What does it take to stay in business? Quite a lot, it turns out. Your company might earn its money by manufacturing widgets, but somewhere along the way, it also has to track finances, pay employees, manage a workforce, plan for and maintain business technology, and take care of its physical space.
“You’ve got to have them all,” says Kirk Hoaglund, CEO of Minneapolis-based information technology (IT) firm Clientek, Inc. “And they are as key to the success of your company as the thing that you do well. The only problem is that almost by definition, you are not good at any of those things. And you wouldn’t care to be anyway.”
Small and midsize companies like to focus on their core competencies. It’s only natural; people want to do what they’re good at. It’s what they enjoy most, and the very reason they started the company. So instead of feeling guilty about a half-baked HR or IT effort, perhaps they should farm out some of their non-core activities to people who are, you know, actually good at them.
We have the buying power of a Fortune 500 company because we are bringing such large groups to the table.
“If you think about the kinds of functions you are most likely to outsource, they are those functions that aren’t a part of your key value propositions to your clients,” Hoaglund continues. “If you sell stuffed animals, you’ll keep in-house all the elements that lead to a quality stuffed animal getting sold to your client. For everything else, get professionals who know what they are doing, are good at it, and who are absolutely accountable for what they do.”
An excellent idea. But how does it stack up in practice? Here, professionals in four different disciplines explain how outsourcing to experts in their industries can help.
