The Business Bulletin
SME Survey Do you outsource services to support your business?
The intention of this survey was to find
capable of delivering the service they
out what services are outsourced by the
offer; more than likely doing it to a
businesses that undertook the survey
higher standard and more efficiently
(71 respondents) and if there were any
versus it being done in house.
services that people were considering
Get involved To take part in the next survey
Unsurprisingly, as can be seen
outsourcing in the future. Often the concern for most small business owners is the additional cost of outsourcing to a third party; particularly the case if you are new in business.
about business planning –
from figure 1, accounting was the
visit here: https://forms.gle/
service that was most outsourced by
V37arHdEuanLF5JB6. The
businesses; followed by website. 6
results will be shared in the next
people who responded to the survey
edition of this magazine.
didn’t outsource anything and 29 had no intention of outsourcing further.
However, engaging someone else, which in turn frees up your time to
Figure 2 represents the services
focus on what you are good at and
Encouragingly, the vast majority
that people are considering
redirect the time you get back to
outsourcing. In this case social media
undertake marketing* and increase
and marketing were the leading
sales to cover any additional costs,
using outsourcing as a strategy to support their business.
services as these didn’t feature
can be a significant benefit to any
of survey takers – at least 66.2% - are
It is definitely worth looking at those
significantly in what was currently
business. (*Something else that could
outsourced. Small businesses are
things you are not that good at, don’t
notoriously poor at marketing and
like doing or where you don’t have the
engaging on social media, so the
necessary competence or capacity and
and having the confidence that they
fact that this is being considered as
hand over to an expert!
will get done when, to an extent, they
something to hand over to someone
are out of your control. Again, most
who knows that they are doing, has to
reputable services will be more than
be a good thing!
be potentially outsourced!). The other barrier is releasing tasks
Accounts
Social media
Website
Marketing
Graphic design
Admin
IT
Bookkeeping
Bookkeeping
SEO
SEO
Accounts
Social media
Sales
Admin
Admin
HR
IT 0
10
20
30
40
50
Figure 1
46 | Issue 11 – Operations and Resources
0
5
10
15
20
Figure2
