As your business grows, it becomes more important to research and think about outsourcing to support your inner IT structure. Outsourcing is hiring an outside party to complete services and tasks for your company. 

There are many reasons to outsource, but it may not be there may be an option that works best for your company. Ask yourself how much your business would benefit as a whole from outsourcing, and decide on which plan would be best for you.

What Outsourcing Involves

When you find yourself overwhelmed and unable to keep up with your growing number of tasks, outsourcing, which involves hiring a third party to complete the tasks for you, is a good idea to look into. You can either advertise it as a set rate, or pay the freelancer their hourly wage, but be sure and budget what you can afford for the time it may take.

Benefits of Outsourcing: 

Increased productivity

Outsourcing your menial workload will allow you to focus more on the tasks you are working on. With too much on our plates, we tend to skip over important details and our work can become sloppy. Sharing the workload can help improve your productivity leading to better overall work outcomes.

Quicker turnaround

With the workload shared, you can improve your production rate in each area.

Increase profits

If done correctly, you can make money when outsourcing. Ensure that you are charging more than what you are paying for the third party.

Improve character skills

Outsourcing your work can help you develop leadership skills and teach you how to manage other people and work with new companies.

Disadvantages of Outsourcing: 

Lack of control

When you are not doing it yourself you might find that the lack of control is too much. Not being able to control when tasks are completed can lead to slow turnaround times.

Miscommunication

Everyone interprets words differently, this could lead to miscommunication down the line. It can also be affected if you outsource to a different country, which means an interruption in time zones and a possible language barrier.

Security

With all jobs, you should have a data security terms and conditions contract in place, if you don’t, this could lead to the freelancer poaching work, or sensitive information leaking.

Knowing When to Outsource

So now you know the benefits and disadvantages of outsourcing, you need to decide when it’s the right time for your business. Some questions you need to ask yourself is:

• Will it make you or your team more efficient?
• Is it cost-effective?
• Is a specialized skill needed for the task that you or your employees don’t possess? 
• Will the task waste the time of you or your employees?
• Are you in need of fresh ideas?

Ways to Outsource

There are many ways you can outsource, this could be tasks such as blog/content writing, creating a product, or performing a service.

Whatever it is that you need to outsource, ensure you weigh up the pros and cons and do your research on third parties.

This content was originally published here.