Have You Outsourced Today?

Outsourcing has become a hot topic in business circles over the last few years. While not a new concept, the advent of online collaboration has changed it dramatically. It is a great option for helping you grow and/or run your business. After all outsourcing is the ultimate form delegation. It can also be an overwhelming task; where do you start? Who do you hire? What if it all goes wrong? Over the next few posts, I am going to explore outsourcing, and hopefully answer some of these questions. Let's start at looking at the What... What Can you Outsource?

The short answer? Just about anything! The longer answer takes some reflection and some planning. A great way to start is to take inventory of daily tasks completed by you and/or your employees.  (if you need help getting started with your inventory, check out this earlier blog post.) As you do your inventory, you will find that most items probably fall into one, of two categories.

1. The work of your business - the tasks that create revenue
   

2. The work for your business - those important, but non-revenue creating tasks.
   

The key, is to determine which of your tasks are non-revenue creating and put these on the top of your out-sourcing hit list. Once you are done, it is time to start looking deeper to see what should stay and what can go. Here are some things to think about

• What, if any, is the customer/client impact of no longer handling these items in house?

• When you outsource, you may loose some control on how certain items are handled; is that OK?

• Is this a task the requires a certain skill set or aptitude; in particular skills that you or your team do not have? If it is a skill set that your team does have, does it make more sense to keep it in house for now?

• What is the return on investment for outsourcing - understanding that this is a non-revenue creating task is one thing; but how much does it drain the revenue pool? Does that drain outweigh the cost of the outsourcing.?
  

Once you have a feeling on the impact, consequences, and return on investment, you can narrow down your list and begin the process have hiring your outsourcing team!