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Companies on a high-growth trajectory often rely on outsourcing as they scale. According to a survey by Deloitte, 70% of companies outsource to save money. Other common reasons for outsourcing include flexibility, speed to market, and access to tools and processes.
Is your company ready to explore outsourcing? One way to understand the power of outsourcing is to look at well-known companies that outsourced one or more components of their functions. You should also gain insight into the types of functions that businesses like yours successfully outsourced and how outsourcing empowers sustained growth.
Top-Name Companies that Relied on Outsourcing to Scale
Many well-known companies have set the standard when it comes to outsourcing. Their successes have shown how focusing on core business while outsourcing support roles has positively impacted the company's growth
Google is an example of how to look after your in-house team by outsourcing functions that would otherwise impinge on their work. The company has built a strong reputation for looking after its employees at the headquarters in California, yet it has also outsourced certain functions instead of building an internal team. Such functions include software development, IT, and virtual assistance. Through its outsourcing efforts, the company has become a role model for blending in-house teams with third-party service providers.
Slack
Slack is synonymous with instant communication for peers working on a project but not physically together. A team of just four founders started the online collaboration tool, but they had the good sense to outsource a fundamental part of the business's early work: beta testing. An outside firm was brought on board to test copy and design, and by doing so, the founders were able to nail down the right personality for Slack which today is known for its friendly informal tone. By outsourcing beta testing, the team could figure out what was working and what wasn't before they launched.
Basecamp
Like all start-ups, Basecamp was once an unknown entity powered by a tiny team. The project management tool soon grew in popularity—almost at its own peril. Jason Fried, Basecamp founder, went public explaining that the organic scaling up in the customer base could not be matched behind the scenes until they decided to outsource. Noting that they had become disorganized and had, in his own words, "a few plates spinning at once," they needed better focus and discipline. Their reputation took a bit of a hit, but the company got back on track once they decided to outsource the app development. They now employ remote workers across the globe and this outsourcing has helped fuel the company's continued growth.
Skype
Skype has been a household name for some time and was one of the first companies to enable easy remote communication. One of their wisest moves was employing outsourced developers from Estonia—a fair distance from the company headquarters. They later took on the developers as partners, but this outsourcing move kickstarted Skype's exponential growth and proves the point of hiring the best talent no matter where they are.
What Functions Can Companies Outsource?
Companies can outsource several important functions leaving them to focus on their core business without draining away time, energy, and capital trying to build in-house teams.
Customer Service
Customer support is one of the most cumbersome teams to build in-house because it is costly in terms of recruitment, training, and technology. Additionally, customer support can become difficult to manage once the company starts scaling up. When companies grow quickly, they may give existing team members additional customer-facing responsibilities. Typically, this approach results in overburdening internal teams, leading to diminished customer support quality.
By outsourcing customer service, a company can rely on a team that has been tailored to the company's needs. This drives increased loyalty and cost savings, while supporting scalability. You can learn about additional advantages in our recent article.
Order Processing
There are many moving parts to fulfilling a customer's order before, during, and after the actual financial transaction takes place. Outsourcing order management means a company can focus on the product or service itself and leave this function in the hands of experts. Since ordering is a highly-visible process to customers, getting it right is essential to fostering a positive experience, bolstering loyalty, and earning future sales.
Content Moderation
Content moderation is an around-the-clock function in a world where companies are doing business across every time zone. Outsourcing content moderation means there is always someone at hand to ensure that a company's digital platforms are safe and that there is a watchful eye on reputation management and damage control across social channels. Brands can respond to inquiries or handle issues more quickly with an outsourced team focused on content moderation.
Back Office Support
Since back office support is essentially the backbone of a company's support services, the smallest pitfall can have a major impact. Companies can rely on outsourced teams for critical functions, such as recruitment, training, or payroll, to improve efficiency and support ongoing growth.
Scale Up with Outsourcing
Increasingly, organizations are appreciating the benefits of outsourcing certain functions so that they can focus on their core business. Outsourcing has proven to lower costs and increase efficiency because keeping everything in-house often means building a whole new team for every function. saddling in-house workers with more and more duties that are not aligned with their field of expertise.
Outsourcing also means you can vary your capacity according to the phase of a business, time or year, or other factors which dictate exactly how many hands you need on deck at any given moment. This flexibility also means a business can meet the change in demand when commercial conditions change.
It is important to note, however choosing the most suitable third-party outsourcing partner is crucial. You can attain the best results by enlisting an experienced outsourcing partner that can blend artificial intelligence (AI) with the human touch. Whether for back-office support, customer support, content moderation, or any other function, you need a partner with the right expertise and technology to help you grow.
To kickstart your outsourcing journey, contact the experts at Helpware.
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