Scaling a Business Archives | Cosmic Development

Everything You Need to Know About Outsourcing IT Services and Hiring a Dedicated Team for Your Business

Viktorija Nikoloska — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:28:12 +0000

by Viktorija Nikoloska

Websites and online forums thrive with numerous opinions on when is the perfect timing for a company to begin outsourcing IT services. If you are considering this option, you probably started an online search for the pros and cons of outsourcing. If that’s what brought you here, you are in the right place. Get ready to get inside information from a company offering outsourcing services for more than 10 years. Read our hands-on experience in addition to an ebook that will guide you on how to get started.

We are a Canadian IT company specializing in providing IT solutions and staff augmentation to other brands, and we discovered the numerous advantages of outsourcing IT services a long time ago. In this article, we’d like to share our practices to help you decide if outsourcing is the right choice for your organization.

First, let’s elaborate on the questions that probably started spinning around in your head from the moment when you began thinking about outsourcing. “Is it safe?”, “Why do companies use outsourcing?” or “Will outsourcing make you more good or harm?”. To help you clarify your ideas and thoughts on outsourcing, we decided to provide you with answers to the questions most often asked. Here we cover some of the fundamental questions that many ask before outsourcing IT services.

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1. Should I outsource core competencies?

Core competencies are the company’s capabilities that distinguish a firm from its competitors. They help define the strategic advantages of the business and build the foundation of the company’s competitiveness. Furthermore, core competencies guide the brand reputation alongside enabling business growth and developing its marketing strategy. Failing to define and nurture the business’ core competencies will lose the battle against your competition.

Therefore, you should start outsourcing with side competencies first. After the side competencies are covered well, you can gradually continue with outsourcing core competencies.

2. Do I have available in-house employees with the needed skills that can get this done?

Another question that you are probably asking yourself when considering outsourcing is whether you have in-house talented people who can get the tasks done. For instance, if the job assignment requires devoting a few hours to it, you can probably ask someone from inside your company to get it done. However, you cannot simply ask a coworker for a favor when it comes to more complex tasks or requirements.

In-house skills are enough when the working task is for internal use within the company. If you need someone who is highly professional in their field of expertise and can complete complex assignments, you will have to outsource the talent you want from another company.

3. Do I need to outsource now?

Recognizing the need for outsourcing services from another company is a crucial factor in building a successful business. When hiring in-house, you need to go through an entire recruitment process, proving to be a distraction from focusing on your core competencies. Outsourcing is a procedure that will take less time and effort than the process of hiring and training.

So, what you need to do here is make a list of your company’s priorities at the moment and decide whether you have the time for distractions or not. If the answer is no, you are one step from turning to outsourcing.

4. Will outsourcing save me money?

We will go straight forward here and answer directly: Yes, outsourcing can save you a lot of money and help you cut costs. However, the exact amount of money saved depends on how much work you need to be done and to whom you will choose to outsource. Moreover, the money-saving process may also vary based on the country where you wish to hire employees.

For instance, there is a vast difference between hiring someone from Northern America, Australia, or Western Europe than employing people from developing countries. To be more specific, outsourcing with IT companies with talent based in Serbia and Macedonia will help you save from 35 to 45 percent of your operating costs while boosting your productivity.

Asia and Latin America might be competitors when it comes to price, but there are more advantages for outsourcing from Eastern European countries. This could be a better choice because we compete with excellent work ethic, better education, great quality service, and incredible value. And when it comes to outsourcing technology and IT services, you need to discover our Top 5 Reasons for IT Outsourcing to Serbia and Macedonia.

5. Why Do Businesses Use Outsourcing?

The main reason for outsourcing is profitability. Hiring an in-house development team in the USA, Canada, Australia, or Western European countries may cost a fortune. Outsourcing to developing countries such as Macedonia and Serbia will not only save you money, but it will make you more proficient and competitive in your industry.

Our 10-year experience has shown that outsourcing IT services to Eastern European countries may get you the same or even better quality and value. Excellent work ethic, hard work, integrity, and responsibility are only some of the main attributes in our collaborations with Eastern European coworkers. A great example of this is the impeccable collaboration between Rumble’s employees from Canada, Macedonia, and Serbia. Read more about the dedicated team and their success story on the following link.

