“If you deprive yourself of outsourcing and your competitors do not, you’re putting yourself out of business.” – Lee Kuan Yew
Outsourcing is a business practice wherein you hire a party outside your company to perform certain functions. These functions are usually those that your people don’t specialize in, or the process consumes too much time.
By outsourcing such functions, you help your workforce with free time and energy to devote to the tasks that they specialize in. Moreover, when you outsource, productivity increases manifolds. Not only this, but your employees also become more likely to experience the psychological state of flow while working, which triggers deep enjoyment.
Increased productivity happens naturally when employees are engaged in tasks that they specialize in and are meaningful to them. As a result, they become more engaged and engrossed in their day-to-day tasks, enhancing their efficiency.
To sum up, outsourcing some business functions can work wonders for sparking the productivity of your workforce. But, what exactly are the business functions that are worth outsourcing? If you also wonder the same, this blog is for you.
We’ll discuss seven business functions that can be outsourced to enhance productivity.
Seven business functions that can be outsourced for greater productivity
1. Accounting:
Many entrepreneurs find it challenging to hire a well-qualified and skilled accountant for their business. These days, experienced accountants demand a high salary, and that’s why many businesses have started outsourcing accounting. But, no doubt, you may feel that accounting and bookkeeping are the functions that should be handled within your organization.
But, an important question is if you have the required skills to handle this huge task or are there any people in your company who possess them? If the answer is yes, great! However, if the answer is no, it’s time for you to consider outsourcing accounting. Your employees may be handling this task until now, but think of how much of their time and energy might be consumed by this task they don’t specialize in.
Additionally, they may be feeling burdened by it, which might result in high turnover in your organization. So, you should consider outsourcing accounting. Professional accountants can not only manage your accounts better, but they can also do it more efficiently. Efficiency benefits the outsourcing of accounting and many more.
The benefits of outsourcing accounting:
- Saves costs:
One of the most significant benefits of outsourcing accounting is that it saves costs. When you hire an accounting outsourcing company, you only have to pay for accounting services. You don’t have to make the expenses for the equipment and software required for accounting functions. You don’t even have to provide different benefits which you would have otherwise provided to a full-time or a part-time employee. This way, you get to save a lot of money.
- Accounting outsourcing agencies use automation technologies:
Automation software makes accounting a more straightforward task for accountants. The software performs many vital functions, which saves them time and energy. Moreover, it also reduces the risk of discrepancies and other mistakes. Most accounting outsourcing companies use this software. By outsourcing accounting, you can be assured that things will get done on time and with negligible errors.
- Scalable options:
Scalable options imply that you can upscale or downscale your requirements from the outsourcing company with the changing times. It will help you save money when you need lesser services. Moreover, with the help of advice from accounting experts, you can expand and grow your business, cut down on expenses and achieve other goals that you have planned. Accounting companies can provide you with valuable insights and help you achieve the desired results.
- Reduction in Fraud:
Studies have shown that most financial frauds occur in companies that don’t have proper chief financial officers. You cannot detect abnormal transactional and billing data activities when you don’t have a chief financial officer. If you don’t have a Chief financial officer, it is better to outsource accounting as with this; you’ll get a chief financial officer for your company at lower costs.
- Professional accounts have immense knowledge about their work:
Professional accountants have immense knowledge about their work. They know tax codes, laws, and everything related to their profession. You can benefit a great deal from their knowledge and expertise. If you don’t have an accountant in your company or don’t want to hire one as it might be costly, you should try outsourcing accounting.
2. Payroll Processing:
Payroll processing isn’t a difficult task when you have a small team. But, things are different when you have a big one. Keeping track of workers’ applicable tax returns, joining, exits, and all other things can consume a lot of time and energy.
Moreover, payroll processing becomes a tedious task with a large team. To make things simpler, you can opt for payroll outsourcing. It means hiring an external service provider to handle the administrative and compliance issues associated with paying employees. The following benefits of payroll outsourcing will help you decide whether it will be suitable for your organization or not:
The benefits of payroll processing outsourcing:
- Frees time for you to focus on core operations:
Payroll processing is a time-consuming task. When you outsource it, you get plenty of time to focus on core operations. It is one of the most significant advantages of payroll outsourcing as a businessman; nothing is more precious than your time.
With the amount of time that becomes available to you after outsourcing payroll processing, you can do wonders to increase the efficiency of systems in your company, improve the workflow and improvise the overall performance of your company. Isn’t that amazing?
- Improves productivity and time management:
Payroll processing requires a lot of care. You have to pay attention to every little detail. As a result, you have to employ many resources and workforce when payroll processing happens in-house. This results in lost productivity and time. You can quickly replenish the lost productivity of your organization by outsourcing payroll processing.
