There sure comes a time in the life of every entrepreneur when his or her business booms, the phone will be literally ringing of the hook and the entrepreneur is running full speed ahead in order to keep up. When you eventually reach this point, you of course have the choice to crash and burn or simply continue building the momentum. Keep reading and you will learn how to build momentum and also take your business to the top using outsourcing.
Ensure That You Analyze Your Area of Specialty
What is it that you are pretty great at? Contrary to common belief, every entrepreneur is not a sales person. Yeah, yeah, you have been so far, the accountant, receptionist and salesperson, so it is time that you seriously consider delegating! Not thinking delegating at all or even attempting to be everything to all people will in fact hinder the growth of your business. Figure out your core function – that is, know what it is you do best.
Outsource Before You Finally Hire
Most times when one reads about outsourcing especially in the newspapers, you tend to believe that outsourcing is utilized by top companies and not meant for small businesses – wrong! Some information that one reads about outsourcing makes small business owners think that outsourcing is quite complicated when it comes to small business – double wrong!!
But outsourcing is really quite simple and very effective for small companies as well. A really good rule of thumb is to outsource those tasks which actually cost the most, but usually generates the least profit. You can outsource the 4 functionalities of business which are:
Sales
Administrative
Information Technology (IT)
Management
Because you are outsourcing does not automatically mean that you are nuts, you need to understand that your outsourcing vendors are still your employees which means that you can most certainly hold them accountable for quality and performance.
When you are choosing an outsourcing firm to handle your various business projects, you need to make sure that you choose a firm that is highly reputable. You can go on the internet and find out if the outsourcing firm you wish to use have any complaints whatsoever brought against them. There are a lot of outsourcing firms that would deliver nothing but top notch work and even also help you effectively organize certain aspects of your business that needs organizing.
Most businesses are searching for ways to effectively cut down costs, especially with the present global financial crisis. One of the most important methods of doing this is to first identify very costly business processes and departments that incur much cost. When you have done this, a lot of managers identify bodies outside the company who can effectively do the required tasks at a much lower costs. This is simply referred to as “outsourcing” and it is the direct opposite of doing tasks in-house. In picking business partners who can are good at handling a company’s outsourcing needs, the following guidelines should be followed:
Make sure that you identify requirements and motivation for a successful outsourcing partnership. This will often consist of cost-cutting and quality control measures.
Check out the options available on the market – you can do this by finding out what other companies have done in similar circumstances. This would of course give you a pretty good framework of what type of company you can expect to get the best results from.
Check out the industry players and figure out which outsourcing partners can really assist you in furthering your strategies and the type of value they could possibly add to your company or business.
Also try to run a quick background check on the prospective outsourcing partner(s). When you do this, you can easily find out the reputation of the outsourcing firm that you are considering.
You should also come up with your own standards for recognizing a good outsourcing partner based on your own outsourcing requirements. Choose the best method of getting a prospective outsourcing partner interested in your business. The general methods are bidding and tendering.
You can send signals to your potential outsourcing partners by using your preferred method of building interest in your outsourcing vacancy.
You should get the potential outsourcing partners to let you know the services they are capable of providing that you cannot provide in-house or even hire another outsourcing firm to provide.
You can match the professional background of each outsourcing partner against the standards that you have set. Select the most effective and efficient outsourcing partner and of course work with them.
When you choose an outsourcing partner, you will have more time to concentrate on your core business instead of having to deal with tasks that you are not particularly fond of.
Many business owners are able to build their businesses successfully, thanks to a practice known as outsourcing. One of the most popular tasks that business owners are known for outsourcing is appointment setting. If your business entails outside sales, ensuring that you have an outsourced telemarketing is very ideal. Just think about it, if try to employ telemarketers in-house, you will need to do the following:
Set up adequate office space
Furnish your office space
Install unique telephone lines
Get computers, etc.
You will even have to manage the employees yourself or hire some who will ensure that your employees do the following:
Show up on time
Work the agreed shift
Making calls properly
Reading the scripts well
Performing the way that is expected of them
If you are a small business owner, you can use the services of virtual assistants to assist you in contacting all your existing customers or clients and crosssell each one of them on additional services and or products–this is indeed an efficient and profitable tactic. In addition to this, your virtual assistants can also:
Serve as an answering service when you are not in the office
Perform bookkeeping and accounting services
Efficiently handle your payments/billing and collections etc.
