Outsourcing Might Not Be A Bad Idea. And I'm Not Touting!

First of all I have to apologise for having been off-line for so long. Sadly, I haven’t been having a wonderful vacation. We have painters in the house – and I know from bitter experience that I’m allergic to the chemicals in the paint. Whilst the ladders and the pots and the blokes with the radios have been working in the office and surrounding rooms the cat and I have been hibernating upstairs and in the garden. It saves on Kleenex, misery, and getting paint off a a long-haired black cat (don’t ask!) but it doesn’t help to get any work done. And yes! I do need a lap-top …

Ever since I started on this blog I’ve been preaching the virtues of self-sufficiency and DIY, but just recently I’ve had outsourcing and ‘virtual employees’ pushed under my nose so often that I think it’s worth talking about outsourcing because it seems that it could be such a time and money saver for the average small or medium sized businesses.

Practically every function can now be outsourced - and bearing in mind that people who are running their own outsourcing business have the expertise and the motivation and the attitude that one would expect from a person who is ‘in business’, outsourcing is surely worth looking at. Outsourcers expect to be paid, of course -but they don’t expect rewards or benefits packages, and if they don’t feel well I suspect that they tend do as I do (and as you you probably do yourself): get as much done as possible and then get back into bed as soon as possible afterwards.

In the past people tended to outsource just one or two functions – bookkeeping was a favourite, along with payroll, receptionists and personal assistants, but these days people seem to be going much further and ‘virtualising’ everything they possibly can. And that, of course, includes credit control.

According to the June issue of the ICM magazine: “Research indicates that organisations that outsource…achieve higher profitability than those do not”, primarily (but not solely) because they get access to higher levels of expertise that they would not be able to get in-house. And, of course, they reduce their overheads.

I haven’t done a lot of research, but I think The UK Association of Virtual Assistants might be a good place to at least begin do some investigation of your own. Ms. Curtis has a great deal to say - and for once it’s all worth reading. I was impressed.

Obviously outsourcers are not ‘one size fits all’ (or at least they shouldn’t be!) and the outsourcers you chose need to be flexible, and understand your organisation and your needs – and, of course, they need to be the answer to improving your results, reducing your outgoings, giving you more time to concentrate on building your business, and be good value for money.

By the way: Yes, we are credit management outsourcers - and no, we aren't the sort of outsourcers that can ‘virtualise’ your whole credit management function for you. We only do what we do - and you can see what we do on Our Website. Contact the The Institute of Credit Managment for more advice and information on full service credit mangement outsourcers.