Posts Tagged ‘outsourcing’
Getting The Work Done - Outsourcing Trends
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
At some point in your career as a small business owner, you will realize that you can’t do it all yourself. There is a limited amount of profit you can make when you’re responsible for every piece of the puzzle that is your business. It may be time to outsource.
Outsourcing is finding someone else to do parts of your job, so you can spend more time moving your business forward.
Let’s take a look at what happens in a business day.
A Day in the Life
You may start the day by dealing with customer questions in e-mails. You check the phone messages at the office. Next, you may go through the regular mail that arrived the afternoon before. Is it the end of the month? Then it’s paperwork time, dealing with all the accounts billable and payable.
Once the doors open, you may be the one dealing with all the customers who come into your business, as well as the one making all the purchasing and supply phone calls and pickups.
Add these little jobs together, and you are not getting a lot of time to think about taking your business to the next level.
Outsourcing - What’s In It for Me?
The key to doing outsourcing the right way is to find someone who can do the job you need done at a price that will be more profitable by you not doing it, freeing up your time to focus on higher-level tasks.
If you have a retail location, these jobs may have to be done by someone who can physically be in the store. But if you have a company that is run out of your home or a virtual office, you can have employees that are virtual as well.
Many online websites specialize in outsourcing parts of your business or personal life.
* Elance.com - Elance is known as a freelancer’s website. Many people do not equate freelancing with outsourcing. The words may be different, but they mean virtually the same thing.
Freelancers who are experts in accounting, customer relations, appointment setting, website design, ghostwriting and many other skills can take on some of the jobs you need to have done.
* Guru.com - This is another site where you can find a number of freelancers who are able to take on the tasks you have at hand.
By posting the project to be completed, a number of professionals will bid for the chance to do the job for you.
* Craigslist.org - While many people think of craigslist.org as a site for getting rid of junk or finding a roommate, this is also a great place to look for professionals, especially if you want someone in your area to do a job.
You can post your needs on a Craigslist regional forum.
When you are ready to take your small business to the next level, it is time to get out from under the piles of minutia and turn those jobs over to outsourced employees. Then you can do what you do best - taking your company into a more profitable future.
Tags: advice, Hiring and Human Resources, hiring cheap help, Leeia Ladipoh, outsourcing, outsourcing trends, tips
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Preparing for a Sudden Surge in Sales
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Believe it or not, sometimes getting a surge of unexpected business can do more harm than good. Being out of stock, having long checkout lines or unanswered phone calls can all lead to missed sales. But the damage isn’t just in immediate dollars; a store unprepared for sudden sales might very well miss out on those customers ever returning to give a store a “second chance”. And, for every sale that didn’t take place, there was also positive word-of-mouth that never took place - perhaps leaving you with even more missed sales.
Tips for making sure your business can handle more business
1. Avoid being out of stock for too long - Many lost sales are due to an item being out of stock. While you may not want to increase your year-long inventory just in case you get a surge of sales, there are things you can do to keep lost sales at a minimum.
* Be in control of your inventory - Buy an inventory management system and use it. If you see that a particular item is selling quicker than usual, then buy additional stock earlier.
* Have your ordering information ready - Avoid scrambling to place a rushed order and wasting a day or two in the process. For each manufacturer or distributor, have a folder ready with ordering details and contact information. Keep a purchase order printed up inside each folder so all you need to do is fill in the product information when the time comes.
* Put customers on “backorder status”. Let your customers know that you will be in stock soon. Tell them you’d be happy to take their phone number or email and then alert them when the item is back in stock. Customers will appreciate you going the extra step.
* Give customers an incentive to be loyal - Entice your customers to wait with you by offering them a discount coupon to use once the out-of-stock item arrives.
2. Have a source for temporary employees ready - Why wait until you need extra employees to start looking for help? You should have a folder already prepared with temporary employee resources. This isn’t as simple as copying a page out of the phonebook - for each temp agency, day labor company, college job center, etc., you should first have a phone interview to find the companies that will fit your needs best.
