Some people like to manage their business and want some oversight regarding what’s happening at all times. If they cannot see it or speak to the people involved, they don’t feel comfortable. Getting used to outsourcing for this type of person is harder. Is this you? Other people might be creatives or people with certain specialties and know that they’re not the best person for certain other tasks. For this group, they have an easier time accepting the idea of outsourcing tasks or larger responsibilities to a third-party provider.
How do you get comfortable with outsourcing if you think it’ll benefit the business, but it makes you nervous? How can you know the best tasks to outsource too? This is what we cover in this article.
Getting Comfortable with Business Scope
If you began the business on your own, then having to employ your first employee may have been a tough pill to swallow. Maybe you felt that they would never do the work as well as you could? Were there concerns that you’d lose some autonomy or feel that you were losing control of the business? Ultimately, taking on employees involved a learning curve when starting small. But it was necessary to adjust to the changing business requirements. Companies need to grow, or they wither and die. Products must evolve or get replaced with other, better ones. Change is a necessary part of the business. Evolution is too. Getting used to outsourcing is about evolving with the times, seeing the positive benefits, and resolving any issues you might have with it.
What Tasks or Functions Must Stay In-House?
You may feel that some things must stay in-house and closely manageable. For instance, product development is probably something that will forever remain a responsibility only undertaken by yourself or other employees. However, some activities like payroll administration are rather involved and require highly knowledgeable people to do it. Nevertheless, it’s not required to do it within the business. It’s possible to get the payroll management performed properly by responsible providers. Certainly, the payroll administration offered by G&A Partners should engender confidence and leave the staff free to apply their efforts elsewhere.
Does the Role Use Proprietary Knowledge?
For some roles, they rely on intellectual property and proprietary knowledge that companies wouldn’t want to fall into the wrong hands. While it’s certainly possible to safely pass this information onto a service provider or a factory that’ll need it to manufacturer the product, there are confidentiality agreements like NDAs and other contractual agreements that can protect the business further.
Does the Task Need Technical Prowess?
Is the task or project something that can only be completed by employees who have received in-house training or built up experience over years to do it successfully? Does this mean that it cannot be performed by an outside party at this time? If this is the case, it should be kept within the company.
Lastly, it’s also possible that some tasks can be completed internally at a lower cost. However, these are few and far between because most third-party providers benefit from the economies of scale that smaller departments trying to do the same thing just don’t have.
