Would you consider outsourcing to help your startup grow?

Outsourcing is an essential part of any small business and start up. This doesn’t necessarily mean out of the country, but it might.

There is no successful business on the planet that doesn’t outsource some process because it’s part of effective economics and business. Trading with whoever specializes in a specific process or niche business is the bases of economic growth. This means that if you aren’t the best graphic designer than you should have another business do it.

You should evaluate how much you can save or lose. There are pros and cons to all outsourcing in everything business. Doing things in house may be better in the short run or long run. This means financial and marketing analysis of what you should outsource to other businesses either near or far. Run the number and evaluate the risk and options.

Be open minded to outsourcing a lot more in your business than you have in the past.

I've done this a few times, outsourcing to a call centre in India. The main thing that I've determined (and that you should factor in) is that without proper direction, it won't be as efficient as you'd hope. After having failed twice to get an acceptable level of service from them, we decided it would be best to get our own man in there to drive them forward. His salary obviously had to be accounted for.

As long as the outsourced help follows my vision, does the work at a high level why not...it is a global business market!

As an independent contractor, my company's value is establishing relationships with clients. Just bringing a set of skills to the table is the easy part. Investing in the time to establish trust and offer guidance as most who hire me are entering an area where they need consulting.

Those who are independents are most likely to have walked in your shoes a decade or two and know the challenges ahead. Their focused expertise comes with a price, but they're in business to help.

I ran outsourcing for Verizon Wireless, so I have a great deal of experience working with outsourcers. I do believe an outsourcer can be a great way to build your business. It offers flexibility and will help you deal with market fluctations. It's vital to build a strong strategic partnership and have a solid plan for building and monitoring quality that is tied to the contract. Their performance will impact your brand.

Absolutely, there are so many things they could be better at than you. But just recognize that managing the outsourcer is a skill and commitment of it's own. I've seen it go wrong lots of times, and it almost always come down to the management and communication. Tie payments to deliverables.

There are 2 main reasons why a start-up shall consider outsourcing:

1) Costs.
At the beginning start-ups usually posess limited financial means, and are permanently in the proces of investment and crowd-funding. Outsourcing allows for a certain economy and, consequently, a possibility to spend the rest for the further development of your start-up

2) Expertise.
There are such situations when a start-up needs a certain type of exeprtise. When it's either difficult to find at the local market, or the expertise is needed for a short-term period, outsourcing can be an option.

No doubt, that you can find both positive and negative outsourcing examples in every business. Though the main thing here is to find the right balance between costs and expertise, so called, price-quality ratio.

Anyway, outsourcing is the option which definitely deserves to be considered.

See there is a no issue until and unless you have good service provider, who can deliver your project on time without compromising the quality, else you will loose the project and client as well.

I think that you have to think about outsourcing as you do not have all the knowledge and skills needed to handle things on your own. You understand your business model, but you do not understand all the compliance and regulation that is involved. Payroll seems to be the first item to outsource. Let the experts do what they do to simplify your processes and it allows you time and energy to devote to your business.

Outsourcing is not a "solution", it's a journey. As you start up a business, there are some things at which you are really good, other things less so and some things you just hate doing but know you have to do. That's where you start your journey. My recommendation is (perhaps surprisingly) is to take a free coursera online course run by Professor Ed Hess of Darden Business School (https://www.coursera.org/course/growtogreatness). Ed covers outsourcing in a start up and growth situation in a cogent way.