According to a report by market research firm Clutch, 80 percent of small businesses are interested in outsourcing in 2021. A total of 500 small businesses in the U.S. were surveyed for the study, with the results showing that the business owners are planning to outsource in order to realize a host of benefits.
Save Time
The survey shows that 27 percent of the small businesses surveyed outsourced to improve their efficiency and save time. Review Home Warranties, a company that helps its clients find the best home warranty for their specific living situations, uses outsourcing to do just that.
To reach as many potential customers as possible, the company has to provide new reviews to existing clients. But if they relied solely on their in-house staff to write, fact check, and publish new reviews, the publication rate would move at a snail’s pace. So they used outsourced workers to speed up the process. “This would significantly delay our ability to reach new readers and potential customers,” Review Home Warranties founder James Surrey said.
Business Growth
For small businesses with limited resources, outsourcing just makes good sense if they are looking to scale up. A significant percentage of small businesses surveyed have indicated that they outsource primarily to grow their business:
“During our growth years we didn’t hesitate to hire short-term consultants and experts to help complete certain work,” said Akram Assaf, co-founder of Bayt, a job-search platform for workers in the Middle East with more than 200 full-time employees. “Outsourcing is very powerful for scaling and growth, and more companies should do it.”
Support Various Business Processes
Part of outsourcing’s popularity is due to the range of business tasks it can help support, including IT services (27 percent), finances and accounting (23 percent), legal work (21 percent), digital marketing (20 percent), and human resources (10 percent).
“Believe it or not, outsourcing accounting is worth the money,” said Stefan Ateljevic, founder of AhoyGaming.
The company outsources its accounting, and Ateljevic has noted that they save a lot of time and money by doing so because it helps them avoid accounting mistakes that can cause legal liability.
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Access Flexible Resources
Thirty-three percent of those surveyed say they outsource to access flexible resources. This flexibility allows companies to find short-term workers when needed, and they can do so without stretching their budgets.
“There are a lot of bright university students who are sitting at home doing nothing,” said Kim Chan, the founder and chief executive of DocPro.com. “They are willing to work hard for little money to gain work experience for their future career.”
DocPro.com is a leading online document creator that provides affordable online legal documents and templates, and they have been using interns during the COVID-19 pandemic to prepare and organize legal documentation.
Work With Experts
According to the study, 26% of small businesses with 10 employees or fewer outsource in order to work with industry experts. This makes sense since companies with fewer employees are unlikely to have skilled personnel in every business function that is needed for long-term growth.
Chelsea Kane, the founder and sole proprietor of the mindfulness audio series First Cup Morning Series, used to spend close to 30 hours per month editing audio clips. To avoid this time sink, she hired an expert to do the work in less than half the time. This allows her to focus her attention elsewhere. “Outsourcing has enabled me to focus on the parts of the business I love, and leave the other parts to respective experts in their own field,” Kane said. Since then, Kane has also decided to outsource the company’s bookkeeping and graphic design.
Collaborate With Domestic Or International Partners
One of the main reasons why small businesses choose to outsource is that it allows them to work with domestic and international outsourcing partners. Most of the companies that took part in the survey (56%) chose to venture into onshore outsourcing, compared to 15% for nearshore, and 18% for offshore. This goes to show that companies find value in outsourcing within their own country.
“It’s so attractive to outsource onshore because the contractors or freelancers can typically hit the ground running,” said Shilonda Downing, founder of recruiting, staffing, and project management agency Virtual Work Team. “They are already native English speakers and no doubt top professionals in their field.”
Of course, offshore and nearshore outsourcing have their benefits as well.
“If the task relates to our on-shore user base, we go onshore. If the task does not require country-specific knowledge, we go offshore. It is often cheaper and the quality is high,” said Amit Gami, founder of online credit card processing vendor Card Payment Guru.
If you are interested in offshore outsourcing, you may want to check out OnlineJobs.ph. With over a million resumes, it is the largest online job board in the Philippines.
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So, to recap, small businesses chose to outsource primarily to:
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