Benefits of Outsourcing

The way in which we work has changed in 2020. Businesses globally face new and uncharted challenges in the way they operate as they accept the changes enforced by a global pandemic. There is also a heightened level of awareness as to what can be outsourced, as businesses have had to rapidly pivot to remote working during the periods of lockdown.

As businesses start to adapt to these changes, many are realising the opportunities for outsourcing. Outsourcing not only helps businesses reduce cost, but it allows them to have a greater level of flexibility, two important considerations in times of uncertainty.

Benefits of Outsourcing

While offshoring continues to provide the benefits of reduced costs and increased flexibility, business process outsourcing (BPO) also provides businesses with the capability to help scale to support their strategies.

• Reduce cost and drive productivity

  One of the most visible benefits of outsourcing relates to cost savings. Typically, salaries of offshore resources in the Philippines are 20% – 30% of those in Australia, Europe, and the United States. This represents a saving of around 70% – 80% in direct salary costs for a comparable skill set. Many smart operators are leveraging offshore teams to help reduce costs, improve capacity, and accelerate the growth of their business.

• Access to highly skilled professionals

  One major benefit of outsourcing is having access to skilled professionals. The Philippines, one of the top-ranking offshoring destinations in the world, boasts a large population of highly skilled professionals with 400,000 university graduates joining the workforce every year. Many of these graduates are educated in software engineering, accounting, business administration, IT, and customer-related services, making them ideal for companies looking to hire staff with specific skill sets.

• Capability and scale

  Talent shortages and financial pressures make offshore recruitment an attractive option. For some companies, this is often the only way to remain viable in the marketplace. In addition, many organisations are seeing the building of an offshore model as a way to increase customer engagement through enhanced services.

• Business continuity

  Outsourcing can assist with ensuring you have a robust business continuity plan in place. With staff working in different locations to your onshore office, this can assist with ensuring business continuity when unplanned events such as office lockdowns occur.

Outsourcing makes your business more flexible and agile, allowing you to adapt to the changing market conditions and challenges while delivering significant cost savings and several business improvements.

Outsourcing Opportunities

Where do I start? What business functions can be outsourced? Outsourcing can be daunting at first, but when done right it will help streamline your business processes, drive efficiencies and ultimately improve your bottom line. Some of the most common business functions that companies are outsourcing are:

• Finance and accounting

  Outsourcing of Accounting and Finance functions continue to be a common area as it offers a cost effective, attractive, and valuable alternative to onshore resources. Tasks are often repetitive and resource intensive, making it a perfect function to start with when considering offshoring. Such roles include Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, general accounting, bookkeeping, Tax and Compliance, and Financial Planning and Analysis.

• Marketing support

  Due to the rapid evolution of technology, the marketing industry has made a huge shift from traditional marketing. Content creation, social media management, digital marketing and graphics are critical functions to strengthen brand loyalty. While your onshore team works to develop and drive your business, your offshore marketing will be managing your social media accounts, building content, managing SEO activities and so much more. Some roles you might consider outsourcing include Email Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Digital Marketing, Graphic Designer and Content Writer.

• Sales support

  Transform sales processes onshore and push support tasks offshore, including CRM updates, follow up (email, calls) and meeting setting. An offshore sales team can maintain the CRM, ensure all data associated with the Customer and sales are up to date, send and manage calendar invites, send follow up emails, make follow up calls, and many other tasks to assist the Salesperson. As a result, your onshore Sales team can then focus on doing what they do best – selling new and driving more business.

• Purchasing and logistics

  Outsourcing of purchasing and logistics is becoming increasingly common. You can hire dedicated offshore staff who have the capacity and resources to improve the handling of production and supply chain processes, lower supply chain costs, and improve your customer experience.

• Other support functions

  Some of the roles you might consider outsourcing includes IT support, Human Resource, software development, drafting and estimating. The potential advantages of outsourcing these functions are enormous. Check the Offshoring Value Map to get ideas on where and how an offshore team can help support your business.