The Benefits of Using an Outsourced Business Consultant
Business process outsourcing is increasingly becoming popular. Just recently, some big names like Lloyds and HSBC, Carlsberg, and British Airways resorted to outsourcing some of their core functions including HR. But do not be deceived into thinking that business process outsourcing is a reserve of multinationals. Hiring an independent business consultant might just be what you need to run your business more efficiently thereby saving you a lot of money at the end of the day.
When you think about it, it is more expensive to hire a full-time staff member that is not fully utilised. While your staff might be very highly skilled in some areas, they might not be so good in other areas so that means there will be a lot of unproductive time that you will still be paying for. It is more cost-effective to outsource some functions to an experienced consultant that will only charge for several hours in a week or a month. There are three main ways you will save money for your business or start-up by using business outsourcing.
How Outsourcing Saves You Money
The first saving you will make is on the salary expenses. The cost benefit analysis of paying a full-time employee vis-à-vis outsourcing to a consultant will show you how much money your organisation will save every month. Apart from the savings on salary, there are other indirect costs that you will save on. These include pension contributions, health and other insurance, and various employee benefits. You do not have to incur these expenses when dealing with an independent business consultant. Lastly, you will not have to spend money on utilities related to having a full-time staff member like desk space, computers, and other administrative costs.
Examples of Services to Outsource
The most commonly outsourced services are human resources, I.T, accounting, bookkeeping and marketing. You can actually start by deploying special apps and software to automate the different processes. However, you will ultimately need the services of a consultant to keep everything up to date. Your time is better spent on business development other than managing the other day-to-day operations of your business. By and large, there are three broad categories of tasks that you should consider outsourcing:
1. Repetitive Tasks
Every business, whether big or small, has got some tasks that have to be repeated daily, weekly or monthly. Some of these tasks do not require too much time but they require consistency in frequency. Examples include marketing, data entry, shipping entries, accounts payable etc. An independent business consultant will help you handle these repetitive tasks efficiently and cost effectively.
2. Specialised Knowledge
You need an accountant to take care of your accounts department. However, good accountants cost a lot. It is cheaper to have a consultant that has these set of skills to come over once a month to put things in order.
3. Skilled Expertise
As a business owner, you may have no choice but to leverage technology to remain on the cutting edge of your industry. Granted, it might not be possible to have a full-time I.T staff member but you can outsource it to a company or a consultant.
The main objective of any business is to make a profit and it is not rocket science that cost cutting is the best way of maximising profit. When you outsource some of your services to an independent business consultant, you save your company money which ultimately leads to greater profits.