Coronavirus pandemic has turned into a global financial crisis resulting in worldwide economic disruptions and decline for the vast majority of companies. Due to lockdowns being declared in countries all over the world, people are confined to their homes and unable to commute to traditional work environments. While many companies cannot afford to shut down their business activities, employment from home of in-house personnel has become the new modus operandi.
Companies are quickly adapting to the new situation and learn to manage employees and tasks in arm’s length using tools such as: Zoom, Slack, Monday and Hubstaff. Such management style, may have posed a psychological barrier in the past for companies who have considered it. The greatest concern was the extent of control, or lack of control, over their operations. However, now that such conditions are imposed on companies, remote work has become the standard, and for many, discovered as an effective one.
Such time is ideal for executives to rethink their business models and explore different methods to conduct their business activities. Some exploit this time and explore outsourcing opportunities to further enhance their companies’ flexibility, dependability and cost structures.
There are many benefits in outsourcing, here are few primary reasons for outsourcing during Coronavirus:
- Cost: outsourcing various positions to countries such as the Philippines will reduce labour cost considerably as well as eliminate further significant costs such as: social benefits, hiring and training of employees, equipment and office space.
- Focus: outsourcing non-strategical business activities allows your business to focus on its core value and allocate most of its resources, and specifically management focus, on it.
- Flexibility: initiation of new projects, onboarding of new clients and achievement of sustainable growth will become easier and faster as outsource providers enable greater scalability than in-house teams and can satisfy any increase or decline in demand better and faster.
Having considered few of the reasons for outsourcing during Coronavirus, executives may want to rethink what positions are better off outsourced than being kept in-house. Few positions/tasks to consider are:
- Customer Service
- Technical Support
- Customer Success
- Account Management
- Sales
- Appointment Sitting
- Virtual Assistance
- Accounting
- Graphic Design
- HR Management
- QA.
The next step is to formulate an agile action plan, its not an all or nothing decision, a company can outsource one position in its Customer Service Department as a trial and gradually expand based on performance. Once an action plan is formulated, reach out to professional outsource providers and initiate a trial with your chosen one. Few parameters you may want to consider in choosing your supplier are:
- In depth understanding of your line of business
- Experience
- Price
- References
- Capacity
- Ease of communication.
Don’t succumb to the coronavirus pandemic, take control of the situation and make the most out of it. This way, you can turn a business downturn to a competitive advantage. Outsourcing is never an easy decision, but it could be your best decision during this challenging time.
