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1,001 Deals and Steals: A Guide To Online Classifieds
Some naysayers way back in the 1990s predicted that online shopping wouldn’t last. Sure, and they said television was a passing fad, too! As we all know, just the opposite has occurred. There’s a television in every household, and more than...
7 Cash Flow Secrets Your Accountant Never Told You
Looking for ways to boost your cash flow? As a small business consultant, I make these recommendations to my cash strapped small business clients: 1. Shoeboxes are for shoes, not business records. Pardon my candor but, you will never have a...
An Introduction to Taxes: How You Pay and File
Everybody knows that there are taxes that have to be paid - and if you live in an area that charges sales tax, you are probably aware of that type of tax from a very early age. Sales tax and income tax are some of the most common types of taxes that...
Buying Overseas Property
Copyright 2005 Hugh Griffin
Fourteen Top Tips for Overseas Property Investment:
1. Buy what you want to buy. The most important decision when buying a property is deciding exactly what you want the property to do for you. Is it purely for...
Death & Taxes
Have you ever owned a stock, or piece of real estate that you wanted to sell? You felt the time was right to take your profit and run. Did you then not follow through with the sale because “the taxes would kill you?” This is what I call “making a...
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Outsourcing and Your Business
Outsourcing and Your Business
Outsourcing is an established way of doing business today, allowing companies to maximize their budgets and resources — and generate better products.
Also referred to as subcontracting, outsourcing simply means acquiring a product or service rather than producing it in-house. Outsourcing is suitable for just about any industry. In the administrative field, for instance, a variety of activities can easily be farmed out to a subcontractor, including word processing, data entry, transcribing, research, contact management and event planning.
Outsourcing is extremely common practice within human resource (HR) departments. In fact, two-thirds of HR departments outsource at least one activity, according to research by the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. and the Society for Human Resource Management. The top five outsourced HR activities are employee assistance/counseling, flexible spending account administration, pre-retirement counseling, outplacement services and pension/retirement plan administration.
Weighing the Outsourcing Option
When deciding whether outsourcing is a viable option, a company should consider all of the issues involved. Should the projects be kept in-house because they’re critical and employees need to know how to do them themselves? Also, does the company have a sourcing plan, staff members to oversee contracts or a philosophy that supports the outsourcing initiative? If it does, outsourcing may be ideal for your business. The bottom line is every business is different and companies should carefully weigh the benefits of outsourcing.
Benefits of Outsourcing
Many companies that choose to outsource do so because they don’t have or can’t attract the people skills they need. Subcontracting gives them
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access to a much greater pool of resources. It also enables companies to cut cost by 10 to 30 percent, depending on the industry. They can purchase services on an as-needed basis, instead of maintaining a full-time employee. This allows them to avoid paying employee-related expenses such as salaries, unemployment taxes, paid vacation and sick leave, insurance — which results in a lower overhead.
In another aspect, outsourcing can help a company focus on its core business, creating a competitive advantage within its industry. Subcontracting also affords the business the chance to get the best job possible from the people it hires. By using a third party supplier, a company has more room to be critical of the kind of services provided. If the work is done in-house, company ties may interfere with the final product.
Outsourcing also offers a wide variety of other benefits, including:
•Faster setup of the function or service
•Acquire innovative ideas
•Increase commitment and energy in non-core areas
•Improve credibility and image by associating with superior providers
•Greater flexibility and ability to define the requisite service more readily
•Less dependency upon internal resources
•Greater control of budget
•Greater ability to control delivery dates
•Increase flexibility to meet changing business conditions
•Purchase of industry best practice
•Generate cash by transferring assets to the provider
•Gain market access and business opportunities through the supplier’s network
•Turn fixed costs into variable costs
About the Author
Copyright 2004, Kate Smalley
Connecticut Secretary
Freelance Secretarial and Transcription Services
http://www.connecticutsecretary.com
kms@connecticutsecretary.com
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