A couple of mortgage firms use outsourced employees to call homeowners and market mortgages to them over the telephone.
Realtors are known to use virtual assistants (VAs) to assist them in running their offices. Their representatives (reps) assist them in uploading listings, preparing documents, doing Internet marketing, answering the phones, sending out clients’ newsletters, and so on. A lot of other businesses have outsourced reps who handle a couple of their marketing tasks including Internet marketing.
Do you know that there are more than 50,000 free classified advertisement websites online other than Craigslist? A couple of business owners have their outsourced marketing employees posting their ads on these websites every month. These employees will also do the following:
Design and print these Internet ads
Perform e-blasts
Launch their employer’s direct mail campaigns
Complete information request orders
Perform “live chat” for the site
Perform SEO (search engine optimization)
Write and post articles on the Internet
Blog
Update the website each month etc.
Some accounting firms even outsource client’s book keeping (without their client’s awareness of this of course). Other business owners have outsourced representatives who do their actual sales completely on the Internet and over the telephone.
One needs to understand that outsourcing success really depends upon how well one manages the process before and of course after the outsourcing contract is signed. A lot of companies are known to award outsourcing contracts to the lowest bidder without taking some time to understand what it really means to the business and they also outsource without performing a complete vendor selection process. So when things start to go south, such as missed delivery dates, quality problems arise or awful customer service, the blame-game card is played and everyone start to run for cover.
Well, the following tips for successful outsourcing will sure help you make sure that your organization succeeds in outsourcing and that you will achieve desired results.
1. Make Sure That You Outsource for all The Right Reasons
When you take a bad business process and outsourcing, what you actually do is to make the problem a whole lot worse. Look, you have to understand that an outsourcing company should add great value to your business, but they should not in no way be relied upon to fix the issues that are inherent in your business. For instance, if your Information Technology (IT) department is regularly missing deadlines because the users keep changing their minds, when you outsource this function, this will surely result in much higher costs and higher of course higher levels of frustration.
2. Careful Vendor Selection Process
According to a recent outsourcing report, 35% of executives who responded said that they wished that they have taken more time on vendor selection and vendor evaluation before they signed an outsourcing contract. Let’s face it, most times outsourcing decisions can be a wee bit distorted by emotions and influenced also by company politics as well. A successful and thorough vendor selection process will help remove the emotions and also control the company politics as well.
3. Make it Measurable
Also, according to the same outsourcing report, 49% of the executives who responded said that they really should have defined the realistic service levels that go hand in hand with business objectives. If one does not take time to analyze and also define quality measures and or service levels, just think about, how on earth will he or she know if the outsourcing vendor that he or she has chosen is really performing up to his or her company’s standards, huh?!
A lot of American citizens have been screaming blue murder whenever they here the term “outsourcing”. Outsourcing is of course not a new occurrence – although a lot of citizens have been made to believe that outsourcing is the “new” thing that is taking away their jobs. A lot of service companies began creating jobs overseas in order to gain access to foreign markets. These companies audit, repair and consult where their customers or clients are located. To put it in a way that you’d understand, oversees clients or customers do not have to come all the way here. In addition, a lot of foreign markets are really growing rapidly as lots of domestics companies become saturated. About 60 percent of the revenue of American IT companies is estimated to be created overseas. In a variety of industries which range from consumer products to banking to work placement to even aerospace – this leads companies to report that their overseas revenue totally exceeds their domestic sales.
Basically, a lot of companies are taking time to focus more on their core competence. They simply subcontract a lot of their activities to domestic suppliers. When viewed from that perspective, offshore sourcing is really a minor part of the trend to decentralize business processes. Moreover, these companies have also learned that in a lot of cases, the higher productivity of United States workers offset the wage differential and all the other costs of operating out of the country.
The cost reductions gotten from outsourcing helps to open up new market opportunities for companies in the United States companies, and this also help to generate additional work here in America. In a general way, the company end up with a lot more resources in order to improve its performance. You need to understand that outsourcing and the savings that it generates are really the beginning and most definitely not the end of the adjustment process. The company that outsources can now afford to buy new equipment and then expand training programs. Thus, its higher domestic labor costs can be easily offset by much higher worker productivity.
Over a period of time, there is a real positive feedback concerning the effect of outsourcing. As developing nations develop their own economies, new markets will also be created for the United States made goods and or services (wink) – this is simply a win-win situation.
