Small business owners have long seen outsourcing as a strategy reserved for big businesses, but technology has made it more accessible for businesses of all sizes. Small businesses outsource in a way to reduce their workload, increase efficiency, find new skills and utilize technology needed for their business niche.
The goal for outsourcing; the services opted and the investment made might differ but business process outsourcing is relevant and important for every business, irrespective of size and domain.
Is Business Process Outsourcing relevant for your Small Business?
When consulting small businesses, 90% of entrepreneurs express the same set of challenges.
- Â Â Â Â Â Lack of needed knowledge and resources to handle the responsibilities of a growing business.
- Â Â Â Â Hiring competent and dedicated staff and offering competitive compensation is a challenge.
- Â Â Â Â Investing needed time and money to focus on non-core business functions.
- Â Â Â Â Lack of technology to keep up with the trend and compete in the market.
- Â Â Â Â Lack of bandwidth to support business activities during the rapid growth phase.
Addressing these challenges themselves can be overwhelming for any small business, escalating to poor product quality; poor work efficiency, risk of loss, and burnout for the business owner.
If you are a small business facing any of these challenges, or all of these, the smart decision to make is to outsource a part of your business functions to a reliable BPO service provider.
How Business Process Outsourcing is a solution to address Small Business Challenges?
In the next section of our blog, we have listed how small business owners can benefit from business process outsourcing.Â
Cost-efficiency
When it comes to cutting down expenses without compromising on product quality, outsourcing is a better choice. It is expensive for small businesses to set up a complete infrastructure, hire and train employees for business support services. With pre-installed infrastructure and an expert team, a BPO service provider can offer a reliable service at lower operational and labor cost compared to setting up an in-house team. This way you can focus this part of your investment on core business growth.
Time-efficiency
Often underestimated, time is a crucial asset for every small business.
Trusting and delegating administrative and non-productive tasks to a BPO outsourcing company saves time to focus on core activities, thereby increasing sales and revenue and improving your business bottom line.
Outsourcing the work to other countries with different time zones can also reduce the turnaround time effectively and provide faster results.
World-class technology and resources
It is difficult for small businesses to invest in trending technologies and resources that their bigger counterpart can afford. But, outsourcing can allow access to the cutting-edge technology, software and resources the Business Process Outsourcing Services can provide. And for businesses without geographical limitations, utilizing global knowledge or client base, and world-class capabilities can come within your budget when outsourcing.
Trending outsourcing technologies
Listed are a few trending outsourcing technologies.
Risk management
While predicting the exact demand for your product or solution is difficult, over-investment on areas such as customer communication and support in the initial stage can be a risk for any small business. In that case, outsourcing the customer eCommerce support service to a BPO outsourcing company can prevent the risk of loss, and also prevent uncertainty or inconsistency caused due to sudden employee turnover during a critical time.
Focus on core activities
Not only the customer support but every back-office operation needs focus during rapid growth. This can shift human and financial resources from the core business process to supporting services. Outsourcing important but mundane activities allow you to refocus in-house resources on the activities to increase profit without sacrificing quality.
As a small business owner, what should you consider before opting to outsource?
It is important to do a cost-benefit analysis before choosing to outsource- to sort out and compare the complete cost of setting up an in-house team to the best bid offered by the BPO Service Provider. But cost should not be the only factor to consider, focus on the value and expertise the contractor can provide. Check for the–
- Â Â Â Â The product or service pricing.
- Â Â Â Â The technology or resources quality.
- Â Â Â Â The ability of the vendor to meet the deadline.
- Â Â Â Â Vendor communication and reporting.
- Â Â Â Â The vendor location and infrastructure.
- Â Â Â Â Geopolitical risks while outsourcing to an offshore location, and
- Â Â Â The legal considerations.
Making the right choice
Partnering with a trusted business process outsourcing agency and outsourcing important but mundane business responsibilities allow small businesses to gain access to a world-class knowledge base and resources needed to sustain, beat and be on top of the competitive market while streamlining their investment and in-house resources to focus on core business solutions and scaling.
What are the business tasks that small business owners can outsource?
More than a third of small business owners are currently outsourcing a majority of the business tasks and activities to business process outsourcing service providers. By doing this, the business owner can focus on the activities that are important. Here is a list of the most common tasks that a majority of small business owners prefer to outsource:-
- Accounting
- Customer support
- Social media
- Administrative tasks
- Research
Besides these tasks, small business owners choose to outsource other business tasks and activities depending on the need. If you are looking for a reliable outsourcing service provider, you can consider partnering with Vserve.