3. Consider outsourcing - There may come a time where you find that you’re spending more time answering phone calls and emails rather than working on your business. If sales really start to pick up, you’ll be glad to have a resource of temporary outsourcing companies on hand. It doesn’t take much time or money to hire an outside company to take care of the customer service side of your business on a temporary basis. Take some time to compile a list of potential companies now: do some online research, check references, and conduct phone interviews to find the ones that will best suit your company’s needs.
Take the time now to prepare your company for an unexpected boom in sales. You’ll avoid feeling stressed, working overtime, losing customers and being out of stock for long periods of time when a sales burst arrives. And, the best part is, being prepared doesn’t cost anything - but it could help you to earn some big extra profits!
Tags: Carrie Hinkel, Generating More Sales, Growing Your Business, handling more business, management, outsourcing, Sales
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Benefits of Outsourcing for Small Businesses
Monday, January 7th, 2008
This is a great article in the New York Times highlighting how outsourcing can be beneficial for small businesses.
"Outsourcing — the practice of using outside firms to handle work normally performed within a company — is a familiar concept to many entrepreneurs. Small companies routinely outsource their payroll processing, accounting, distribution, and many other important functions — often because they have no other choice. Many large companies turn to outsourcing to cut costs. In response, entire industries have evolved to serve companies’ outsourcing needs.
But not many businesses thoroughly understand the benefits of outsourcing. It’s true that outsourcing can save money, but that’s not the only (or even the most important) reason to do it…"
Click here to read the rest of the article.
For further reading, check out our article Outsourcing: Domestic Verses International
Tags: domestic outsourcing, Hiring and Human Resources, HR, international outsourcing, outsourcing, Rebecca Button, small business
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Basics of Wholesale Product Outsourcing: Small to Medium Business Owners
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
The business environment in the past decade or more has changed rapidly. It is now possible for a small to medium-sized business to flourish with the help of thorough market research and efficient wholesale product sourcing.
This kind of sourcing has its advantages and its pitfalls: if the source is genuine, profits are guaranteed, but if the source is defective in one way or the other, the entire business can fail. To ensure continued success in wholesale product sourcing, here are a few basics that a small to medium reseller needs to keep in mind:
Before buying wholesale, the buyer has to be sure of an existing target market in which the products can be resold at a profit. You should only buy a product on wholesale if there is a demand for it, feeding an existing demand is easier than creating one. Equally important: what is of no value to you could be of high value to someone else.
If a wholesale source seems too good to be true, it is probably a scam. Sourcing products on a wholesale basis is never easy, and needs a lot of legwork. Research is your best friend in finding a genuine wholesaler, there is no cheap shortcut to finding a wholesaler who would meet his or her end of the bargain.
A wholesaler should not be contracted till he or she is verified as having existed for a considerable period of time, factory-authorized, and working from a solid infrastructure. One of the best ways is still to call the wholesaler, and if possible, to make a visit.
Middlemen have to be avoided at all costs; these are the people who do not have access to the goods themselves. They arbitrate between the buyer and the seller while marking up the cost, sometimes posing to be legitimate wholesalers themselves. You must always verify if the wholesaler has a real, longstanding relationship with the manufacturer.
The idea is not only to be able to find a wholesaler who is selling the goods you want, but one who is also selling them at enough discount for you to be able to make a profit. Discount does not mean a compromise in quality, however.
A small-medium business owner can choose from amongst the following types of wholesalers:
Dropshippers: For a small to medium-sized business owner, drop shipping can be an excellent option. This means that you simply open a store, advertise a product chosen from the wholesaler and take orders. You charge your customer a retail rate for the product and pass the order to your wholesaler. Your wholesaler processes the order by packing and shipping the product directly to your customer, charging you the wholesale rate.
You do not need to have an inventory, only a small back-up store in case your wholesaler fails you, which you can order in "light bulk" from a supplier. The prices do go up in this case, because dropshipping can be expensive, so you have to ensure that you still make an adequate profit out of the amount you charge your customer.
Manufacturers: Most big manufacturers are not accessible to small businesses, but if you can find a way to get in touch, you might be able to buy wholesale directly from the manufacturer. Most small to medium or new manufacturers are more than happy to become wholesalers themselves, all you will need to deal with them would be an ID, tax license and resale license.
