5 Ways Startup can leverage outsourcing service professionals

Startup

Reinventing the wheel is not the only way to get things done. There are plenty of early-stage businesses looking to capitalize on resources and investments that strive to be self-sufficient. But that is not the only way. If you are planning to setup an eCommercebusiness, then you can have a tech and marketing team, but onboarding a legal team may consume too much of your time and space. Instead, you can opt for online company registration in India and get things started.

Consider hiring, training, and retaining a team in a startup when you are expanding your business to drive revenue. You are likely to succeed in your growth plan if you can focus solely on doing core business activities.

It is always the best bet to hire business professionals who hold some expertise and experience in their respective fields. Here is how your startup can make the most out of outsourced services.

1. Gauging the scope to get started

Many businesses are unsure of what to expect out of an outsourcing partner. It is because they are still not able to rely on outsourcing, and think doing the same job in-house is a better option. But what most startups fail to do is thorough research before onboarding one. With constant discussions comes pragmatic solutions from the business professionals who try to understand your nature of work.

The first thing you’d do is to gauge the scope of work by defining the boundaries within which the outsourcing partner performs all the activities. It may extend with time as your project requirements increase or decide to expand your business.

Also, watch out for additional services that your initial vendor offers so you can continue outsourcing based on an already-created relationship and trust. For instance, you may have hired someone to register your business and take care of the legalities involved while setting up. The same vendor can be offering additional services like income tax return filing, accounting & bookkeeping, and others that can help your business stay compliant.

2. Ensuring cost-effectiveness

If you are looking to maximize ROI as a startup then outsourcing is an answer. Setting up a dedicated, in-house unit will require diligent planning, deep pockets, and your thorough involvement. All these will have your costs hit the roof. Cut the hassles and go for professionals who possess enough skills and resources to perform activities that help to achieve departmental goals. It is a cost-efficient way to ensure full departmental involvement barring all the geographic boundaries.

And since you pay these service professionals on a quarterly, half-yearly or yearly basis, the overall investment is lower than starting afresh department within the organization.

3. Dedicated Resources at Job

Many startups like to hire multi-skilled human force at work so that they can leverage the hiring for multiple tasks. This is a counter-productive technique because it not only jeopardize the talent’s career but may put crucial organizational tasks at higher risks. Consider a graphic designer who is average at video editing is assigned a task to edit the recently shot corporate video. Though he will be able to deliver the expected results on time, he might be running out of the deadline for the next social post. Such a situation may lead to him creating a rather substandard social post that may draw flak or may fail to hit the right metrics, especially when you are building you are building an A-Team for your startup.

Dividing multiple skills at a job will have a talent splitting her/his time doing many things and not mastering in any. Instead, a dedicated outsourcing partner will have a team with task-specific talent. So when you outsource your marketing to a marketing expert, a dedicated graphic designer will be solely focusing on creating images and visuals that benefits your marketing plan and not multi-tasking outside the expertise.

4. Supplying enough expertise as per the business needs

How much would a manufacturing startup know about IT outsourcing? Chances are, just enough to get their work done. But business growth is all about moving beyond the existing, mundane activities and applying strategies that yield the desired result. Many business processes and activities would require some expert assistance and that too on an ongoing basis.

You will have to respond to operational, execution and knowledge-level business needs. There are chances where you’ll face bottlenecks when trying to get things done with the help of existing resources as they may lack expertise in certain skills. There are chances where you will be handed projects that fall outside your business expertise and in such cases, it is best to rely on experts.

5. Utilizing experience for quick decision-making 

It is common for startups to stay agile and make quick calls that create impact. And this gets tough when you have to make crucial decisions in the domain where you do not hold any expertise. Here’s where you will need the business service professionals who have championed the art of making bold calls a day in day out. You can rely on their expertise and leverage experience to work in your favor. They are accountable for taking actions based on the choices they make as they take you along in the whole process.

For instance, your outsourced marketing partner would have the right knowledge on whether you can leverage certain memes on social platforms. A wrong decision may jeopardize the brand image or if not done in good taste by an internal team may backfire. Again, you may be putting as many resources as possible to ensure creating a great brand image, but if you don’t hire experts for trademark registration then other efforts may fall flat.

When you have major departments outsourced to experts, you will have time, energy and resources to perform crucial business tasks. This may include focusing on sales, product development, process streamlining, implementing client retention techniques, and many other growth-induced KRAs. 

Final Thoughts

Start with identifying potential talent available in your business city and compare its investment with that out outsourcing partner charges. Most outsourcing can be done internationally (IT, BPO, etc.) at cheaper rates while some professional services may be preferred for national businesses like lawyers, CPA/CAs and Company Secretaries to name a few. Identify business gaps and resource availability to comprehend how best you can leverage outsourcing business tasks and processes to service professionals.

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