Some companies decide to outsource some services to save money and avoid the challenges of recruiting and maintaining full-time employees. Outsourcing services can range from accounting and human resources to marketing and anything in between, depending on the core business operations.
Outsourcing involves hiring external contractors to do a specific task only when necessary instead of assigning the job to in-house employees. This approach helps companies access competent professionals for temporary projects and avoid the hassles of advertising for vacant positions, interviewing, and training employees.
Business owners should learn about the tasks they can outsource to increase operational efficiency and cut costs. This article highlights 20 traditional roles business owners can outsource.
Fractional Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Running a company requires coordinated efforts to meet the needs of the clients and make money. With all the responsibilities of managing a business, CEOs and managing directors may not be able to follow up on every department to ensure operational efficiency. COOs help coordinate teams and monitor systems and processes to improve performance.
However, since small and medium enterprises may not have the budget to hire a full-time executive, an outsourced COO can provide a financially viable solution. A fractional COO streamlines business operations on a contract or part-time engagement to ensure a business has operational leadership even when the top management is away.
Outsourcing Legal Counsel
Sometimes conflicts, disagreements, accidents, or breaches of contract occur, leading to legal issues. This means a business might sue or be sued and need legal representation. Established companies usually hire full-time legal counsel to provide the legal services required. However, small businesses can save money by engaging lawyers only when necessary. The organization will only pay the hourly rate or a fixed rate when they need advice or representation.
Customer Support Agents
Some companies sell products or cloud solutions to clients in different locations. These customers need support when they encounter technical issues or have complex questions. A customer representative responds to such questions and addresses concerns through phone calls, text messages, emails, social media messages, and other online platforms.
Small and medium entities can outsource customer support to experts and actively focus on their core business operations. Since the customer support team responds to technical questions daily, they usually solve customers’ issues and address their concerns quickly and effectively.
Some customer support agents work remotely, speak different languages, and are active in different time zones, ensuring clients have access to support all the time. So, outsourcing customer support ensures customer satisfaction and helps a business build a reputation for standing behind its products or services.
Outsourcing Security Guards
Many businesses cannot recruit and train security guards. Instead of hiring untrained guards, it is best to outsource security services to registered security firms. These firms provide seasoned guards for different industries.
Security guards can work in different settings or provide temporary services such as event security services. Business owners only need to discuss their security needs so that the firm can send trained guards for day-to-day business operations or temporary positions.
Outsourcing IT Specialists
Employees and business owners might encounter challenges when using tech equipment and devices. This requires them to have IT specialists who can fix technical issues to improve operational efficiency and reduce downtime.
IT specialists can also help customers resolve technical glitches when using websites or mobile apps. They can help install and troubleshoot computers, software, and networks to ensure they function as expected.
However, hiring a seasoned IT professional full-time is expensive. Therefore, small businesses should consider outsourcing these services to experts to cut costs and ensure the timely restoration of IT systems.
Event Managers
Corporate events require managers to source equipment, choose event venues, prepare the venue, and host guests. If a company has an upcoming event to celebrate achievements or engage clients, it can outsource event planning services. The professionals coordinate logistical factors while the in-house employees focus on their regular tasks.
Third-party event organizers have a network of service providers, such as caterers and entertainers, needed for any event. Business owners only look for event organizers when they need their services, which is more cost-effective than assigning these tasks to employees.
Human Resource Specialist
The staff members in an organization have many issues that routinely need their attention. If the top management concentrates on meeting the needs of the employees, they might divert their focus from the core business. Human resource specialists handle all tasks related to employees, including hiring, firing, employment benefits, and compliance with labor laws.
Startups and small organizations may not have the budget to employ full-time human resource employees. However, they can still enjoy human resource services by partnering with third-party agencies. Outsourcing HR services ensures employees are satisfied, reduces employee turnover, and prevents legal issues that could arise from violating employment laws.
Data Entry Clerk
Organizations deal with data from employees, clients, government, and partners. They need to organize and compile the data in spreadsheets to make it easier to understand and analyze. Data entry clerks can collect data from various documents and organize it to create accurate databases. Data entry service providers have trained clerks to handle different types of data. Therefore, business owners do not need to hire full-time data clerks.
Payroll Specialist
Issues with payment methods and processes could lead to employee dissatisfaction and unnecessary turnover. For this reason, business owners need payroll clerks to monitor staff logs, calculate payments, and send accurate paychecks to the employees. Although the HR department could handle these tasks, relatively large organizations need a payroll clerk to keep track of payments.
Outsourcing these services to a third party helps avoid time wastage and routine work of ensuring employees receive their payments on time. The organization’s management can focus on the primary responsibilities of meeting customers’ needs, while the payroll specialist focuses on employees’ needs.
Accountant or Bookkeeper
Bookkeeping involves recording financial transactions to track assets, liabilities, income, cash flow, and expenses. Bookkeepers also create financial statements such as balance sheets to help shareholders understand the financial health of the business. These financial records help organizations make sound financial decisions and comply with relevant laws.
However, since small businesses may not have the budget to hire in-house bookkeepers, they can outsource these roles from third-party firms. Accounting firms have competent bookkeepers who can maintain accurate financial records at a fraction of the cost of hiring regular accountants.
