Small and medium businesses are often told what, how, and when to outsource. But which sourcing recipe has really worked? Members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (an invite-only non-profit organisation) provide some insightful responses on what has worked for them.
Payroll To Go
Tasks that add no value or are considered “resource-intensive” are outsourced. Totsy and ContextMedia outsourced payroll, payments, and inventory management. Round Table Companies also let go of their payroll, but 80% of the other tasks were handled by a service provider.
Collaboration
On the marketing side, these SMEs prefer to collaborate with their outsourcing partners when it comes to customer service. This enables them to keep a consistent voice for their customers. Totsy has an internal team supported by their outsourced partner. Round Table Companies handle the job during office hours and queries that require more involved assistance. They outsource customer service for non-regular work hours such as overnight and weekends for a 24/7 operation.
In-house
Functions that are specific to the company or directly affect customer experience are retained. This enables SMEs to have complete control over quality. Marketing is mostly kept in-house. Totsy does outsource PR duties, but conversion, retention, and social media are kept internally. The rest of the entrepreneurs prefer to handle marketing on their own.
The common strategy is to let go of functions that add work instead of revenue. Work with service providers to access knowledge and tools to promote efficiency. Keep major priorities in-house for tighter quality control.
Post a Comment