Outsource Vs Inhouse
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Running a business is a complicated affair. There’s so many tasks to take care of, it can sometimes be easy to get lost in it all. Everyone needs a little helping hand along the way. Don’t let your pride get in the way just because it is your own business. Things start going wrong when it gets too much. So, you can either hire an assistant to help oversee the smooth running, or you can find companies to outsource certain areas to. Outsourcing, if you’re going to do it, is probably one of the easiest ways rather than hiring an assistant. There are so many pros and cons of it, but if you’re determined to keep things in house, let’s look at the pros and cons of that as well.
Hiring- This is one of the toughest parts of running a business. To go through writing a job advert, paying to advertise it, searching through applications and CV’s, interviewing, and hiring, is just a huge long process. Some people find it a lot easier to outsource and save the hassle of all these steps. Professional companies will do all the hard work for you, and get you the right person for the job. They’ll have consultations with you, so they know exactly what type of person you’re looking for, and what to put in the job description. You’ll still have full control with things such as setting the salary, and doing the actual candidate interview.
But, if you choose to do this is house, you have a lot more security over time frames. As is often the case with outsourcing this, agencies fail to meet the deadlines you require. Whether that be because they’re having a hard time finding a worthy candidate, or they’re taking their time to gain extra money from you. Another downside is the payout you have to give agencies is huge. Even though you will have paid them an initial fee, you’ll also have to pay anything from $1000-$5000 just to have that employee from them. You’re taking them off their books, so in turn they’re effectively losing some profit, hence the hefty payout.
Finances- This is a sensitive subject for most people. It’s hard to be able to trust someone with the entire finances of your business, but there are a lot of pros to it. When your company gets big enough, it starts getting messy. You have to deal with company taxes, employee taxes, payroll, and payouts to various other different sectors. Managing this all on your own, as well as everything involved in the daily running of your business is hard. So it might be best to do some research, consult a few different account managers and find someone who you can trust. It’ll take such a weight off your shoulders, and leave you free to deal with other tasks. It’ll be much easier for someone who’s just managing your accounts, to focus purely on the money side of things. They’ll be less errors made, they can give you reports on profits, incomings and outgoings, and many more.
Keeping it so that you’re managing your own finances doesn’t really have that many pros, other than security. You don’t have to worry about anyone dabbling with your finances. If you’re a small business, it should be fine to keep it all in house. If you’re larger, it really is worth outsourcing this one. Just get some advice from fellow business owners, and see how they went about it, and when is a good time to make the switch.
Manufacturing- No matter what your business, you’ll always be manufacturing something in a sense. If you’re a fashion business, it’ll be clothes, if you’re auto, it’s cars. But for this example, we’re going to look at manufacturing in the auto world. Most of it will be done in house, but there are certain things you’ll be outsourcing. Not all components will be made by you, you’ll have bought tools, machines, and even some parts for the cars. There’s a world of materials out there, you’d be wrong to try to keep this all in house. Take for example, a 3D printer. They’re so high tech and innovative, every manufacturing business should utilise one. But like with everything, things sometimes go wrong, and parts break. Rather the sourcing a whole new machine, you could just outsource the part that’s broke and speed up the process. So if it’s one of the brushless motors that’s gone, find a reputable company to deliver one, and a fitter who will do the job for you. It’s that quick and easy to outsource parts in the business world. Having someone in house on standby to fix anything that’s broken isn’t really worth it
The only downside to outsourcing parts or people to fix them is the time frame. Delivery times can sometimes be a nightmare to handle, and finding someone who’s available to make the repair when you need it can sometimes be just has hard. But, is this better than having to pay someone a salary? That’s up for you to decide, but in this case, we believe outsourcing is much easier.
Marketing- Marketing is such a huge part of any business. Getting your name out there properly, to the people who need to know about you is essential. There are so many ways of doing this as well, whether it be through Google ads, TV marketing, social media etc. You really someone who has a good knowledge of what will work for you. This one is level with regards to whether you should outsource or not. If you do, they’ll be able to give you expert advice on what campaigns to run, where to run them etc. It will however be much more expensive to outsource. You’ll have to pay for everything you usually would with regards to advertising your business somewhere, as well as having to pay the person doing it. They will however know exactly what to do for your business needs.
Choosing to keep it in house, as stated above, does save a lot of money. Marketing really isn’t that hard if you have the time to do some research. You just need to understand your market, and have a clear idea of how you want to brand yourself. Some people go for the jokey approach to marketing, some people go for the informative side. If you’re a kids toys company, you’ll obviously be better off going for the bright colours, cheerful music, and a joke or two. If you’re a will company, you’re obviously going to go down a more serious route. Decide what’s best for you and roll with it. If you’re choosing to do it yourself, try hiring a marketing consultant who will advise you on the best strategies. It’ll be a one off payment, rather than paying someone to run your whole campaign.
There are a few other areas of business that you’ll need to consider outsourcing, such as HR, or even whether you’re in a managed office, or a shared one. As you can see from the above, there are so many advantages and disadvantages to each side. Most of them boil down to money or time frame. But these are two of the most important parts of business. If you lose time, you lose money. If you lose money, you lose time. Take some time to figure out what’s going to best work for your business. With business though, we feel outsourcing always wins.
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