Saving money by Outsourcing
When you first start up a business, you may be doing all the duties yourself. Which is fine to a point, however your company will soon start to grow. You may soon struggle to do everything yourself without serious stress or taking until the early hours completing routine paperwork. Outsourcing some roles can take the pressure off and could even save you money! Knowing which parts of the business to outsource can be tricky, so here is a list of what I think are the key areas:
Bookkeeping/financial duties - This is where a lot of the routine and repetitive tasks are, and the main area I've seen businesses struggle as soon as their business grows. These tasks are invoicing customers, making sure they pay on time, keeping the sales ledger/purchase ledger up to date, reconciling the bank statement, reconciling petty cash, running reports and keeping a close eye on the cash flow. The benefit here of outsourcing this work is that you can relinquish as much or as little work to the bookkeeper as you like. They will offer a number of different packages to suit your needs, and this will be cheaper than hiring a staff member in a finance department.
IT - This is a common area for outsourcing - most businesses will want to throw their computer or printer out the window at some point from frustration! When things go wrong most people will hire an IT company to repair IT equipment and systems, and some businesses will have a contract so that the IT company can be called upon whenever they are needed.
HR - Knowing when to hire, who to hire, how much wages to pay etc will be taken care of, so you don't have to worry about the staff side of things! They will cover everything from policies and procedures, holidays, sickness, employee benefits, disciplinary issues and managing performance. You won't need to worry about the legal requirements either as this will be taken care of, which will be peace of mind! This part of a business can be very time consuming. Outsourcing this can literally save you time and money!
Marketing - This can also be very time consuming, complex and confusing! Especially in today's digital world. A good marketing firm will get to know your business, update your social media pages (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc), post in selected groups on your behalf, create and maintain a business blog, create and maintain a website and SEO (Search engine optimisation). They will make sure your business is visible online and will provide consistency to ensure people trust your brand. Marketing is much more these days than simply sticking up posters in shop bulletin boards!
As you can see I've chosen these areas as they are time consuming, repetitive and sometimes mind boggling! You may find it strange that outsourcing can actually save you money, but when you really think about it, creating these departments in your business premises and hiring the staff to go with it will prove to be much more expensive!
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