Every business owner knows that in the “world of business” in order to be competitive, you need to be able to offer unique products and or services, end of story. You do not have to own a “call center” in order to employ the services of outsourced employees.
Yup, outsourcing is indeed the one of the main keys to ensuring that your business remains profitable. Information technology is as a matter of fact, a really pertinent part of a company’s process that WILL need competent technical support that maybe beyond the ability of the present company management. If your company is experiencing this problem, then the solution is pretty simple; outsource your Info-tech department to a competent outsourcing firm that will manage your business’ IT processes.
There are many reasons why outsourcing is a better option for effectively managing your business’ IT department instead of maintaining an in-house Information Technology department.
Here are good reasons to outsource your Information technology department:
Improved Expenses Management Control
IT costs become visible because all billable hours will of course be well accounted for. Outsourced firms are usually very professional and will be more than ready and willing to provide you with a well detailed account for all billable hours – this means you will not be unwittingly paying an employee who reports to work and spends the whole day slacking off and steadily collects his or her pay check every week – aghhh!
Outsourced services are only employed when the need arises – this means you only get to pay for the services that you have actually used.
An outsourced IT department will help your company reduce expenses by using its wide knowledge base of various IT specialists.
Increases the Quality of Service
Outsourced companies usually make available to clients performance information and assessments.
Ensures that successful communications between business duties improves at all levels and also ensures that IT resources are not being misused.
Outsourced companies provide round-the-clock support at affordable costs
Outsourced employees usually drive budgeting and planning improvements.
Please Note:
IT consultants are usually well trained on the latest and advanced technologies. Retaining an in-house “technically” qualified employee is quite difficult because job opportunities are regularly changing. Companies can also enjoy IT support coverage without relying on just a key IT person. If your company relies solely one key IT person, your company may be in serious trouble if your key IT personnel decides to quit.
People are using local searches now more than ever. When you think of searching the Internet you think of utilizing big sites such as eBay and Amazon. People do use these big ecommerce sites to purchase from time to time, especially for music downloads and physical mail order items. But a recent survey of a typical consumer’s search habits reveals that they search online for local information 3 to 1 over worldwide searching. They look to the Internet to find hours of operation, directions, specials, coupons and menus and other information.
Is your business in a place to be easily found online? How much business are you missing out on because your Internet presence is weak? This is not the time to be lacking in this new form of advertising, specially when you weigh the cost effectiveness against print ads and TV commercials. I know how busy you are running your business and how confusing maintaining a website can be. That is why outsourcing is the perfect solution to today’s busy business owners.
For under $6.00 an hour you can have your own dedicated Internet trained virtual assistant to help you with all the tasks that will not only save your business a ton in labor costs, but also help grow your business. You overseas rep can create and maintain your social networking, manage your call center activity and help with billing and inventory control and much more. Imagine the freedom you’ll have when a professional rep takes control of these tasks so you can concentrate on the important business decisions!
No matter what knd of business you have or large or small it is, you can benefit by outsourcing. Your presence on the Internet is more important than ever now that the way people find local businesses are changing. The Internet Yellow pages are faster, cheaper and more info comprehensive than the big, bulky Yellow pages of the past. Offer your customers the experience of knowing about your business and keeping it fresh in their minds all the time. Find out how outsourcing can take your company to the next level of marketing.
Malaysia is a country that has a really attractive business environment, and well developed infrastructure and the strong support of the government which in turn makes Malaysia a country that is sure becoming a rising alternative to China and India. The government in Malaysia has positioned the country as a hub for technological innovation and services that have made a lot of top multinationals locate a couple of their global or regional operations in this country. Malaysia is a country that has a rather more stable political climate which is also supported by consistent economic growth which also makes this particular offshore outsourcing nation attractive for very sensitive, high-end applications in the banking and finance industry.
Although, Malaysia is a country that is still very much exploring its niche, Malaysia has established authority as an outsourcing destination. This country’s outsourcing industry has been put together on attracting investments in third party and captive outsourcing operations from a number of leading global companies that span across different verticals – Oil and Gas, Banks, Logistics.
Now, outsourcing in Malaysia has totally evolved to provide different services niche and even integrated in Information technology (IT), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and knowledge processing in a variety of industry verticals. The country’s government initiatives are truly a leading factor in the driving force behind Malaysia’s outsourcing industry. The support of the Malaysian government has really helped form institutions that carefully manage various roles which range from setting up a business to kick-starting a company. In addition, the establishment of top notch infrastructure and economic benefits has also contributed to attracting more companies to Malaysia.
