In the words of Ryan Khan, Founder of The Hired Group, “Master your strengths, outsource your weaknesses.”.
Do you want to grow and scale your business? If so, then outsourcing might be the solution to do that. With the rise of the internet and technology has made it possible to quickly access the skills and resources that you need to grow and scale your business.
Outsourcing gives you instant access to the resources that you need. If you need a web developer, it might take weeks to hire one, but with outsourcing you can get one today! Another component that has given edge to outsourcing and why it has been growing so rapidly is the cost.
Now let us understand what outsourcing is all about, which companies should outsource, why companies should outsource and the results of outsourcing marketing.
What is Outsourcing all about?
The term outsourcing was coined from phrase outside resourcing. In layman terms, outsourcing means hiring people or obtain resources from outside to get the work done. It is an agreement between companies in which services or job functions are exchanged to basically help firms become more competent and innovative. It generally alleviates the shortage of skills or expertise in the domain for which outsourcing was done.
Some common outsourcing activities include HR management, research, facilities management, supply chain management, accounting, customer support and service, marketing, content writing, engineering, and legal documentation.
Outsourcing entirely depends on what are the business requirements, how much money are they ready to invest, and how time bound the requirement is!
Chairman of Wipro Limited, Azim Premji said that “The important thing about outsourcing or global sourcing is that it becomes a very powerful tool to leverage talent, improve productivity and reduce work cycles.”
Outsourcing is all about “Do what you do best and outsource the rest“.
Why do businesses outsource?
Companies outsource, generally, to cut costs, to save time, or to focus on more critical operations, to increase efficiency, to accommodate variable capacity, and to innovate. The other reason for outsourcing could be that businesses do not have the required expertise, or resources to stay put. For instance, when a small firm decides not to retain the in-house accountant and instead chooses a third party for book-keeping, that’s outsourcing.
In words of Michael Corbett, Chairman of the IAOP, “Challenges create opportunities. Outsourcing service providers are very aggressively examining their products and services to create greater value and increase market share in these times. Companies are recognizing they need to use this as an opportunity to strengthen relationships with their partners because each one of those partners will make them a better company.”
What is Outsourcing Marketing?
When an organization’s marketing functions are handed over to an outside firm that’s outsource marketing. A third-party marketing partner may handle operational front or strategic front or both, depending on the business requirement. Also, marketing can be outsourced on different degrees from outsourcing every function to handling everything in-house. For example, designing of websites is very often outsourced. The reason being that firms generally do not have expertise to build complex websites.
When should you consider outsourcing your marketing?
As marketing is a critical area to invest to grow a business—yet companies struggle to do so. There are several reasons apart from money and expertise that businesses look forward to outsourcing marketing. Outsourcing marketing helps businesses see a bigger picture with clarity because an outsider brings in fresh ideas and help in levelling up.
Even if one marketing function is outsourced to a third party, it can result in many benefits. Ranging from reduced overhead expenses to ramp up the marketing efforts, to gaining access to the latest tricks, tools, skills, and industry expertise.
Outsourcing provides expertise not only in —website development, Search Engine Marketing, online advertising, social media, Search Engine Optimization, and video production but various other disciplines.
Here are 5 ways organizations benefit by outsourcing marketing:
Reduce bandwidth issues
Be it a startup, a small-scale business or a large corporation, marketing roles have many layers, multiple responsibilities. Responsibilities not just related to marketing but others too. And when there are so many things on one platter, how do you expect to come up with new strategies or ideas? Outsourcing team works along with the businesses to create a strategy based on goals and executes the plan without interrupting the day-to-day life at work.
Keeping Resources Focused
With an agency, businesses can spend less time on marketing activities and more time on growing the business, allowing employees to work more productively. For instance, a product launch needs a unique strategy whereas a trade show will have separate set of requirements. When a third party comes into picture who holds the experience of marketing and executing plans successfully, businesses can easily shift their focus on other important things such as running the show instead of being worked up by pitching in ideas.
Outsourced marketing is less expensive
An in-house marketing team is expensive because you need to start from scratch. From hiring to training and recruitment, it is tedious to find the right fit as per the company’s requirement. With outsourcing, businesses get access to experienced specialists with high-quality skills without paying for the hiring or the training. Using the expertise and tools, the third-party teams can think out of the box when under a business custom situation, act proactively to maintain the productivity rate. Also, since the third-party resources are skilled, they produce better outcomes.
Increased competitiveness
An outsourced agency, who is up to date with tips and tricks and trends, provide not only with data to track the success of the efforts they had put in but also recommend ways to maximize on the positive results. They are accountable for the results as they look towards the big picture and provide suggestions for improvements that not only help the company function smoothly but also generate revenue. Outsourcing is an investment and not an expense, an investment that will reap benefits in the future.
Outsider perspective brings clarity
“You don’t know what you don’t know,” and that’s when outsourcing comes into picture. An outsider brings fresh perspectives outside the scope of in-house team. Bringing in external resources opens doors to new, creative ideas from a team of unbiased experts. A key benefit of partnering is that businesses can leverage different marketing capabilities of the outsourced team and ramp up to meet the businesses that are flourishing.
Outsourcing should be viewed as tool that will help in increasing the productivity of the company and thereby helping the company flourish under the skills of the third-party.
“If you deprive yourself of outsourcing and your competitors do not, you’re putting yourself out of business.” – Lee Kuan Yew, Former Prime Minister of Singapore.
Hopefully that gave you an insight about outsourcing and might have sparked a curiosity to know more about it by reaching to us.