Strategies on Outsourcing: A Look at IT & Marketing

Every major business has some sort of relationship with outside suppliers or
contractors that help them work more efficiently, and which allows them to effectively serve their customers. Yet outsourcing is a complex issue.

Outsourcing

Essentially, there are two reasons for a company to use capabilities outside your
company. You can outsource one component of your daily operations, such as product delivery or you can outsource it as a strategic part of the business that can be done better or more efficiently, like IT or marketing.

It also offers more flexibility and control, especially when it comes to IT and marketing. Besides the reduction in capital expenditure, it allows organizations to pay for services on an as-needed basis, reduces the need to hire and train staff, and brings in fresh experience the company can utilize to its advantage.

IT Outsourcing

When it comes to IT, one prime reason companies outsource work involves a lack of expertise in-house. Being able to complete tasks more quickly and having specific equipment or knowledge base gives companies an advantage. As specialists,the companies to which businesses look for assistance can better plan for risks, something especially true when it comes to IT. When it comes to software development or another tech, sourcing work to an outside entity allows companies to work with people with a broader knowledge base.

Good IT outsourcing firms can handle projects immediately. While the same in-house the project might have to wait for the right people, including training and support.

The partner company is ready to go. Most often this will also translate into cost savings. Experts will inevitably work more efficiently and if you’re offshoring the work as well, wages will probably be less.

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Marketing Outsourcing

Like IT work, partnering with a B2B marketing company, and particularly digital
marketing, makes sound business sense. You can farm out tasks that include writingcontent, managing blogs, ad design, posting on social media, creating leads, making a video or audio content, managing marketing campaigns, and search engine optimization. any of these aspects of your business can be outsourced to agencies or freelancers so that you can concentrate on your core business.

Again, hiring and training someone to handle your blog or social media accounts in-house costs money, and the spending to get a new employee up to speed in the constantly changing digital world may not be the best use of resources. Along with this comes the software and equipment needed to manage digital marketing. Overall, outsourcing can reduce these expenses significantly. It’s much easier relying on experts, who will get your online marketing done efficiently. This frees up time and money spent on hiring and training staff.

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Outsourcing Offshore

While partnering with specialist IT and marketing companies makes sense
economically, what about offshoring work? Big companies with facilities overseas can send work offshore without outsourcing it, but more commonly offshore work is outsourced as well. For those CMOs or CIOs who do partner with companies offshore, there’s a good chance you’re overpaying.

According to top IT and business advisory firm Wavestone US, the only way to stem any value leakage is to adjust rates on an annual basis. In essence, you need to take into account exchange rates and inflation.

To do this, use the local consumer price index (CPI) during negotiations. While CPI isgenerally easy to work out, it gets more complex when you factor in foreign currency,which is affected by the following factors:

• Inflation (CPI is the proxy): higher inflation generally lowers currency values.
• Interest Rates: higher interest rates usually increase currency values yet lead to
higher inflation.
• Public debt: higher debt ratios lead to higher inflation and lower currency
valuations.
• Deficits: Deficits promote higher inflation and lower currency values.
• Terms of Trade: increases in this ratio lead to higher currency values.
• Political Stability: stability favors higher currency values.

These are perhaps the most important aspects to affect your bottom line when you’re doing business abroad. It’s imperative to understand the geopolitics of the region too, as political unrest can very negatively affect business. Movements of goods, services, and payments internationally can be tricky as well, given certain trade and currency laws.

Other drawbacks include language. For example, many U.S. and U.K. companies send offshore work to India, not only because labor is cheaper, but because of a large portion of the population is fluent in English. Proximity is also an issue. For example, many Australian firms prefer to outsource to countries relatively close by, like Malaysia or Indonesia.

Offshoring can simply provide more productivity. A U.S. or European firm, for example,could take advantage of the lower wages in Vietnam while also being able to continue work during hours when the business isn’t open. In this way, you can easily create 24- hour support, without making employees work throughout the night.

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Conclusion

For whatever reasons you choose to outsource, whether, within your company of
operation or abroad, it’s sure to strengthen the core of your business. This reduces
costs for energy, production, and labor. Reduced costs translate to higher profits and possibly greater market share. And that can only be good for your business.