5 Outsourcing Trends Every Small Business Owner Should Consider

When we talk about outsourcing, we usually think of large corporations moving their operation to the cheapest possible places and we associate it with negative consequences for the economy.

But that’s not all that outsourcing means. Even small businesses can outsource.

If you’re a small business owner wondering whether to outsource your business or parts of it, you are not alone. Have you thought about which aspects of your business are the smartest to outsource? We’ll look at some reasons and the most popular tasks for outsourcing, so you can decide what fits your small business best.

Why Should I Outsource in the First Place?

You might be wondering if it makes sense for you to outsource at all. The answer is yes. In fact, it can make even more sense for small businesses to outsource than it does for large corporations, since you have fewer staff and resources for handling all aspects of your business.

Outsourcing means you can focus on what you do best – your core product or service – without having to worry about dedicating resources and manpower to areas where you have little expertise. This way, you save time and money and can concentrate on perfecting your product.

What are the easiest and most logical things to outsource? Here are five of the most popular outsourcing trends among small business owners.

1. Legal Requirements

As a small business owner, you have enough going through your head. Do you really want to worry about regulatory updates and legal issues that could get you into trouble? While big companies have a team of lawyers to handle issues such as paying benefits, employee discrimination laws or hiring practices, as a small business owner, you’re navigating these complicated matters on your own.

Outsourcing compliance with legal requirements, therefore, can make a lot of sense. Surety bonds are traditionally something small business owners have struggled to comprehend, even when they’re required for licensing. You can connect with a professional broker to take care of bonding requirements and make sure you’re compliant, but make sure you check out this detailed definition of what a surety bond is first.

2. Social Media Marketing

Marketing can never be a one-person operation, especially with the advance of social media, which puts even more expectations on small businesses.

Social media has grown into an important way for businesses of all sizes to get feedback and communicate with customers. Naturally, many small business owners can be reluctant to grant control of that to somebody else.

If you're outsourcing your social media marketing, it's important that you set out clear rules with your marketing agency about how they should respond to different situations. A skilled agency will also be able to contribute to your marketing efforts in other ways, such as growing your fan base or working with SEO and content marketing, something that will save you time for the tasks you do best.

3. Accounting and Bookkeeping

Accounting and bookkeeping are not only time-consuming, but also need to be done extremely well if you want to keep your small business out of trouble with the IRS. Rather than hiring several different people, you can outsource your daily bookkeeping, your payroll, your banking and tax accounting to a single financial services company.

If you keep your accounting and bookkeeping in-house, it's advisable to protect yourself from embezzlement by purchasing an employee dishonesty bond for the employees who handle money. Check out this comprehensive employee dishonesty bond guide to learn more.

4. IT Services

Most small businesses now have an online presence and offer some sort of online service or product. There’s lots of responsibility involved here, which requires top-notch expertise. Big businesses have a whole team of IT specialists to handle a wide variety of IT tasks and problems. As a small business owner, you can’t afford that.

While keeping an IT expert in-house might be sensible for when you need to fix something quickly, one or two employees will simply not have the time and expertise to handle complicated tasks. Outsourcing IT will give you access to multiple professionals with different areas of expertise that you can to address a wider array of tech issues your small business may face.

5. Human Resources

If you own a small business, you probably don’t do a lot of hiring. If you’re running your company well, you likely won’t have high turnover, so having an in-house recruitment specialist doesn’t make much sense.

Outsourcing recruitment to an agency that specializes in it can give you the peace of mind that your hiring competitions are run by people whose greatest expertise is finding the best matches for companies.

Small business owners often prefer doing the actual hiring themselves, but not everyone is good at evaluating candidates. A recruitment agency can also save you a ton of time by processing the necessary paperwork. It’s no coincidence that the HR outsourcing industry has enjoyed tremendous growth.

These are just a few examples of areas you can outsource. Depending the size and industry of your business, you may discover you want to outsource only some of these, or perhaps outsource tasks not mentioned here.

If you're not ready to give up control yet, consider hiring an outside consultant to help you set up the necessary infrastructure to complete some of these tasks in-house. Don't think of outsourcing as offshoring – think of it as choosing the right people to make your business run more efficiently.

Which aspects of your small business have you outsourced or would like to outsource? Share your experience in the comments below.