If you’re considering outsourcing either a few tasks or a whole job position for your business, it can be confusing to decide whether or not it’s a good idea to do it in the first place.
If you’re not familiar with the term, outsourcing is the practice of hiring someone typically outside of your company to do a certain task or job.
Nowadays outsourcing has also been defined as hiring someone outside of your state or country, instead of just outside of your company.
As you’re currently deciding to do either, here are the pros and cons of outsourcing online:
𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐬
𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐭
Because of economic differences when it comes to hiring from different countries, it can be relatively cheaper to hire someone online.
An example we like to use to illustrate this is getting your teeth pulled in the US vs the Philippines.
In the US, the average cost of getting a tooth pulled is $200, while in the Philippines, it’s $20 or even less.
That in itself shows the difference in labor costs, material costs, and as well as rent costs for office spaces in the Philippines vs the US.
The lower cost of living means that you can hire someone at a relatively lower rate than in the US since they would be able to have a good level of income with a salary that would be a minimum wage in the US.
𝐋𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐭
As you would not need to get office space, equipment, internet connection, or have to pay electric bills, your overhead cost for outsourcing would essentially be tools you would use with your outsourced employee.
This would mean that you can invest those costs into different parts of your business, instead of having to spend it on the physical office.
𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐓𝐨 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭
When you’re hiring online, you have access to a more diverse pool of talent to hire from, since you’re not just hiring locally.
You’ll be able to get applicants and employees from different backgrounds, as well as be able to learn from the differences in training that they’ve received.
𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐟-𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝
Based on our experience, most employees who are outsourced are typically able to manage things on their own.
This is because as they are in a work from home setting, they would have developed the routine and habit to be able to handle things on their own.
They would learn how to be able to work on things without your supervision and to move things forward without your insight as they learn more and more about your business.
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝗪𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞
When outsourcing to another country with a different timezone as yours, you will start working with people who might be awake just as you’re about to end your day.
As they would be self-managed, they’re able to keep working even when you’re not available for them to be able to answer questions.
That means that as you wake up the next day, they’re able to handle things in your business as they should and move things forward.
𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝗪𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐈𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐓𝐨 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞
This is a pro that can also be a con (see below).
When it comes to outsourcing you will be dealing with a culture that would be different than yours, which would mean that you will also be able to get perspective from their culture that you might usually miss if you were hiring locally.
𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬
𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬
When working with another culture, there might be subtle cultural rules that you might miss that would help with the working relationship moving forward.
In the Philippines, it is actually rude when you don’t ask someone about how their family really is, versus how it can seem inappropriate when working with employees in the US.
You’ll also need to learn about their holidays and their own practices to be able to understand how they work in different ways.
𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐎𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲
This is a concern for some, where you will lose some confidentiality when working with someone online since you can’t control their equipment, who has access to it, and if it’s secure.
You’ll have to create backups and security measures to be able to make sure that you’re able to keep your data safe, including passwords or your own client’s data.
𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞
As they work from home, you do lose control of their work environment, their equipment, how they behave in certain situations, and as well as the resources that they might have at any given moment.
Another thing to note when outsourcing is you’ll have to check how often storms or natural calamities can happen to be able to be better prepared if your outsourced employee will have to be offline.
𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 & 𝐍𝐨 𝐈𝐧-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬
This is definitely one of the biggest cons that outsourcing would have, is not being able to clearly communicate if you’re not used to delegating tasks to people or giving them feedback.
You’ll have to work with them on building ways to effectively communicate to make sure that things get done as they should in your business.
Like anything else in life, there will always be a few pros and cons in anything that you dive into.
Let us know in the comments below about other pros and cons you might know when it comes to outsourcing or your own experience on any on the list.
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