Since there is no distributor between you and the manufacturer, your profit margins would be higher. One of the best ways to source products from manufactures is to attend Merchandise marts and Trade fairs.
Liquidators: This can be attractive for small business owners as liquidators often sell stuff for pennies which can later be sold for dollars. The important thing is to find why the liquidation is taking place.
If it is happening to clear out the warehouse of a business that is closing down, but the goods are ok, then this is a good deal. But sometimes liquidations also happen because a product has no demand, or is defective, and this is where caution comes in.
Distributors: Wholesalers and distributors are those who buy in bulk from the manufacturers for resale to retailers. If you can find a factory-authorized distributor for a product and develop a long-term business relationship, you can place re-orders easily, and lower your buying price significantly.
Importers: Cheaper markets in Asia, especially China, have become very attractive to small-medium business owners because of the low cost of products: importing is now a viable option in order to achieve higher profit margins.
Importing involves more risk, higher volumes and higher payments, so it is best approached with the help of professionals. Communication with the wholesaler and the maintenance of delivery dates and quality standards is paramount.
The sort of wholesale supply that would be suitable for you would depend on the type of products you wish to source, what the size of your business is and the target market you have in mind. Wholesale sourcing is never simple; but once established, it can yield benefits for the long term.
Tags: advice, distributors, Doing Business Internationally, export, import, liquidators, manufacturers, outsourcing, Product Sourcing, small business, source, tips, wholesale, wholesale product outsourcing
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Outsourcing: Domestic Verses International
Friday, October 12th, 2007
As e-commerce and home-based businesses continue to flourish, more and more companies are turning to outsourcing to reduce costs and make certain aspects of their businesses simpler. Outsourcing, either domestically or internationally, is the subcontracting of work to another company.
There are a variety of services that can be outsourced to another company, such as:
*Warehousing and fulfillment services
*Order taking and customer service
*Data entry
*Website design and management
*Payroll and accounting
In general, the benefits of outsourcing certain services can be great:
*Save on training costs
*Reduce overhead costs
*Gain access to specialized skills
*Eliminate staffing problems during peak periods
*Stay at the forefront of technology
The benefits of foreign outsourcing:
Cheaper labor: There is no doubt that in developing countries, the labor rate is much cheaper than in the U.S. For example, where a typical hourly rate for a talented web designer in the U.S. is around $50, in India you will be able to find plenty of skilled designers for $10 an hour or less. For non-skilled jobs like data entry and order taking, the rate is far less than the minimum wage in the U.S.
Availability of competent and reliable workers: many times, companies have a difficult time finding hard-working, responsible local workers to fill their jobs. Rather than continually hire new workers (low wage workers aren’t the most reliable, steady workers in the U.S.) companies are finding it easier to hire a foreign outsourcing company with a large supply of workers to handle certain jobs.
The benefits of domestic outsourcing:
Minimal conversational differences: A common complaint from customers dealing with companies’ offshore customer service is not being able to fully understand the foreign representative. Whether it’s a foreign dialect or unfamiliar phrases, customers are becoming more frustrated with the outsourcing of customer service and order-taking jobs to overseas companies. An increasing number of companies are receiving complaints and many are rethinking their foreign outsourcing of that particular sector.
Contributing to the U.S. economy: It may not mean much to large companies focused on the bottom dollar, but many smaller businesses are making an effort to keep their outsourced jobs headquartered in America. Domestic outsourcing companies are typically minimum wage jobs, but for many unskilled workers they are a good opportunity to make a living. Having these jobs available in the U.S. and not sending them overseas helps keeps more money in the U.S. and keep the dollar strong.
Outsourcing can be a great way to eliminate costs and free up much-needed time from management. To get started, it is best to select several companies who specialize in the outsourcing services you desire and then rate their differences and check their references. Finding a reliable company to work with should be fairly simple, as many have been successful in business for many years. Outsourcing companies are in charge of the training and hiring of employees, as well as having the latest in technological equipment on-hand-and all of that lowers your overhead, investment and capital costs.
Tags: advice, Carrie Hinkel, domestic outsourcing, Hiring and Human Resources, international outsourcing, outsourcing, tips
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