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Basic Benefits of Outsourcing IT services

There are numerous reasons why you should begin outsourcing IT services today. Companies use outsourcing to cut costs, save on resources, operations, and increase the company revenue without hiring more employees. We have already covered the basic benefits of outsourcing in this blog post. As there are numerous reasons why you should begin outsourcing tech today, here is a summary of what is discussed in our ebook:

Obtaining a high-quality product for a lower price
Saving time by avoiding to figure everything out by yourself
Finding employees that are valuable, trustworthy, and dedicated to growing your business

Outsourcing will not only help you save money and time, but it will also aid you with cutting down the exact amount of expenses on the needed resources. Alongside the overall cost-saving process, companies may also save on salaries, employee benefits, and training costs. Furthermore, outsourcing may prove helpful in terms of company rearrangements by adjusting the business model. Hiring different talents and experts from various industries on a global level might help you bring freshness to the current team and provide new perspectives for the company itself.

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Hire a Dedicated Team for Your Brand

When hiring a remote team, note that the process may vary from one software house to another. Therefore, we offer you our simplified approach in five easy-to-use steps:

State your preference in terms of needs, timespan, and budget
Search along with initial selection (pre-vetting)
Decide who will be invited for a final evaluation
Pick the right fit
Sign one simple agreement and get started

Discover the three stages for finding a reliable software house and our five simple steps for hiring a dedicated team for your brand by downloading our ebook.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Outsourcing IT Services and Hiring a Dedicated Team for Your Business appeared first on Cosmic Development.

How to Scale a Business?

Ana Ćakić — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 12:38:45 +0000

Business scaling is a step that companies take when they want to grow their business to the next level. Companies can scale their businesses as soon as they feel ready for the process of growth. At first, companies that prepare for scaling of their business must develop an idea. After that, they need to build a team that will help in the realization of that idea. Next, they will create a product that is fit for the market and sell the idea to potential customers. In other words, the only thing that companies need to focus on is how to scale a business fast and expand it easily.

Did you Know:

What Scaling a Company Means?

“Scaling a company” means “to grow or expand” a business “in a proportional and usually profitable way,” as defined in Merriam Webster. A business scaling is possible when the company can cope with an increased amount of work while at the same time can maintain or increase its efficiency. Therefore, entrepreneurs may help their businesses scale by increasing both their workload and their efficiency at the same time.

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Before companies decide to scale a business, they must be sure that they have already found a strategy that works for them, without the need for experimenting with new ideas. Having done that, businesses can repeat the idea in an effective manner and as many times as possible.

The company’s main focus when scaling a business is about the customer’s needs. Moreover, companies need to also pay attention to the speed of the customer’s adaptation to the product. This will help them prevent their competition from attracting potential customers.

Read below about the seven best practices on how to scale a business that will help with the strategy for achieving the company’s growth goal.

How to Scale a Business?

Direct the Focus on What is Important

Perspective is everything when you are scaling a business for success! Most struggling entrepreneurs fail in this area because they’re focused on the wrong things. Companies need to look beyond daily tasks and projects on their to-do lists. Instead, they should evaluate their next move, evolve and take it to the next level.
Companies must analyze whether their businesses are ready for growth. If they focus on the essential details, they will know the current and the desired position of their business on the market. However, companies will definitely stagnate if they fail to focus on critical activities that will help their businesses move forward strategically.
To scale a business, companies must determine what they need to increase their sales. They need to think of which technologies and systems they will use, or how many people to employ.

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Identify the Core Strengths of the Business

Another step of the business scaling strategy is to discover what a company does best in its niche and what sets it apart from the competition. Entrepreneurs need to identify the core strengths of their business to compete for clients effectively.
Moreover, companies must analyze the business environment and compare their business scaling strategy with the ones of their competitors. They need to create the most appropriate strategy for placing their company at the top, among other similar companies.
Therefore, a business must first identify what is best done within the company and how the competition may be surpassed. This is usually done by creating a SWOT analysis of the company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Once companies complete their specific SWOT analysis, they will be able to identify the core strengths of their business.

