finance

The benefits of Outsourcing for Small Businesses

With summer approaching, and the likelihood that members of staff will be away throughout the holiday period, it is good to have all of your business matters in experienced hands during the summer months. On the other hand, your business may be growing rapidly or you may be looking to achieve long-term growth. In any of these situations, by taking on an outsourced consultant to work alongside managing directors or business owner across a range of disciplines, you can benefit from a professional, experienced and subjective viewpoint to help outline, implement and ensure the achievement of a wide range of strategies as part of your overall corporate goals. Running a successful business often results in owners or directors juggling the functional responsibilities of sales, marketing, accounting, manufacturing as well as the general management of the company; there are multiple tasks and priorities which you can outsource to strengthen your business and take the pressure away from the senior team.

Financial support at all levels

Of utmost importance to any business should be the numbers, from the basic tracking of expenditure and turnover, to the very top of the business structure with guidance in forecasting and planning the growth of the business. Bookkeepers and administrational support can be extremely costeffective and easy to source locally with many businesses only needing a few days a week. However, for the many SME’s growing rapidly and starting their journey with £1million plus turnover, there are multiple ways in which an outsourced Financial Director can ensure your growth, from structured guidance in determining corporate objectives, to collating financial strategies to departmental budgets and projecting the effects of these elements on the business goals. Whilst also being able to concentrate on managing your accountant’s work on adhering to audit and tax regulations, more importantly, an outsourced Financial Director would be able to report to the other members of the board, providing appropriate financial information, as well as liaising with stakeholders, shareholders and financial institutions. Furthermore, an outsourced Financial Director can also take the pressure off the general management, taking the influential leadership role in deciding salaries, setting employee targets, and communicating motivational bonuses with the aim of achieving ‘buy in’ and contributing to business growth as a result. Human Resources and Recruitment

In growing a business it is important to ensure you have the right people on board who believe in your goals and will help, not hinder, as intermediaries between you and your customers. Using recruitment agencies to hire your staff may be convenient but it can also prove an expensive option for growing SME’s. Across the North West there are a number of independent HR Consultants, and outsourcing someone to aid your human resources department means that they can work alongside other board or management members in the recruitment, selection, training, motivation and promotion of staff. When it comes to HR, whilst needing specialist skills, some tasks can also be very time consuming when done in-house, therefore by outsourcing to a professional HR Consultant, you can rest assured that responsibilities such as writing inspiring job descriptions to feature on recruitment sites and other sources, whilst cost-effectively promoting vacancies gets the recruitment process off to the best start. This continues with CV’s of potential employees being accurately reviewed to ensure they match the corporate goals and ideologies through to assisting with the interview process and paperwork and documentation for the new employee. The importance of employee retention to your business is incredibly high, so having a professional handling elements such as payroll, benefits, or even as a point of contact, can benefit businesses massively as it can often result in increasing the morale of employees, and therefore productivity rises significantly. Business development through marketing

Many businesses lack the time and resources to plan successful marketing strategies and furthermore to implement resulting activities, which is why outsourcing to a marketing consultant or agency can ensure the high level of work being done by your business is recognised and communicated to your target audience. Marketing consultancy can be the most impactful and result-generating outsourced resource due to the obvious (but not often tangible) return on investment. A good marketing consultant will help you to identify and reach your target audience and go on to implement a strategic and bespoke marketing plan to suit your business needs and budget, for example through PR, direct marketing campaigns, social media or other tools. Outsourcing your marketing means that your time and funds can be refined to the most effective areas in marketing for your business, and therefore raise your profile and awareness locally and nationally. In the first instance, having a good business advisor to hand can help you find the right expertise to help. Here at LWA, our philosophy is to go that extra mile to be more than just a firm of accountants – our business advisory and networked services experience has helped many clients to expand their enterprise using outsourced support to reach their goals.

Les Leavitt

Leavitt Walmsley Associates Chartered Certified Accountants www.lwaltd.com