Why Your Small Malaysian Business Should be Outsourcing its Services
Who handles your company’s accounting processes? How about all the creative stuff like content marketing and social media management?
As small business owners, it isn’t out of the ordinary to want to reduce costs and put matters into your own hands. After all, who better to handle your processes like HR, IT and admin than the people who know it best - your internal team?
But biting off more than you can chew is a guaranteed one-way trip to hitting a wall face first. At a certain point, the workload starts piling up to mountainous heights and you begin to wonder “You know, perhaps it might actually be more worth it to outsource this.”
In which case, continue reading as we cover the pros on business process outsourcing for small businesses!
Why should I be outsourcing my services?
1. More time to focus on the bigger picture.
Think big, work smart. Perhaps the #1 reason why most SME’s in Malaysia choose the outsourcing route is for the precious extra time to focus on core business functions. That means extra time that can be invested into actual revenue-making activities.
Once mundane routines such as finance & accounts, HR & Payroll and other admin duties are out of sight, more attention can be pivoted towards critical tasks such as growing the business.
Also taking into account the fact that many small business enlist specialized employees, only to burden them with the extra workload of monotonous duties to save on costs and manpower - Essentially, small business outsourcing ensures your employees can start doing more of what they're actually been hired to do.
2. Let the experts handle it.
Where you may lack the required expertise in accounting for example, you can be guaranteed that an outsourced accounting firm, can do the job for you in half the time and with twice the results.
In other words, say you run a small packaging supply business. You’re probably well-equipped on the sales and logistics end of things, but other tasks like building your online presence (website-building and maintenance, maintaining customer relations digitally etc. ) might not be an area you’re most comfortable with.
Maybe you’re willing to go the extra mile and actually learn whatever it is your business is lacking. While that’s all well and good, ask yourself if it’s even worth the effort. Do you really have the time to be learning a new skill and taking on more responsibilities?
3. Improved cost and time efficiency
Hiring and training new staff is time-consuming. Simply put, finding the right individual isn’t easy. Rather, why not hand the responsibilities over to outsourcing companies who are already experts in the field? That way, you can save on labour and even HR costs!
Better yet, if you decide to extend your small business outsourcing search to beyond borders, expect to see an even higher percentage in cost reduction by leveraging on cheaper labor in other countries.
4. Reap more than just what you pay for.
The benefits of offshore outsourcing for small businesses extend well beyond cost reduction alone. When employing in-house talent, business processes can be affected by factors like festive periods and sudden emergencies, especially during peak periods. (Hmm...MC again, Dave?)
But due to the remote quality of hiring an external company, not only can such factors be reduced, but you might even see the fruits of their labour faster considering the possible difference in time zones.
Additionally, your pool of talent isn’t limited to local waters alone. Dive a little deeper in and you’ll find that outsourcing enables you to have access to a much larger workforce, with highly varied skill sets at that too.
4 signs it's time for your small business to try outsourcing.
You’re not using your available resources to their fullest extent.
Recruitment and training costs bear no fruit.
The company shows little to no progression, with more emphasis on day-to-day tasks.
Employees are taking on multiple roles and multitasking. (Yes, yourself included!)
How should I go about outsourcing my services?
Time is a commodity. And though you definitely shouldn’t be outsourcing anything and everything, it makes a lot more sense to do what you do best and outsource the rest.
Mahzan Sulaiman can definitely help you with certain key functions, and never turns away from even the smallest of businesses whether local or not. If this article piqued your interest and you’re keen on finding out more, ask us about how our Global Services Outsourcing can help here!
