Whether you need somebody to do your cleaning or manage your IT systems, outsourcing may be the answer.

When you have a task that needs completing, you have two options; hire somebody as an employee to work at your company or pay somebody else to do it for you. Both choices have their own benefits and downsides.

In this article, the Burton Beavan team will explain what outsourcing is, and some of the reasons it might be a good option for your business.

What is outsourcing?

If you have staff, it would be the wrong thing to keep them on your books but continue to do all of the work yourself. We know why you might – it’s difficult to trust someone else to do things as well as you do them. Ideally, certain tasks should be delegated to individual employees who will specialise in their areas of responsibility. Outsourcing is no different.

In essence, outsourcing is simply paying a professional to complete a task for you in place of either doing it yourself or having an employee do it for you.

The benefits of outsourcing

Here are three reasons that you should consider outsourcing for your business:

Professional help

Freelancers and contractors are professionals in their trades. You can expect a professional freelancer or contractor to be fully competent in what they do – way more so than an average member of staff. After all, their earnings depend on it. This gives you the peace of mind that your tasks are in safe hands whenever you give them a job to complete.

Filling in the gaps

You can outsource almost anything from your customer service to your accounting. By using outsourcing, you can have what will be essentially a temporary member of staff that can fill almost any role as and when required. This is especially useful if you don’t have a consistent need to have these tasks completed.

For example, you don’t need to have an in-house IT specialist if you are running a small company with a few members of staff. However, from time to time, you will still need your technical issues fixing – this is where outsourcing comes in. You get the help you need, when you need it.

Small scale commitment

Following on from the previous point, because you only pay for the services that you need, outsourcing is cheaper than hiring an employee to do the same job.

Additionally, freelancers aren’t entitled to employee’s rights, so they don’t get sick pay, maternity leave, and so on. You only need to pay a freelancer when they deliver the work that they promised. The same cannot be said for hiring internally.

The disadvantages of outsourcing

There are two sides to every coin. Here are two reasons why you might want to think twice before choosing to outsource:

Trust issues

Fake profiles and empty promises can be found on every freelancing site. Sometimes, there is no way of really being able to tell if a freelancer will deliver the services that you need.

This can become more of an issue if you need to rectify a problem immediately. For instance, if your entire IT system has crashed and you can’t work out how to get it back up and running again, then hiring an IT contractor is an urgent priority. Who you end up choosing will determine how quickly your business can get back on its feet – you’re putting a lot of responsibility in the hands of someone you don’t know.

Expensive over time

If you find yourself constantly outsourcing for a particular task and you can’t see that changing any time soon, then you might want to consider hiring somebody on a part-time basis to replace the freelancer. This will be cheaper if there is enough work for them to do.

Freelancers and contractors are not cheap. If you are looking to get a job done, you can expect to pay a premium price for it.

Want to analyse this with us?

Let’s look at how much you’re spending on outsourcing at the moment and on what. We can then discuss with you whether it’s worth keeping the status quo or look to get a new member of staff in instead. Call us today on 01606 333900 or email hello@burtonbeavan.co.uk