The turn of the century has really seen the increase in the number of offshore outsourcing destinations, with a lot of nations around the globe trying to cut a larger part or share of the outsourcing market. It is no secret that India, the Philippines and China are the top leading outsourcing destinations. A couple of destinations such as Kenya, Vietnam, Nigeria, Ghana, etc., have all seen growth from their local outsourcing market.
In the past couple of years, China is a country that is quickly becoming one of the world’s top suppliers of offshore software outsourcing providers which is due to its totally incredible developmental rate. Though India is right now the world’s top leader in software outsourcing provider; well, China is really aiming to outpace India so that they will become the next leading competitor in software outsourcing. It has been predicted that China someday will become one of the top 3 nations for offshore software outsourcing between the year 2007 and 2010.
A lot of companies are even starting to plan their offshore outsourcing strategies in order to take advantage of this country’s emerging strength as an outsourcing destination. This also includes searching for ways so as to take advantage of China’s present software strengths. There are some estimates that state that China’s outsourcing could even rival India as the top offshore Information Technology (IT) services market.
Actually the recent flood of activities that helped put this country on the world’s outsourcing map came about partially due to the government’s support and promotion and partially because Japan decided to move a lot of its software development work to china and also partially because a couple of very large foreign companies started up R&D centers in this country.
3. India
There is absolutely no doubt that India is among the key players in the offshore outsourcing business. India is a country that boasts of a work force with the following attributes:
Well educated
Low cost
Highly talented
English speaking
India also boats of excellent Information Technology (IT) and networking infrastructures, friendly laws, a fairly stable political environment, well paid taxes and top notch certified software companies. The offshore outsourcing industry in India is a rapidly growing one and has produced a lot of success stories that really makes India a really popular offshore outsourcing destination for Information Technology related and other Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services as well.
Offshore assignments have really moved on up the value chain; it has moved from data entry to very large and rather complex turnkey projects of up to 200 to 300 people within just a couple of years! These days, you will discover that almost any kind of service can be outsourced to this country; it could be healthcare, engineering or even KPO.
Offshore outsourcing is simply the practice of employing an external company to perform a couple of business tasks in a country other than the country where the goods or service will be consumed or sold. Outsourcing has really increased at a fast pace due to the improvement in modern satellite and internet technology, a much better connectivity and a steady search for very affordable labor in order to cut costs and achieve competitive advantage.
When a company outsources its back office business functions to less expensive nations such as India, China, Malaysia, Philippines, the company can really cut down on their labor costs and concentrate on their core competencies and make sure that they provide a much better customer satisfaction. Well, according to a recent report, United States firms have saved nearly 8 billion United States dollars through outsourcing to developing countries such as the Philippines. There are a lot of developing countries that act as offshore outsourcing destinations to nations that are already developed.
Some of the top four (4) nations that can be considered as the best offshore outsourcing destinations are:
Philippines
One of the great things about the Philippines is its people. Yup! Philippines sure has a well educated English speaking labor force and really stands out as on of the world’s largest English speaking country. The commitment, attitude, education and community constitute the major competitive advantage particularly in the front office operations such as customer service and of course sales.
The Philippines is a country that boasts of a huge pool of really productive, multi-skilled and trainable work force. Most Filipino outsourcing companies only employ workers that are highly qualified for different outsourcing tasks. The Government support and Information Technology is a given. There are a lot of major companies that already carry out operations in the Philippines.
If you are searching for an offshore outsourcing firm that that will provide you with employees for work functions such as telemarketing which will be targeted at United States clients, you will of course require employees who speak not just basic English language but an impeccable one. Reputable outsourcing firms are known to hire only workers who will meet all your requirements for your telemarketing department. It is very important that people should be able to hear a telemarketer clearly so that they can fully understand a lot more about the type of product and or services offered by your company.
Daven Michaels Author of the book Outsource This!
![cost reductions](<a href="http://b.imagehost.org/view/0822/Daven" target="_blank"><img src="http://b.imagehost.org/0822/Daven.jpg" border="0" alt="ImageHost.org" width="106" height="160" /></a> Daven Michaels Author of the book <a href="http://123employee.com/outsourcethis/">Outsource This</a>!){kind=link}