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Medical Transcription
Transcriptionists listen to video or audio recordings and create written medical records to assist with patient treatment. Healthcare providers can work with transcribers to keep records of conversations with patients for future reference. These records can provide other medical specialists with insights about previous medical interventions to help them make better treatment decisions.
However, healthcare providers do not need in-house medical transcriptionists. They can record audio or video and engage third-party professionals to transcribe at a reasonable fee.
Outsourcing a Personal Assistant
Business executives sometimes need personal assistants to coordinate activities, provide personalized assistance, and update diaries. The role of personal assistants varies from one company to another. Still, it involves taking meeting notes, scheduling meetings, replying to emails, filing documents, and answering some calls on behalf of business professionals.
Instead of hiring in-house personal assistants, organizations can engage virtual assistants to handle these tasks remotely. Since virtual assistants can work from anywhere, they charge reasonable prices compared to in-house employees who have to commute to the workplace daily.
Some virtual assistants focus on specific tasks such as updating social media, answering emails, booking appointments, or creating business presentations. Therefore, organizations should choose a virtual assistant who provides the services they need regularly.
Outsourcing Tax Preparation
Businesses have to file taxes every year and comply with relevant tax regulations. Hiring full-time in-house employees to file taxes is not economical. For this reason, small businesses should consider contracting freelance tax preparers during the tax season instead of hiring full-time employees.
During the tax season, the tax preparer will review books of accounts, collect receipts, organize files, and prepare accurate tax reports. Since these third-party professionals only focus on tax preparation, they have lower chances of making tax mistakes. They also submit returns on time and avoid making mistakes that could violate business tax regulations.
Computer Programmer
These professionals write codes to create software that can solve business challenges. They can develop software to manage inventory, keep payment records, process online payments, track employees’ earnings, and so on, depending on the type of business. Computer programmers can also test, troubleshoot, upgrade, and maintain software.
However, hiring a computer programmer or a software developer full-time can be expensive. That is why small business owners should consider outsourcing computer programming services to experts to avoid downtime without stretching their monthly budget. Small businesses can also outsource these services when they want to create or upgrade mobile apps, internal management systems, or online stores.
Outsourcing a Writer
Businesses need competent writers to create content for the clients who visit their websites, blogs, and social media platforms. Working with in-house writers can increase costs and publish uninteresting or repetitive content.
However, outsourcing content from freelance writers can bring a fresh perspective to every print or digital publication. This is because writers approach content differently and have diverse writing styles.
Freelance copywriters can craft marketing emails that suit the target clients without expensive recruitment or training costs. The business owner will only need to create a style guide and share information about the target audience.
Freelance copywriters can work remotely and deliver consistent content that resonates with the target audience. Business owners will only pay for the written content, which is cheaper than hiring full-time writers.
Marketing Specialist
These specialists design marketing strategies to beat the competition and promote a brand using various methods. However, hiring an in-house team of marketing staff is impractical for small businesses with tight budgets.
Third-party marketing agencies have many marketing specialists to help small businesses build a brand and boost sales. They only charge for the specific marketing services and strategies, saving organizations money that would be required to hire and train marketing employees.
Web Developer
Web designers and web developers create websites and online stores. They use their coding techniques to create a web structure that aligns with the business brand. The business owner can choose the color themes, logo, visual elements, and web layout to ensure the web developer creates a custom website for the target audience.
Many companies do not have in-house employees with web development skills since they only need these services occasionally. Outsourcing web design services allows business owners to create websites, launch online products, and sell services to a broader audience.
After launching the website and ensuring it works as expected, the business owner will only need the web developer for upgrades or troubleshooting. This means they will only pay for the services they need, which helps cut operational costs.
Lead Specialist
Businesses need sales professionals to evaluate sales opportunities and seal the deal. They review buyer profiles, cold-call potential customers, negotiate business deals, and push for more sales. However, assigning these tasks to regular employees reduces effectiveness since they have other duties and may not have the relevant skills.
Social Media Manager
Modern businesses need social media platforms to reach clients, engage them, answer their questions, and take their orders. However, hiring a few full-time social media managers to publish content and respond to comments and messages can be expensive.
Business owners can work with remote social media managers to keep their clients engaged. Freelance social media professionals have relevant experience since they work with different clients. Therefore, they can help small businesses build a brand and connect with potential clients from social media at a fraction of the time and money that they would otherwise need to hire social media managers.
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Proofreader
Many businesses use written documents such as business plans, contracts, product descriptions, press releases, and brochures. Grammar mistakes and punctuation errors on important documents could affect the brand image or lead to legal issues. So, business owners should outsource proofreading services to ensure the documents are well-written and contain accurate information.
Third-party proofreaders have many years of experience, so they understand grammar rules, common mistakes people make, and how to eliminate unnecessary words. The business owner only needs to create a style guide for proofreading to ensure the documents are consistent with the brand. Hiring full-time employees for proofreading is not advisable since these services are only required once in a while.
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Outsourcing to Third-Party Companies
These 20 traditional roles can now be outsourced to third-party companies. Outsourcing helps in-house workers focus on their core duties and responsibilities, which increases productivity. However, business owners should choose reliable third-party companies and discuss their terms and pricing to avoid conflicts.
Featured image from Ground Picture