Outsourcing Vs. Partnership (Contracting)

As your company begins to grow, you are going to find a need to hire more employees to cover the day-to-day tasks. The problem is, hiring employees can be expensive and time-consuming, and sometimes you only need them for a short time for specialized tasks or short-term projects that won’t continue for more than a week or a few months. How do you expertly complete these tasks without impacting your bottom line or hiring short-term employees?

Outsourcing and contracting with groups outside your company is the best option to tackle these tasks while allowing your current staff to focus on what they do best. This will enable the job to get done without the added stresses of hiring a new employee or pulling current employees away from their primary tasks to cover a specialized project.

What’s The Difference Between Outsourcing and Contracting?

Outsourcing and contracting are alike in a lot of ways as they essentially serve the same purpose. Both involve an outside company handling tasks associated with a company’s needs. Although they serve the same purpose, both practices are vastly different and impact businesses in different ways. Here are a few differences to consider when thinking about outsourcing or contracting out work for your business.

Outsourcing:

• Gives Tasks to Outside Company: It can be a very efficient practice to send off some of the work associated with the continued operation of your company to an outside company. This will free up your employees to work on their normal daily activities while being more productive.
• Can Be Done In-House: With outsourcing, the tasks can generally be done in-house. The company is sending out the tasks to be completed by a third party as it will save them a substantial amount of money while allowing the in-house employees to handle other tasks that are better suited for their talents and the daily needs of the company.
• Reduces Costs: The primary reason for outsourcing is that it will save the company a lot of money. Typically, the people you outsource tasks to will charge by the task, not the hour. So, if something comes up within their schedule you don’t have to pay for email or phone call time.
• Allows Company to Focus on Core Tasks: Outsourcing a responsibility usually means that task needs to be done on a regular schedule. Alleviating that repetitive process allow your current employees to focus on the things that grow your business or make your clients happy.

Contracting:

• Gives Tasks to Outside Company: Just like with outsourcing, contracting is the practice of assigning tasks to a third-party company to handle so that your current employees do not have to nor do you have to hire a new employee to take care of those tasks.
• Specialized and Cannot Be Done In-House: The greatest difference between outsourcing and contracting is that the tasks are more specialized and cannot reasonably be done in-house. For example, if you need a whole business management team to help your business function better, it might be better to contract with a consultancy group rather than outsource each responsibility.
• Reduces Costs: Just like with outsourcing, the cost reduction is very appealing. Avoiding the need to buy new equipment and hire full-time specialists helps a company avoid many costs associated with running their business.
• Partnership Approach: With contracting, success for their clients means success for them. Therefore, contractors are more likely to become a guide in their specific area and teach their clients about what they do, rather with outsourcing, there’s not a ton of learning opportunities.

Why Contracting is the Way to Go

While outsourcing and contracting are very similar, our perception is that contracting is the better route. It gives your company greater control over the main processes of the company and only sends out the specialized tasks to a different company.

Contract Your Work Today

As your company grows, it is vital to ensure all the tasks involved are professionally and efficiently executed to keep costs down and profit high. That is why contracting out specialized tasks is an incredibly important task that you should consider participating in.

Don’t hold your company back. Consider contracting out specialized tasks so that your employees can do what they do best and your company can thrive.