- Advantage of the latest technology:
Payroll processing firms use the latest technology to offer the best services to their clients. These technological tools make the process of payroll processing more efficient and reduce errors. This leads to seamless management of payroll processing.
- Greater data security:
Data security is an essential requirement when it comes to payroll processing. When payroll processing happens in-house, there is a risk of identity theft, lack of appropriate server safety, and so on. But, when you outsource payroll processing, you can feel assured that there will be no such risks. This is because payroll processing companies use the best safety measures to attract and retain clients. If they don’t, they’ll lose business.
3. Tax filing and preparation:
Tax filing and preparation is burdensome task for many. If the same is true for you, why not try outsourcing tax filing and preparation. You can contact tax consultants to do this task for you. By doing so, you can not only benefit in terms of time-saving but cost-saving as well. Tax consultants can save you from paying excessive taxes. They can also provide you with different ways to reduce taxes.
So, all in all, outsourcing tax filing and preparation can be highly beneficial for you. Now, let’s discuss some of the benefits associated with outsourcing tax filing and preparation:
The benefits of outsourcing tax filing and preparation:
- Risk mitigation:
When it comes to tax filing, making mistakes can be disastrous. It can make you lose vast amounts of money. Moreover, many small businesses have suffered from employee fraud when it comes to paying taxes. By hiring tax consultants, you can save yourself from all such risks and frauds. They can check and minimize internal frauds with their effective practices.
- Time savings:
You can free up a lot of time to devote to other important business tasks by hiring tax consultants. This can result in increased business productivity, performance, and profitability.
- Tax consultants are experts in their field:
Tax consultants are experts in their field. When you hire them, you can be assured that there will be no mistakes in tax figures which can otherwise have disastrous repercussions. Moreover, tax consultants can also show you different ways to minimize taxes.
- Services tailored to your specific needs:
Tax consultants offer services tailored to your specific needs. This means that you can scale up or scale down the services depending upon your needs, situations and circumstances.
4. IT management:
Many recruiters find it challenging to hire developers and IT specialists. Do you also face the same challenges in your company? If the answer is yes, you’ll be glad to know that there is no need for you to hire developers in your company.
Instead, you can rely on an IT outsourcing firm to handle information technology-related tasks for you. Software development, infrastructure support, and day-to-day management of IT systems and hardware are some examples.
The outsourcing company will handle all such things, and you and your workforce can focus on all other core functions. Won’t that be a significant relief?
Further, when hiring an IT outsourcing company, you’ll also have the choice to select a cooperation model of your choice. Staff augmentation and outsourcing a dedicated team are the most popular among all models. Now, let’s proceed to discuss the different benefits associated with IT outsourcing:
The benefits of IT outsourcing:
- Reduced expenses:
The goal of every business is to increase profits, and no business owner in the world doesn’t want to reduce expenses. Isn’t it true? IT outsourcing can help you save a lot of money. First of all, you don’t have to provide the different benefits that you would have otherwise provided to your full-time or part-time employees. Secondly, you can outsource from a country with lower production costs and save money.
- Flexibility and scale:
IT outsourcing offers flexibility and scalability. You can upscale or downscale your workforce whenever needed.
- Freedom from tedious hiring process:
If you are like many other business owners who are tired of the tedious IT hiring process, this is one of the biggest benefits of IT outsourcing that you’ll enjoy. You won’t have to worry about hiring the wrong professionals. Instead, you can choose a good IT outsourcing company with a good reputation and relax.
- Access to global talent pool:
IT outsourcing provides you access to the global talent pool. You can hire any IT outsourcing company from across the globe. This will help you hire the best talent pool for your organization.
- Access to advanced infrastructure and processes:
IT outsourcing companies use advanced infrastructure and processes. The advanced infrastructure and processes will govern your company’s IT functions by hiring an IT outsourcing partner. It will help make things better without you investing in anything.
5. Event management:
Events and ceremonies are integral parts of an organization. From time to time, you have to organize events for different purposes. If you choose to shoulder event management responsibilities in-house, you’ll have to involve your workers. This can result in loss of organizational productivity, performance, and quality of work.
Moreover, event management is a task that requires constant care and attention with everything from the sound system to catering. A small mistake in even a single thing can spoil the entire event.
So, it is usually better to outsource event management. Event management firms have strong contacts with sound technicians, caterers, and other people offering different required services during an event. As a result, there are negligible chances of anything going wrong.
The benefits of outsourcing event management:
- Smooth execution:
Smooth execution is one of the most significant advantages of outsourcing event management. Companies engaged in event management and planning can make the required arrangement within the flicker of an eye. The credit goes to their long list of contacts with providers of different event organizations and management services.
