When it comes to outsourcing, it’s something that can prove to be very beneficial to a lot of businesses, especially those who are just starting out and may not have the finances to take on full-time roles for these tasks. So what are the best tasks to outsource right now?
Human Resources
Not all HR departments need to be made available five days a week. Some businesses will often have part-time HR staff depending on how big the company is. By using outsourced human resources, you can still have someone who comes in two or three times a week but you don’t have to commit to putting them on a contract. You may already have a full-time HR manager but have recently grown the company to the extent where you may need a contracted HR assistant. It also comes down to what’s available to you in the workspace. The business might not have enough space to house another full-time staff member, so this is an ideal compromise.
Bookkeeping
Being a business owner, you probably spend a lot of time handling the finances and sorting out taxes. For some owners, finances aren’t the strongest skill that you might have and therefore you might not be making the most of tax returns etc. So it’s therefore worth hiring an external accountancy firm or an individual accountant who can handle your bookkeeping while you can work on other things that are of significant importance. As a business owner, it’s certainly going to be handy to outsource this aspect of the workload especially as the finances are important, but they can be handled by someone trained and professional to get the most out of your money and benefits as a company.
Website Creation & SEO
A website is now essential for any business wanting to show that they’re established to others as a business. Not every start-up will have the ability to create and design a website themselves, so this is certainly one that could be outsourced. There’s plenty of website hosting platforms to choose from, and once you’ve sorted out the domain and basic formatting of the site, you could hire a web designer to come into the office to discuss the creation of a unique layout that suits the company and the brand design. Depending on the quality, website designers can vary in price but it’s certainly worth the investment especially to present the best version of your business to new and potential clients and customers.
SEO is part of building up a businesses’ presence online, and once you’ve got a website, you want to make sure that you’re doing everything to encourage traffic to your site. Page loading time, quality of written content and links used within a website can all contribute to your SEO and how high you rank on the search engines. There are also plenty of companies that offer packages and ongoing support to ensure your SEO is the best it can be.
Social Media
Handling the social media for your company can be a full-time job in itself because social media never stops. There’s always something going on, some trend to follow or comment to respond to. And although social media might not be a priority for the business currently, it does make a huge impact on gaining more exposure as a brand going forward. Social media can bring forward a wide range of opportunities both within your local area, nationally and internationally, so it’s something that’s definitely worth taking advantage of even if you don’t invest a big budget. It might be worth meeting with a few companies that handle social media for other businesses to talk about what you’d like to achieve through these platforms and then to listen to what they might suggest would be the best for your business. For example, visual platforms like Instagram are great for those companies who are selling products and Twitter can prove very useful for connecting and collaborating with others.
Social media is certainly a complex world that is forever changing, but it’s not going anywhere soon. So in that case, it’s worth it to at least get your platforms set up so that these companies are able to step in and control the content you’re putting out and making sure they’re interacting with anyone who communicates. This communication can end up converting into leads that could be beneficial to your business.
Business & Competitors Research
As a business, you may have thought about what you could achieve for the year, however, it’s important to look beyond that and to have some research into what is possible for the business in the long run. This type of business research might not be easily done for when you’re running many aspects of the company and are strapped for time. It is something though that is worth outsourcing to those who can do some in-depth research on how your business can reach its full potential.
Analysing your competitors is also something that they can cover that you might not be tapping into enough. Sure it’s not always important but looking at what your competitors are doing is useful for whenever they are successful and knowing what doesn’t work when they fail. Business and competitor research is always going to prove useful so that you can continuously advance forward and have a direction for the business in where it’s going and what it could achieve.
It might be useful to outsource any weaknesses that you are spotting within the company. These are probably caused by a lack of staff or skills that are missing from the company and need fulfilling. Look at your current team and see whether anything that your business requires can be looked after by them. If not, then it’s time to invest a budget into outsourcing your tasks so that the company doesn’t end up standing still. That’s the worst thing you can have for a business, and this also puts the growth of the company at risk.