How to Create a Successful Outsourcing Strategy for Your Back Office
Spending too much time working on your back office operations and less time on your core business? Outsourcing your back office functions might be the smartest decision for your business, especially if you want to cut down on your costs but triple your productivity. This article will tackle what back office outsourcing is and how you can strategize your back office outsourcing so you can hit all your goals.
What is Back Office Outsourcing?
The back office of your business is essential to your operations and cannot be overlooked as it provides you with support for your client-facing functions. These include personnel and departments that handle accounting and finance, IT, human resources, payroll, data mining, data entry, and more. Back office outsourcing allows you to turn over these functions to a third-party outsourcing company that can provide find you with outsourced employees to accomplish these services.
Best Back Office Services to Outsource
Here are some of the back office services you can outsource and why:
Accounting and Finance.
From cash flow statements, ledger maintenance, and tax reports, to accounts payable management— these are all functions you can outsource to another company that can provide you with the accurate and dedicated support you need. This allows you more time to focus on your business strategy and organizational goals.
IT Support.
Information Technology or tech support is integral to customer satisfaction and having an efficient team can help you greatly increase this aspect of your business. Choosing to outsource this area can be advantageous because IT support requires highly specialized skills. You can benefit from hiring experts at a flexible rate and the customer satisfaction results can allow for word-of-mouth advertising.
Human Resources.
HR handles a variety of tasks including compensation, recruitment, employee retention, performance evaluation, and other workflow procedures. If you want to optimize your labor force, outsourcing HR can provide more objectivity, coordination, and productivity since this support team would be dedicated to your HR needs.
Payroll.
Your cost savings will only increase if you outsource your payroll tasks. This is another back office job that is commonly outsourced because it is doable for a number of people.
Data Mining.
Data mining takes a huge amount of time and technical knowledge to execute. For your best bet in terms of cost-effectiveness and competence, outsourcing this function is an easy “yes”.
Data Entry.
This back office component is at the top of the list of most-sourced roles. A huge number of people can do this task and it does not take too much training to do a good job. Thus, you can hire people at lower rates and entry-level. Your cost savings will be higher if you consider this as your outsourced role.
Successful Outsourcing Strategy for Your Back Office
Having a well-thought-out outsourcing strategy for your back office will be the roadmap to your success. Here are some tips to develop your outsourcing strategy:
Ponder on Your Objectives.
Why are you looking to outsource your back-office functions? Is it to increase your cost-savings or do you want to hire someone for specialized services outside of your in-house team? Be clear about your goals so you can tailor your next steps according to what you want to achieve.
Take baby steps.
Don’t go all in right away! You can choose to outsource one component of your back office first and see how things go. If you go overboard and outsource all of your support team at once you may end up with even more challenges.
Look into offshoring.
You can garner a significant amount of cost savings if you choose to outsource your back office operations to professionals in the Philippines. The cost of living is much lower in an Asian country, allowing you to charge less while helping your employees maintain their finances.
Determine your budget.
How much are you planning to spend on the compensation of your outsourced employees? Be specific and calculate the possible costs so you can strategize clearly and consider this as a factor if you plan to work with an outsourcing company.
Explore choosing an outsourcing company.
You might be tempted to recruit your own independent contractors but this means you will have to personally handle their screening, training, payroll, and other functions that involve working with them. You already have enough on your hands with your in-house team. Leave all the stresses to an outsourcing company that will ensure high-quality performance without you having to break a sweat.
Find a suitable outsourcing partner.
Look for a team that matches what you need for your business. What do you prioritize? Round-the-clock service? Flexibility? Higher cost savings? What do they specialize in— marketing or executive assistants? Choose the best partner that will get you the results you aim for.
Research on the risks and benefits involved.
Before jumping in head first, you’ll need to know what to expect. There is logistical information to take into account such as time differences and language barriers that you might encounter when outsourcing. Be aware and include these when deciding what tasks to outsource.
Document your procedures.
Well ahead of time, documenting your business’s procedures can simplify the onboarding process for your outsourced employees. You can easily transition into working with these new team members or any in-house hires with these documents.
Be clear about the roles you want to be outsourced.
Let’s say you have decided that you want to outsource the accounting department of your business. You will need to be very specific about your outsourced employees’ job description so he or they can perform well in their roles.
The Bottom Line on How to Create a Successful Outsourcing Strategy for Your Back Office
Your back-office team is a significant part of your business, supporting the rest of your business through administrative tasks. Outsourcing these roles can increase your cost savings and add efficient and productive members to your team.
If you’re looking for the best outsourcing team to achieve a competitive advantage in your back office, look no further. MOVE or Managed Outsourced Virtual Employees can help you find and train your team’s most suitable outsourced personnel.
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