- Risk management:
Event organization and management have a lot of risks associated with it. For example, if something goes wrong with the lighting, sound, or food arrangements, the whole event may get spoiled. So, it is better to hire an outsourcing company with proper experience in event management. This helps with risk management and reduces errors considerably.
- Saves Time:
If you set out to manage an event independently, you’ll have to spend a lot of time on it. After all, you have to ensure that everything goes perfectly without any issues. As a result, you’ll not have much time left to focus on other aspects of your business. This can have negative impacts on your organization’s performance.
So, if you want to save time and focus more on your company’s performance, you should hire an event management company. This way, you’ll only have to spend time selecting a suitable event management company, and the rest will be taken care of by them.
- Improves productivity:
When your workforce gets engaged in the event planning and management process, their focus on their specialized work gets impacted. This results in a loss of productivity. But, if you hire an event management company, your employees can focus on their work. This improves their productivity to a great extent.
6. Shipping and Logistics:
Shipping and logistics is another business function that you can outsource to support workforce productivity. The transportation of goods from one point to another is not as simple as it seems. It is a complicated process. If you decide to do it all by yourself, things might become challenging for you. You may end up spending more time managing shipping and logistics, which can make your business suffer. Along with this, you’ll need to involve your workers in the process, which will also impair their functioning and productivity.
So, if shipping and logistics turn out to be challenging for you, it is better to outsource it. Many shipping and logistics companies can help you deliver goods to your customers on time and without any damages. Further, there are abundant benefits associated with outsourcing shipping and logistics:
The benefits of outsourcing shipping and logistics:
- Little expenses are handled by shipping and logistics firms:
Outsourcing shipping and logistics reduce the burden on your company’s account handlers. This is because they don’t have to worry about little expenses as the shipping and logistics firm takes care of them.
- Improved customer experience:
Shipping and outsourcing companies are experts in their domain. They know how to reduce shipping costs for your customers and make product delivery a happy experience for them. This way, shipping and logistics firms can help you improve customer experience.
- Reduces burden on your workforce, thereby increasing productivity:
By outsourcing shipping and logistics, you reduce the burden on your workforce. As a result, you free them to focus their attention solely on their core responsibilities, which leads to a significant increase in their productivity.
- Real-time tracking of shipments:
Hiring a shipping and logistics company can significantly benefit you if you are often worried about whether the products will get delivered to your customers without any issues. These companies use real-time tracking systems that can help you know the location of the shipments any time you want.
7. Research:
The key to success in business is extensive research. Whether you have to create a new product or know about the likes and dislikes of your customers, you’ll have to depend on research. But, as we all know, research is a complex task. You might have to collect the required data by conducting surveys or by searching the internet. Whichever way you choose, you may end up getting burdened by loads of data that might become hard for you to process and interpret.
Moreover, if you assign this tedious task to your employees, their other work will get negatively impacted due to the time-consuming nature of the task. Also, your workers may dislike studying data which might push them to the verge of disengagement. Keeping all these things under focus, it is usually better to outsource the task to a research firm. The research specialists available there can easily do the task for you.
The benefits of outsourcing research:
- Delivers valuable insights:
If you set out to research and collect data with your team, which is not specialized in the research domain, you might not collect valuable data. This implies that your valuable time and efforts will get wasted. On the other hand, those who specialize in research functions have different tried and tested methods, strategies, and resources to gather valuable data in the minimum amount of time.
So, if you hire a research firm, you can be sure that you’ll get the type of data you need. Moreover, the specialized team of researchers can also help you interpret the data in the best manner.
- Saves money:
Today, many business organizations outsource research because of this same benefit. It saves money. After all, you don’t have to recruit research professionals in your company. Moreover, research specialists know several low-cost platforms which they generally use for conducting research. With this, they can offer their services to you at affordable prices.
- Access to expert advice:
Research specialists can offer you valuable advice in times of need. In addition, their advice can sometimes act as a game-changer for your organization.
- Flexible staffing options:
Hiring full-time researchers can be expensive. If your research needs fluctuate and you don’t need research specialists to be available in your organization all the time, it is best to contact a research firm.
- Saves time and reduces stress:
By outsourcing research, you save your as well as your workforce’s valuable time. Along with this, you all get saved from the stress associated with research work and analyzing the findings. As stress has an inverse relationship with productivity, reduced stress means increased productivity for you and your workforce.
Outsourcing some business functions can play an essential role in increasing the productivity of your workforce. This happens because by outsourcing specific tasks that do not belong to the core working of your organization, you provide your employees with the opportunity to spend their time doing what they are specialized in.
They don’t have to perform any other tasks. This saves their time and also improves their efficiency. Further, if you plan to outsource some business functions will be of great help to you.
