Should You Outsource Management?
Should you outsource management? Let’s take an in-depth look at the pros and cons of outsourcing one of your greatest and yet most complicated assets…management.
Key Takeaways:
The Pros Of Outsourcing Management
The Cons Of Outsourcing Management
Outsourcing vs. SmartSourcing
Why Businesses Outsource
How We Can Help
Why Outsourcing Management Is a Good Idea
In order to find a solution to the areas of your business process that you have identified as weaknesses, you must first do an in-depth and honest analysis of what you exist to create and why you endeavor to create it.
In other words, you and your team should focus on why you exist and what you exist for. Without being armed with this knowledge, it would be highly inadvisable and unwise for you to start outsourcing your assets, services, departments, logistics, and infrastructure.
Management is one of the essential elements of any business or organization, from private and government industries to professional sports teams and non-profits. Having the right people in these all-important positions can mean the difference between success and failure for your company.
4 Questions About Outsourcing Management
Let us face the reality that there are both good and bad supervisors, managers, and leaders.
Now that we have that ugly truth out of the way, we can discuss why outsourcing management can be a positive decision.
What Is a Manager’s Role?
They are ultimately responsible for both your success and failure of your business functions. The employees under them depend on their leadership and decision-making to shape and mold their journey towards successfully creating and completing the service or product they are hired to perform.
A good manager can take a motley crew of individuals and turn them into a high-performing team that would make any professional sports team envious.
On the other hand, a bad manager can take a well-groomed cohesive team and tear it apart like a wrench thrown by a monkey falling inside an engine.
Their failure of leadership can result in the following:
- high turnover rates
- Reduced quality of work
- Poor craftsmanship
- Low morale.
All of these negative consequences ultimately result in a reduced public perception and image of your company and increased costs incurred from employee recruitment and training, and product or service defects and shortcomings.
When Should You Outsource Management?
If poor management has been identified as a weakness inside your company, it may be time for you and your team to consider outsourcing that management area to another company. By partnering with a outsourcing service provider that has a proven success record in both execution and management, like Awesome CX, you can count on employee turnover mitigation and increased product and customer service quality.
It is imperative that your workforce keeps high morale and possesses a sense of pride for what they do. When your employees are happy with both their jobs and who they work for, they tend to remain in place, perform at a higher proficiency and efficacy, and contribute more to your company’s innovation and pursuit of excellence. Eliminating weak or ineffective managers through outsourcing is a quick and cost-saving way to reverse the negative effects on your employees, products, and services and give you a competitive advantage in your field.
What Are Good Reasons for Outsourcing Management?
Why you are choosing to outsource management dictates the various pros and cons associated with it. For instance, if you are outsourcing management due to an issue with poor leadership or work ethic, the pros and cons associated with that step differ vastly from those associated with outsourcing management for cost savings.
If your in-house managers exhibit poor leadership, the benefits of outsourcing management will be increased productivity and higher morale, but the cons will be reduced control over individuals placed in management positions, as well as employee complaints about advancement opportunity reduction.
However, if you are outsourcing management as a cost-saving measure, the cons will be employee resentment for a reduction of advancement opportunities and for devaluing their concerns. In management outsourcing, as well as in business process outsourcing, displaying an unappreciation for employees and their family's well-being is a crucial mistake to avoid. Successful outsourcing of your management team, however, does lead to reduced operating costs and higher opportunities for profitability. Therefore it is imperative that you identify business needs before you decide to outsource management, as the benefits may not outweigh the drawbacks in every case.
How Do You Outsource Management?
As you can see in the above examples, the cons to outsourcing management can range from mild to severe. If your employees believe that you value profits over their well-being, your company is likely to incur major reductions in company morale, increased turnover and attrition, and reduced quality control. Outsourcing management for cost savings alone may very well become the proverbial double-edged sword for your company and should only be done in the most extreme circumstances.
If you must, it would be wise and advisable that you diligently illustrate and express this concern and need to your staff to help them understand why sacrificing these positions is necessary for the greater good and survivability of the company. In doing this, you stand a chance to reverse the sentiment that you lack any care or concern for their well-being.
