~by Hannah Whittenly~
Making a profit as a business can be a tough thing to accomplish in a competitive market. Most don’t succeed. According to Forbes, a startling 80 percent of businesses don’t survive to their third year. To survive, you have to look for ways to save. One way to do so is to outsource.
Here are five ways businesses can save money by outsourcing.
1. Training Expenses
According to the Association for Talent Development, companies spend, on average, $1,195 to train each employee. With a lot of employees, this can quickly add up. However, when you outsource, you don’t have to spend the time, money, and resources to train the employees working for that outside firm. It’s not your responsibility; it’s theirs.
2. Benefits
For many companies, providing things like health insurance and disability insurance is required by law. If you don’t provide other decent benefits, you may lose most of the best talent in your industry to competitors. However, if you outsource certain business tasks that can be performed by outside firms, you can lower the amount you will have to pay in expensive benefits.
3. Employee Opportunity Costs
A company’s greatest resource is its employees. How those employees are used often determines the competitive advantages a company has. If you use your employees to perform mundane work such as data entry, payroll, or even janitorial tasks, you may lose some of that competitive advantage that you would have if they were working on more important projects. Outsourcing helps free up your most valuable employees.
4. Tech Support
Most companies require the use of complex computer networks to do work and store and analyze important data. When this technology breaks down, you need to have IT staff on site to help troubleshoot and fix problems. However, IT professionals usually come with extremely high salaries. Consider outsourcing to an Ottawa tech support service or other IT resources that can work with small businesses.
5. Telecommuting
Office space itself can be very expensive to pay for. Consider outsourcing some of your work to freelancers who telecommute. You will still receive completed work from these individuals. However, they won’t have to work in your office, and you won’t incur most of the fixed costs of hiring employees onsite.
There are a lot of advantages to outsourcing. However, you should only deploy outsourcing strategically. Outsource tasks that will save you money and help free up your employees to work on projects more directly related to your core products and services.
Meet the Author: Hannah Whittenly
Hannah Whittenly is a freelance writer and mother of two from Sacramento, CA. She graduated from the University of California-Sacramento with a degree in Journalism.