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Develop a Network of Connections and Focus on Using Various Marketing Channels

Developing a network of connections and key relationships is crucial when the company is prepared to scale a business and focus on long-term growth. Business scaling is achievable through both building new connections and fostering the already existing ones. Business owners need to also build stronger relationships with their employees and make new connections with other companies as well.
Companies need to focus more on marketing and indirect channels. Having a good social media marketing strategy is the key to success for building a network of connections online, especially through social media such as: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and even Instagram.
When scaling a business model, entrepreneurs should learn how to generate more leads by discovering what their competitors are advertising on television or online.

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Gather Money and Secure the Sales

When scaling a business, companies are faced with a lot of expenses. One of the most common costs happens when the business scaling strategy requires the hiring of new employees. Increasing the staff implies new expenses and new salaries that the company must pay to realize the scaling procedure.
To gather money, companies need to use certain techniques such as bootstrapping – starting up an enterprise with minimal financial resources. However, this technique is not enough because it takes a lot of time until it gets the wanted results. There are small business contests that grant cash prizes to companies who choose to participate in the contest. Another way to gather money for the business scaling strategy is through getting loans or credits from banks or other financial institutions. Gathering the needed money will help companies secure their sales and achieve their business’ growth.

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Invest in IT Support Systems and Technology

When scaling a business, entrepreneurs need to find a way to automate the process. Investing in technology makes the business scaling strategy easier. A wise investment in IT support systems may result in fewer expenses. Automation of the scaling procedure and investing in a dozen of IT support systems may minimize the manual work, thus lowering the costs of running the company. Alongside the growth of a company, the IT support systems must also grow, so that potential communication and management problems are avoided.
Companies can save resources and time by evaluating their new products on the market by using marketing automation, sales management, human resources (HR), accounting, and other technology systems. They can also set up cloud storage, organize training procedures for new hires, invest in payroll for rapid processing, etc. Companies are recommended to begin early with this practice to see their businesses scale faster.

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Deal with Hold-Ups

As the company grows while scaling a business, entrepreneurs may face a time when things will not be running smoothly or when they may be delayed. In such a situation, companies will have to come up with back-up solutions to support growth and keep operations running well.
The hold-ups may show up in different ways. A hold-up may occur when there is only one person available to complete a task, when tasks are inaccurately delegated to team members, or when team members cannot operate without talking to the business owner. Moreover, hold-ups can happen when failing to bill enough for active work, failing to offer leveraged and passive contributions that do not require much time, lacking systems and process management, and having the need to check and double-check every task. Knowing how to face such hold-ups will help you with the business scaling procedure.

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Find the Most Qualified Staff or Choose to Outsource

The final practice of scaling a business requires companies to hire the most qualified people internally or from a remote location. Companies must have staff in various departments so that their business scaling strategy marks a success. Therefore, they need to have enough customer service staff, employees for manufacturing, inventory, and delivery of the products or services, as well as managers that will supervise each department.
When employers cannot hire staff internally, they can choose to outsource and relocate certain business functions and processes to a service provider that is in a remote location. Hiring staff from another location is better for a business scaling strategy, especially when trying to minimize the company’s time and resources. A third-party service provider may help the business scale better, in a more rapid manner and less expensive.

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These seven practices for scaling a business are important for the growth of a business. Tell us how many of these scaling practices you implement in your company?

Sources:

score.org/blog/how-scale-business

medium.com/to-the-power-of-ai/the-best-way-to-scale-a-business-is-to-unify-it-first-f0b947ba6f10

medium.com/brands-that-matter/7-ways-to-rapidly-scale-a-social-business-a4511ea96e86

themuse.com/advice/5-strategies-thatll-turn-your-motley-band-of-connections-into-a-real-useful-network

entrepreneurship.org/learning-paths/scaling-your-company/starting-to-scale

forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2013/11/20/5-steps-to-scale-your-business-you-wont-make-it-otherwise/#755719f812cf

forbes.com/sites/martinzwilling/2013/09/06/10-tips-for-building-the-most-scalable-startup/#6f52a6e15f28

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