote workers,” said Mr Hastings.
It’s also important to remember that there is a difference between offshore outsourcing versus locally outsourcing. If you’re considering the former, outsourcing companies, such as hammerjack, offer businesses like yours an extra level of reassurance by providing onshore account managers and consultants. These onshore liaisons work within your timezone that can coordinate these offshore teams. Communicating with teams based offshore becomes much more fluid with an account manager or consultant working alongside both you and the remote team.
It’s also never been easier to communicate and engage with outsourced workers - both onshore and offshore - with huge leaps in conferencing, back-of-house, and task management technologies. With all of this new tech, collaborating with a remote team is no longer an intimidating concept.
Benefits of outsourcing your marketing
One of the most successful ways we’ve seen businesses implement an outsourcing program is for marketing content and strategy - an Excelerate specialty!
The four biggest advantages that outsourcing your marketing offers includes:
Cost save
Skills
Efficiency
External experience
There are significant cost benefits of using an external team for your marketing needs, like Excelerate Marketing, particularly when you’re looking for assistance for a function rather than bringing on a new employee. An outsourced marketing company working to deliver a project or function for you while charging an hourly rate will always be more efficient than hiring an employee on an annual salary for the same deliverable.
Hiring an external team with a wide range of marketing skills, is also more productive than on-boarding a solo staff member. With an internal marketing hire, they’ll need to juggle all your key tasks with the skills of just one person. However, when you outsource your marketing to external team members, you benefit from the skills of their employees and contractors across a range of specialties. When you hire Excelerate Marketing, you gain a team of marketing professionals working to help your business achieve its goals with diverse industry knowledge and expertise.
Next, the actual function you’re looking to fulfil is achieved more efficiently when you outsource your marketing. By being billed on output versus hiring an in-house staff-member, you’ll see a higher priority towards deliverables from an external marketing team. An outsourced marketing team is going to be more outcome-focused than someone hired internally; especially when you consider how much time we spend distracted by internal meetings and office chatter.
Further, by outsourcing this fundamental aspect of your business, you’ll benefit from having a fresh perspective. Having a fresh pair of eyes to assess the functions of your business can help you utilise your existing resources, which in turn can support your existing staff.
For example, Excelerate Marketing recently worked with a client that, upon speaking with their teams, were spending a disproportionate amount of time on small CMS tasks. Our marketing experts were able to highlight this, create better structure for the flow of communication to the CMS, and boost the productivity of the internal team. Outsourcing your marketing to Excelerate Marketing can help you better utilise your staff’s time and see your business get more out of its team.
If you’re considering outsourcing your marketing, our team of experts at Excelerate Marketing can offer you cost-safe benefits, skills, efficiency and external experience. And if you need to outsource just one function of this from your business, such as digital and social media marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), content creation, email marketing and more, keep in mind that we specialise in tailor-made marketing services just for your business.
For a free consultation regarding your current marketing strategy, please reach out to our Excelerate Marketing team today.