Outsourcing vs. SmartSourcing
In lieu of the great risks associated with outsourcing management, it is perhaps more necessary in this outsourcing endeavor than any other that you diligently pursue the decision from the perspective of SmartSourcing instead of Outsourcing.
What is SmartSourcing?
SmartSourcing utilizes a systematic approach to outsourcing that requires you to focus first on why your company was founded and developed, what you were founded to create and innovate, and how you want that product and innovation to impact the world around you.
Once this important step has been accomplished, you then begin the process of taking a difficult and deep look at what your company thrives at and what your company struggles at. Essentially you are identifying your core competencies, and where your business objectives would benefit from streamlining or outsourcinginitiatives. Then you determine what is important to retain full control over and what is not. The final step is deciding what the consequences, both positive and negative, of your decision will be.
Now that you have gathered and gained all of this information, you and your team will be well-armed and equipped with the knowledge and information you need to make an outsourcing decision, except for one key ingredient: wisdom. Wisdom is a constantly moving target, as you well know, and it is an important component of SmartSourcing.
How To Apply SmartSourcing to Your Business
You and your team must possess and exercise due diligence and wisdom when making a choice to outsource some or all of your management components. SmartSourcing is accomplished from the foundation and pursuit of amplifying your why, innovating your what, and enhancing your community and world. If you are contemplating outsourcing management, SmartSourcing is the only path we recommend you follow so that you can make every reasonable effort to mitigate any fallout or negative consequences that may come along with that decision.
Why Businesses Outsource
Some of the most prevalent reasons that businesses outsource include the following:
- Cost Savings
- Increased innovation
Cost Savings
The most reported reason why businesses outsource is cost savings. Outsourcing certain services and aspects of project management can result in significant cost reductions. Consequently, these cost savings can be then reallocated towards research and development, increased manufacturing cost control efficiency and methods, recruitment of new key employees, and increased benefits packages for current employees.
Increased Innovation
All of these positive outcomes result in the creation of space for innovation. As we just mentioned, SmartSourcing provides you the opportunity to amplify your why and innovate your what. This is the most significant positive impact that outsourcing can have on your business and its continued growth and help you remain on a consistent path towards greater success.
You know better than most that starting a business from the dream up, keeping it afloat, keeping it on the leading edge of innovation, and keeping it all together is no easy or inexpensive feat. Whenever certain aspects of your daily operations present challenges that have become too difficult to manage or mitigate, outsourcing offers a solution that can put you back on the road to excellence.
Why Outsourcing is Important
The most common response to issues inside a business is to reallocate existing assets and resources to solve the problem. This results in employees being overworked and stressed to the max. It also results in a metaphorical hemorrhage of cash assets and resources. This is why hanging on to these problems can result in reduced productivity and reduced innovation.
Subsequently, your employees will begin looking for work elsewhere, your customers will experience defective products or reduced services, and your management will be overburdened with problems beyond their ability to efficiently solve.
Perhaps, with all of this in mind, outsourcing management may not be the solution, but rather outsourcing the problem management is having difficulty with. Instead of outsourcing management of customer service, for instance, it would be wiser to outsource customer service and reallocate those managers to other areas of your company where they can be a significant resource. In other words, the problem you are facing may not be with the managers themselves but instead with the problem they have to manage.
How We Can Help
At Awesome CX, we specialize in partnering with you and your company and emulating your company culture and purpose. We make it our priority to be a part of your core purpose and mission and not separate or apart from it. One of the greatest concerns companies reports having with outsourcing involves the perception of losing control of the service or department outsourced, and those concerns and worries are not without merit.
That is why we make it our mission to ensure we mitigate this concern as much as possible so that you can have the peace of mind to choose to outsource an important area of your company. Choosing the right partner to outsource those concerns or needs with is paramount to ensuring success and cohesiveness. We take a team approach to tackling your weaknesses and transforming them into strengths, giving you and your team the space and resources it needs to amplify your why and transform your product and services.
Contact us to speak with our team about how we can help serve you, your company, your team, and your employees. We specialize in customer service and the customer experience with upfront and straightforward pricing without the hidden fees, dedicated-team resources for your company, and a diverse multi-talented team to deliver the service your customers demand and deserve.
Sources:
9 reasons good employees leave — and how to prevent it | CIO