Maintaining high productivity is a constant challenge in an always changing business environment. With new technologies, market trends, and changing customer demands, it’s hard to keep up with just your internal team.
Additionally, internal issues like employee burnout, lack of motivation, and inefficient processes can significantly reduce productivity. Employees often juggle multiple responsibilities, and when overwhelmed, their efficiency and output decreases.
This article explores how smart outsourcing can boost business efficiency. More importantly, this aims to empower professionals to leverage help from an external expert as a strategic tool to improve work performance.
Common productivity killers in business
Many organisations grapple with various productivity killers that hinder growth and efficiency.
Let’s see what the common ones are for you to address effectively.
Too much focus on monotonous tasks
One of the primary productivity killers in business is the excessive focus on repetitive tasks.
While essential for operations, these tasks do not directly contribute to the industry’s strategic goals. Why? Because administrative duties, routine maintenance, and other operational activities can consume valuable time and resources.
When employees are bogged down by these undertakings, they have less time and energy to dedicate to activities that drive business growth.
Overloaded employees
Overloading employees with unusual amounts of workload causes their efficiency and effectiveness to decline.
When overworked, they are more prone to burnout, stress, and errors, which then leads to decreased morale and increased turnover rates.
And if you think this only affects your workforce, you’re wrong. It affects the overall organisational performance.
Lack of specialised expertise
Certain projects or tasks require specific skills and knowledge that may not be available in-house.
Without access to the right expertise, businesses may struggle to complete projects efficiently. This leads to delays and mediocre outcomes that make your business less competitive in the market.
Smart outsourcing strategies for boosted productivity
To mitigate these productivity killers, big and small enterprises can adopt smart outsourcing strategies.
Conduct a thorough needs assessment.
The first step in smart outsourcing is to conduct a thorough needs assessment. This involves the following:
- Evaluate the current workload
- Identify tasks that can be outsourced and;
- Determine the specific skills and expertise required from the service provider
This way, you can make informed decisions about which projects to outsource and which outsourcing partners to engage with.
Outsource monotonous tasks or projects.
Businesses can also mitigate the above mentioned productivity challenges by outsourcing various repetitive tasks.
Examples of these are back-office operations like data entry, IT services, accounting and bookkeeping, and HR and administrative support.
Other contact centre processes that you can outsource to a service provider are customer enquiries, and inbound/outbound calling as part of the phone answering service.
Outsource elements of your front-of-house support.
Contact centres can help provide your business with additional layers of customer support when your team is busy. This includes managing inbound and outbound calls, providing after-hours services, handling live chat enquiries, managing social media interactions, and even scheduling appointments.
Outsourcing your front-of-house support to a contact centre translates to significant savings in time typically spent on hiring and training for roles with high turnover rates.
You can even improve your business’s response times and ensure round-the-clock support when needed.
Conduct regular performance reviews.
Regular performance reviews are essential to ensure that the outsourcing arrangement is meeting the desired productivity goals of your company.
You should monitor the performance of your outsourcing partner, provide honest feedback, and make necessary adjustments to improve efficiency. This helps maintain accountability and ensure that the outsourcing strategy aligns with your objectives.
How smart outsourcing boosts business productivity
While some businesses struggle to up their game towards efficiency, others do best by delegating their tasks to third parties.
Here’s how smart outsourcing helps maintain momentum and sustain business productivity.
Keeps projects moving
When a company strategically delegates some of their tasks to service providers, it allows internal teams to concentrate on core activities that drive business growth.
This focused division of labour minimises disruptions and unnecessary delays and leads to project completion earlier than the deadline. The result? More completed tasks and achieved project goals.
Matches project demands
Companies that outsource smartly gain the flexibility to match project demands with the right resources. This means they can easily scale their workforce up or down without the burden of hiring or letting go of permanent staff.
Injects instant skills and knowledge
When a business leverages the expertise of specialised external partners, it injects instant skills and knowledge into the organisation. It’s because third-party talents bring advanced experience that can provide a competitive edge in the market.
Furthermore, “infusion” of third-party expertise into your existing in-house team accelerates project progress and improves results—directly contributing to higher work productivity.
Before we end, we’ve got some important notes for you: “Outsourcing isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a strategic move that can fuel your business productivity.”
However, don’t just take our word for it. You’ve got to try it to see if it works for you!
