What the outsourcing boom is getting wrong

Freelance and contract staff have always been an effective solution to scaling business activities. This cost-effective and flexible option to respond to business demands as workloads increase and decrease saves businesses money and reduces risk as they begin to scale without the high demands of hiring. With business costs rising across the board, this flexible solution is positioned to answer many small businesses’ needs. 

 

Yet despite four in ten businesses turning to this flexible, cost-effective model as the cost of employment rises, many businesses are pulling outsourced work back in-house. This shift is not financially driven but quality driven. 

 

When outsourcing goes wrong, businesses have to find a way to absorb the time and cost of fixing it, defeating the point and putting further burden on business owners. 

 

There are many factors that lead to outsourcing decisions that let business owners down and cost businesses money. 

 

Finding the wrong fit 

A good freelancer, contractor or agency should feel like an extension of your team and with that comes finding the right person. For example, imagine hiring a web developer who technically completes the brief but misunderstands the brand entirely, leaving you with a site that needs rebuilding. Or a VA who takes over strategy rather than supporting it, pushing their own ideas rather than amplifying yours. Poor fits costs time, money and trust… and the signs are often there from the start if you know what to look for.  

 

The stories are common. Paid work left incomplete, pricing that was never made transparent, mistakes discovered weeks later. Most business owners have a similar story. The good news is you can avoid this when you take the right approach to outsourcing from the start.

 

Generalist vs specialist 

Whether you need a low level of skill across a wide range of tasks (generalist) or a niche task completed by a skilled expert, hiring the right type of support determines the success of your partnership. The challenge often comes as business needs evolve and specialists get pulled into generalist tasks, or generalists are expected to do tasks outside of their level of expertise. Being specific about your requirements and the project lifecycle, adjusting to your needs as you grow, or hiring an agency that combines skilled expertise across a whole business view avoids the disappointment when the quality of outcomes starts to decline.

 

Going beyond the brief 

Look for someone who is solution focused and can quickly understand your business rather than simply following processes. A good contractor will use their initiative and be able to take on a task with a simple brief. Using their expertise to develop it into a successful outcome or identify the areas where support is needed, they will support you in identifying outsourcing opportunities that will save you time and money. 

 

Clarity what you want 

Being unclear on what success looks like to you when outsourcing opens the door to miscommunication. Whether you’re looking for someone to complete a set project or someone to bring their insights to help you develop the ideas, communicating expectations is the fastest way to improve the quality delivered. Shared expectations of the task requirements, the outcomes and the timescales, as well as your own clarity on what you expect from a partnership, can help ensure you’re not left feeling let down. 

 

Finding the right partner, setting clear expectations of outcomes or asking them to set out what they expect to deliver within your working relationship, helps define success from the beginning. Once you’ve found the right person and know you’re on the same page, you can start to see quicker, higher-quality, and more efficient results without adding to your workload or time.

 

So while employment costs continue to rise and stretch small businesses further than ever, with 72% of small businesses finding labour the biggest cost pressure, it’s worth asking is pulling resources back in house the smart business move? Or simply a result of poor outsourcing relationships? With clearer boundaries and the right partnerships, could flexible, scalable ways of working with cost-effective, efficient and high-quality outcomes be the answer most small businesses are looking for? Because when outsourcing is done right, success increases and pressure eases.

 

A good contractor can deliver higher-quality results much faster, making those seemingly higher rates more cost effective, while also lessening the financial burden and pressure through scalable workloads and costs. 

 

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Sam Thurlow is the Founder of In Collaboration

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and Maria Vonotna