The hardest part of being an entrepreneur is coming up with an effective business model. Once you have a general idea for a company, you need to develop the mechanisms and systems that will allow your enterprise to make a real profit. A good entrepreneur will explore all possibilities. One opportunity you shouldn’t overlook is the option to outsource certain jobs you need for your company.
Contracting workers in distant locations will save you money while improving your overall operations. Remote jobs are generally cheaper and more efficient than their in-office counterparts. With so much to gain, you’d be foolish not to consider this wonderful opportunity.
Outsourcing Explained
Before you can properly weigh the pros and cons of any given strategy, you have to understand exactly what it entails. Moving jobs to distant locations is a relatively straightforward concept, but it still pays to understand it in a little more detail.
What It Means To Outsource Work
A company can be said to have outsourced work any time certain positions or jobs have been sent to a third party for completion. Take, for example, a company that needs help with customer service. They can cut costs and improve their operations by contracting third-party workers to help answer calls, send emails, and operate live chat features. While companies can send work to contractors within their own company, most opt for international contractors.
How It Differs From Remote Staffing
Outsourcing is similar to another method that businesses often turn to: remote staffing. Both methods involve taking jobs that are typically conducted within the office and sending them to a distant location, but they differ in the nature of the management-worker relationship. A company that outsources jobs simply sends work to contractors. The remote workers are never actually employees of the company. With long-distance staffing, the company hires long-distance employees who become full members of the actual staff.
Types Of Work That Can Be Outsourced
While there’s really no limit to the types of jobs you could send abroad, certain tasks are better suited to the practice. Here are some typical options for outsourced work.
Customer Service
Most customer service work is easily completed from a distant location. There’s no reason an in-house employee needs to take phone calls or compose a weekly newsletter. Many businesses have benefited from sending customer service jobs to distant workers.
Marketing
Good marketing involves thoughtful strategizing, in-depth planning, and competent execution. A lot of that work is manageable from a distance, especially when the contractors are true marketing experts.
Content Production
Content marketing is one of the principal marketing strategies of the internet era. The concept is simple: by producing valuable content and posting it online, companies can boost their brand awareness and become respected thought leaders in their industry. Unfortunately, all those blog posts and social media updates don’t produce themselves. Contractors can play a major role in creating the content that a marketing department needs.
Information Technology
The ability to send more work offshore is one of the principal advantages that technology offers. While some hardware-related issues require in-person attention, other IT concerns can be handled from afar. Sending IT work to distant contractors gives an entrepreneur the chance to improve their technological infrastructure at little cost to the company.
How Outsourcing Can Benefit Startups
Today’s climate is remarkably competitive. In order for a new enterprise to become a success, the management must do everything in its power to give the company the best chance to win. In the digital age, investing in remote jobs is a major component of any winning strategy.
Every company has its own relationship to remote work. No two businesses will send out the exact same jobs or reap the same rewards. All the same, there are certain advantages that sending jobs abroad almost always offers. If you decide to take this step with your startup, these are the five benefits you can safely expect to enjoy.
Limit Costs
The biggest advantages of sending work to distant contractors are generally financial in nature. There are many reasons why outsourced jobs tend to save a company money. For one thing, many remote workers operate in places where labor costs are generally lower. In-house staff in the United States are sure to demand considerable wages. An equally qualified contractor halfway around the world will do the same work for a fraction of the compensation. You’ll also avoid paying for benefits, since contractors generally don’t require any.
Saving money is especially important for a company that’s just starting out. That initial profit never comes quickly, and you need your operations to be as cheap as possible while your company breaks into the market. Sending work abroad allows you to keep your operating budget as low as possible.
Boost Productivity And Efficiency
In general, long-distance contractors tend to conduct work more quickly and efficiently than in-house staff. Many contractors work from home, which helps them maintain high levels of productivity. While some people suppose a home office lacks the structure necessary to promote efficiency, working from home has actually been linked with greater output. In part, this is because at-home workers don’t have to contend with lengthy commutes, distracting colleagues, or meetings that come at inopportune times.
You can further increase the efficiency of contracting by hiring a third party to oversee the process for you. An experienced company like ValuedHR has the connections necessary to make the process quick and easy. Hiring such a company to organize a team of contractors will be much simpler than filling staff positions yourself.
Improve The Quality Of Your Services
Some business owners mistakenly believe that outsourced projects don’t meet the same standards as traditional work performed in the office. In reality, most contractors are true experts who carry out their work in a professional and competent fashion. You can reliably find international contractors whose standards are even higher than their local counterparts. As a result, the overall quality of your services will improve.
The best customer service contractors will have years of experience, and they’ll know exactly how to operate high-tech service features. IT experts, meanwhile, will have the knowledge to keep all your company’s computer systems running smoothly. Conducting such quality work up and down your operations will see the level of your service start out at a high level. This is massively important if you want your new company to earn a solid reputation and win a meaningful place in the industry.
Benefit From Global Talent
As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, it’s getting easier for business owners to access talent from around the globe. Instead of relying on staff who live within commuting distance of your company’s headquarters, you can tap the abilities of some of the best experts in their fields. Committing to outsourced workers greatly expands your field of candidates, making it much more likely you’ll find someone who is truly cut out for the job.
A new company is only ever as strong as its workers. Incompetent or unmotivated staff can quickly derail a promising idea. By sending work to outside contractors with proven talent and ability, you’ll increase your business’s chances of success.
Start Off With A Winning Model
While most owners and managers recognize the advantages of outsourced work, many struggle with how to shift away from their business’s current structure. This is where a new company has a major advantage. Instead of having to tear down existing models to build something new, you can adopt the best strategies right from the start.
There’s no sense in creating a bloated in-person staff when offshore contractors offer better work at a lower cost. You should take advantage of your startup’s blank slate to build a forward-seeking company structure fit for the modern age. Adopting these sound strategies from the beginning will give you a better chance to win out over your older competition.
How To Make The Process Work For You
While countless businesses have successfully outsourced work, it is not as easy as you might imagine. The process requires a profound knowledge of best practices and a network of contacts in distant locations. That’s why most startups opt to hire a third-party enterprise to help get the job done right.
ValuedHR is a proven winner that can help connect your company with reliable and professional contractors overseas. Schedule a 30-minute consultation with a ValuedHR representative to discuss how your new enterprise could outsource jobs to get off to an efficient and effective start. From there, you can work together with the company to find the remote jobs you need. There’s no better way to beat out the competition and make your new venture a success.
