4 Tasks Your Small Business Can Afford to Outsource

Are you spending too much time on mundane tasks rather than actually operating your business? It’s certainly not uncommon for business owners today. In fact, as little as 15 % of them feel that they spend their time on the kind of tasks that will make their companies prosper — instead, they’ll be walking on the same tracks, completing the same processes, without really being able to grow.

Image Credit: Pexels

There is a way out of this for everyone, though, and the quicker you realize that you can’t do it all on your own, the easier it will be to focus on the tasks that really matter. Here is a neat list of the top processes a small business should have outsourced yesterday, making your week at work a lot more manageable — and clearing the space for growth and success.

IT Services

Unless you’re running an IT company, it makes little sense to dedicate an entire department to this. Most companies outsource these processes, by the way, as many as 53 % of companies — and 26 % of them plan to outsource it as soon as possible.

By relying on third-party vendors as well as cloud computing, you’re also making your company more flexible and will even benefit from the amount of knowledge an entire IT crew can provide you with. It’s a whole other story than a few employees in the office, stationed at their desks, and ready to help when they’re needed.

Image Credit: Pexels

Customer support

While some people may oppose to outsourcing customer support seeing that direct contact with customers is vital to building a lasting relationship, consider this first; small companies are often unable to hire dedicated customer support staff, forcing them to delegate it to some of their existing employees. This is bad for business in more ways than one.

First of all, the employee is unable to spend time on what they do best, making your company miss out on valuable productivity. Secondly, they won’t be as well-trained as an actual customer support agency which puts you at risk of losing customers.

Outsource this task while your company is still relatively small, let your team focus on their job, and hire professional customer support staff to be in-house when you’ve grown bigger. It’s as simple as that. Make sure you scrutinise your options, however, as the costs and quality may vary.

Image Credit: Pexels

People

When you’re still young and unable to pay for the kind of quality you’d like, hiring freelancers may be the best option. As many as three out of four small businesses in the US admit that the use of freelancers gives them a competitive edge; when the talent is there, but you can’t afford to hire it, you can simply put a contract on it instead.

The same goes for finding the next talents for your flourishing company, and a procurement recruitment agency is perfect for any new business as they can make sure you’ve got the best kind of staff on every level, right from the start.

Accounting

Every process that is repetitive and mundane both can and should be outsourced. Accounting and payroll are certainly one of them, but 60 % of business are still completing it in-house rather than just handing it over to a third-party.

When you can afford to treat yourself to a professional accounting team, it’s all well and good — but most small businesses lack this kind of resources, and choose to delegate it to an existing employee instead.

It’s perhaps a bit more cost-effective than outsourcing, yet the risk they run is way too big; when something goes wrong with the payroll or accounting system, everything tends to tumble downhill. It will cost your company quite some money in fines, you lose the valuable addition of team members who can focus on their job rather than accounting — and your employees will be very unhappy with you.

With the correct kind of software and a few tech-savvy workers, you can easily continue to do it in-house, though. Just remember that the software should be comprehensive enough to take care of all the processes without being too complicated for them to understand — otherwise, you end up spending a lot of time on training.

Keep in mind that, by outsourcing to a reputable company, your business is also gaining the expert knowledge and support of an entire team you didn’t have before. They’ll be able to give you that competitive edge, helping you to growth and success a bit faster.