In the post-COVID-19 environment, the changing trends of outsourcing are rapidly picking up speed. The reason for that is pretty simple—safety with efficiency! Traditional outsourcing approaches have been exposed in the pandemic and there are flaws in the existing models that need to be addressed. In this blog, we are going to talk to you about outsourcing: what exactly outsourcing is, why it is important, how it works, and its future post-COVID-19.
Whenever a company or employer needs a particular task done or they are looking for a particular skill set, and yet, either due to financial or any other reason, they are not able to hire a full-time or even a part-time staff person in-house, they seek outsourcing options. When you outsource, you don't have to pay the overhead, meaning you don't have to worry about recruitments, background verification, insurance, office space, utilities, and all those kinds of things. You can simply assign projects/tasks to someone outside of your business or organization and do what you know best.
Future outsourcing strategies are expected to provide even better benefits to businesses and employers.
Why Outsourcing is Important
- It Reduces Your Burden
More often than not, what happens with small business owners is, to gain maximum control, they try and do everything they feel they can. This can be a good thing if you are just starting your journey, however, as your business grows, someday, you would get to a point where you will not be able to handle all of the tasks that are necessary to keep your business going and moving forward. You will be burdened with a lot of work and managing multiple tasks will become nearly impossible. This is where outsourcing your relatively less-important tasks (tasks that either are taking you away from your income-producing activities or things that are simply not your strength or skill set) to a third party can help.
- It Gives You Access to a Pool of Talent
You might be able to perform one or two tasks yourself or with the help of a group of people that are working in your company in-house. However, as a business, you also need specialization in different aspects so you can achieve excellence. Examples include bookkeeping, accounting, content writing, etc. Outsourcing gives you access to a pool of talent that is much more skilled and experienced than your in-house team and hence, can help you gain more efficiency in your business. Learning how to leverage other people's time is really what outsourcing is all about.
- It allows you to Focus on Your Core Business Activities
Because outsourcing allows you to assign your less-important tasks to a third-party carrying specialization in that area, you are able to keep your complete focus on your core business activities—things that are most productive in moving your business forward. If you have a large organization, it is a way to get the task done and yet, save the overhead expenses of office space, furniture, phone lines, internet connections, employee benefits, and all those types of things.
- It allows you to Save a Significant Amount of Money
Undoubtedly, one of the biggest advantages of outsourcing is cost-savings. It might seem like you are paying a third-party upfront for a project, which is adding to your cost, however, you need to understand that, in the long-run, you are able to save a significant amount of money, sometimes, even hundreds and thousands of dollars.
How Outsourcing Works
So, how does outsourcing work? It begins with a business or an employer putting out into the marketplace the types of things that they need help with. There are clearinghouses and websites from where they can outsource projects. These are the platforms where those who are offering to provide services meet those who need services done for them. A business or employer can post up the details of a position that they are needing to fill, describe the task/s a little bit, and provide information on how many number of hours might be involved in that. Freelancers or outsourcers will then begin to bid on that project and send proposals, claiming to do it for X number of dollars per hour. The hiring party can go through different proposals and choose the company that seems to be the best fit based on their needs.
How to Pay for a Project
One question that tends to come together with outsourcing is how money is handled for a project. Well, there's are couple of ways that it can be done. Some platforms will handle the payment process for you for a fee. Others encourage you to work out a payment arrangement between you and the person/company providing services to you. What generally happens is if you have hired a freelancer or outsourcer in the United States, a 1099 requirement (income other than wages, salaries, and tips) gets produced at the end of the year—as long as their earnings are over six hundred dollars within the year. There are some additional requirements if your outsourcer is working overseas, for example, if you are outsourcing to a company in India—unless you're using the outsourcing platform as your payment processing component as well.
A More Futuristic Approach to Outsourcing is the Need of the hour
As mentioned earlier in the blog, the COVID-19 outbreak has raised serious concerns over existing working models. There is a need to build more resilient frameworks to protect businesses against unexpected occurrences, such as COVID. Outsourcing companies need to take appropriate measures to mitigate risks and come up with better plans that don’t hamper efficiency or result in minimal damage.
Having a team of outsourcers that you can draw from on a regular basis is a great idea. Simply pull in which individuals you need to utilize to complete your project and get things done easily. Outsource to India and get benefitted from the top-notch services of highly-experienced and skilled individuals—and take your business to new heights.