Many small business owners always have to handle several tasks in their businesses. Even though most of them can navigate these tasks successfully, there will be times when they have to outsource responsibilities to save time, money and focus on growing their business.
A June 2014 Gigaom Research survey showed that just 14% of small business owners are satisfied with how much time they allocate to their business activities. About half said they spend more time on operational issues than growing their small business. However, close to 92% say they will outsource at least one area of business operations in the future.
These are seven different business tasks that you should outsource:
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1. Information Technology (IT)
You should consider outsourcing your IT tasks to external IT experts, or cloud-based solutions, as this will give your small business more room for flexibility, which can lead to expansion. According to the 2014 Deloitte survey, 53% of companies outsource some of their IT tasks, while another 26% plan to do so in the future. Note that you can save up to 40% cost within your business from outsourcing the IT activities.
2. Logistics
When small businesses start, the base for their retail operations might be a rented space in a shared office or something of that sort, and you might even begin your operations from one room in your house. But as your business begins to grow, there is a need to find a bigger space, which you might not have the finances to get by yourself. This is outsourcing logistics come in; you can outsource to experts to handle your warehousing and delivery activities. These experts are better placed to address this area of your business more effectively and efficiently than you. In other words, your overall spending is reduced, and customer relationships are improved. Outsourcing your logistics activities to professionals means you can focus on selling, merchandising, growing your business, etc.
3. HR Administration
You might not need the Human Resource (HR) function for your business until you do, maybe because you are running the business on your own. But, this is not always the case, so when you eventually need experts to handle your HR administration, it is advisable to choose HR Assured to outsource your HR functions. You can outsource these HR functions, like collecting payment details, recruitment, back-to-work interviews, and several others.
4. Accounting
Accounting can be time-consuming and even difficult if you don’t have the training and experience for it. Accounting mistakes can have adverse effects on your business in the short term and long term. Outsourcing your accounting tasks will save you time, and likely prevent you from flouting state or federal rules. When you outsource, it means you should/are outsourcing to professionals in any given field. You have these to gain from outsourcing: improved efficiency, simplified processes, reduced mistakes, cost-saving, and the likes.
5. Content Marketing
Your small business needs to have an online presence, and it needs to be properly managed to prevent it from doing your business more harm. Outsource the content marketing aspect of your business to experts in that field. Content marketing experts will help you craft your online content to reach your target audience while making it engaging enough for this audience. Outsourcing this function will result in: the creation of high-quality content, on-time delivery, a wider audience reach, just to name a few.
6. Customer Support
Customer service is an important aspect of business that needs to be appropriately handled for running a successful business. In many small businesses, the office staff or salespeople must have to handle customer service, which means managing new customer acquisition and maintaining existing customers’ satisfaction. Unfortunately, the result of this kind of setup is not always the best, as the people handling that business aspect are not professionals in the field. To get desirable results, you should outsource this task to a call center with experienced, and trained professionals who can skillfully handle your customer service demands. Compare services and prices of different call centers to pick the best call center that can meet your needs.
7. Web Design
Customers don’t want to deal with a page that won’t load quickly or a confusing menu page, or a flawed check-out process; this will lead to a heavy drop rate for your business. You need to hire the services of an external professional to create and maintain your business website, which will help you prevent the problems stated above. Although it is pretty expensive to outsource this business aspect, just like other aspects above, the investment will pay off with reduced mistakes, more satisfied customers, and improved website traffic.
By outsourcing the above tasks or responsibilities, you get to focus on other areas of your business like engaging with your customers better, developing goods and services that will satisfy your growing customer base better, and so on.
