Running a business can be very tough, especially when it comes to finances. There are so many things to think about, considering the number of moving parts. You have to pay for everything from a lease to office equipment to the salaries of your employees.
Are you looking to save some money for your business? Outsourcing has become a popular thing to do over the past several decades. Would it be ideal for you to do? There are pros and cons to doing this. Here are each of them.
Pros
The major reason that companies do this is so they can save money. This has always been the main goal for doing it, ever since around the start of the 2000s, when companies like Dell had their tech support moved overseas. These companies can pay these employees significantly less than they would an American to do the same job.
By outsourcing, the parent company can also get people who are specialized in a certain type of job from the company that they outsource from. That means they might have people who are very skilled at customer service or another are rea of work. That way, there’s a good chance that they will get quality work.
The companies that outsource can also offer more in terms of flexibility. They can have certain employees help in certain sectors. That way, the hiring company will be able to pick and choose.
Cons
One of the main cons is that you’re going to lose a lot of control when it comes to how the people that you’re outsourcing the job do the general day-to-day work. Are they going to fool all the protocols that you put in place? Depending on what country you outsource to, you might also be facing a language barrier.
That will lead to frustrated customers who will possibly go elsewhere where they feel like they can communicate better. This also extends to writing, since if a non-native speaker writes something, That can lead to a lot of editing that might not have had to be done if a native speaker had written it.
Both of those cons, which can seem intertwined, can cause a lot of problems. It’s also not fair to the employees that were hired — they just want to work. Outsourcing can also be very hard physically, since the centers tend to be on the other side of the world.
That means that they will be in time zones that are either extremely far ahead or behind the company’s customers’ time zones, so they will have to work unusual hours.
There are solutions to these issues, though. The first one is to make sure the employees get a good amount of training. They should be coached on what to say and how to work with problem customers.
This will then allow them to get more confident with each passing day. The result is something that’s going to help both the customers and employees. That leads to a winning combination for both.
Yes, there are cons to outsourcing, but that’s true of all kinds of work. Each company has unique scenarios going on, and it’s going to take careful consideration before taking the next step. It may work perfectly, or it might send the people who produced the idea back to the drawing board.
Is outsourcing going to continue to be a trend? Or will jobs come back to the United States? Companies are trying to save as much money in one area, so it could be here to stay for some time. By weighing the above, your company can make the best decision.
