Is anywhere operations blurring the line between staff and outsourced services?

How your company can take advantage of this digital shift.

The unprecedented rise in remote work and the exponential expansion of the gig economy create unique opportunities for businesses to streamline operations and create efficiencies. Globe Newswire projects that the lU.S. market for IT outsourcing alone will exceed $425 billion by 2025, as companies create and refine digital protocols that require them to leverage sophisticated IT offerings from trusted partners.

These solutions will facilitate the management of the remote and temporary workforce. Remote work works. According to Upwork, 41% of Americans still worked full-time from home a year into the pandemic, and another 18% had a hybrid role with some time on-site.?

The scale of this shift may inspire you to put your external resources to the test by delegating more complex processes and services. Consider these factors when hiring staff or relying on a freelance team for a project or operational need.?

Benefits of outsourcing

When outsourcing aspects of your business operations, start by identifying the reasons for shifting to third-party services. The most common objectives for outsourcing include reallocating the use of internal staff and resources, allowing the internal team to focus on the core mission and vision, realizing tax advantages, increasing efficiency and productivity, establishing, or maintaining agility, scaling to reach new customer bases or geographic areas, accessing the expertise of global contributors, and lowering staffing and operational costs.?

Experienced vendors provide access to a diverse, talented skillset without the fixed overhead associated with having professionals on staff at a comparable level. These teams typically invest in state-of-the-art technology and carefully refine their operational processes, bringing these invaluable resources to your business for the cost of engagement.

Outsourcing enhances the agility of your business by facilitating a flexible structure. When you develop trusted partnerships with quality vendors and professionals, you can quickly introduce innovative service areas, products, promotions, and offerings without the overhead associated with adding an internal department for each new initiative.

Accessing a vast network of freelance experts through outsourcing gives your company an edge in the modern competitive landscape. When it comes time to onboard full-time staff, you'll be able to attract talented candidates with your innovative approach to the office space.

Besides the staff-related cost savings from outsourcing, you can also save time with automation when working with vendors who focus on specialized tasks. Examples include project management, invoice payment, and quality control.

If you're not sure where to start the digital shift, ripe areas for outsourcing include:

• Call center operations to expand access to service providers who speak multiple languages and have varying levels of expertise depending on the needs of your client base. You can also affordably introduce new customer service channels such as live chat and email without investing in employees to staff these avenues of contact.
• Information technology supported by domestic and global help desk teams. Often, you can dramatically reduce your IT budget with a pay-per-ticket arrangement that improves service with access to specialized expertise.?
• Accounting services, potentially improving precision while freeing leadership resources to focus on other operational areas. A professional accounting service can also advise reducing tax liability, taking advantage of economies of scale, and improving company profits.

Key strategies for digital transformation

When you decide to go digital with your workspace, you create the flexibility to have a hybrid team of on-site and remote workers, including company employees, freelancers, temps, and vendors, as needed. Investing in tech tools to create a smooth, intuitive user experience will improve your company's chance of success in the virtual realm. Examples include real-time chat, seamless and secure file-sharing, self-service tools, social media, and mobile apps.

Consider customer experience

For best results in this realm, consider the three most important facets of online customer experience, as identified by McKinsey. To drive efficiency, develop your digital workspace with these attributes at the forefront:

• Flexibility and speed, including fast connection and data processing, responsive systems, and access to immediate tech support when needed
• Transparency and reliability, which require open lines of an honest omnidirectional communication
• Care in interactions, prioritizing clear, simple messaging, individualized attention, competent mentorship, and an empathetic approach

Drive engagement with digital events

Many C-suite leaders report resisting digital transformation because they believe success necessitates in-person meetings. Work-life during the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the large and small efficacy of digital events in driving engagement among audiences and employees. These interactive experiences improve connections and build a foundation for lasting relationships with staff, remote workers, and external service providers.?

Start slowly, then scale

Another common barrier to the digital shift is the work and cost associated with a large-scale digital transformation. Instead, your organization can take an iterative approach by outsourcing one small aspect of your operations to a remote team. Carefully monitor each initiative to gather the intelligence to inform the next steps of the company's virtual evolution.

Maintain a focus on vision

To optimize the impact of outsourcing, plan to reinvest the money your company saves on your priority initiatives. Ideally, these priorities should be mission-critical undertakings where a cash infusion can make a tangible difference.?

Finally, remember the reasons for outsourcing you identified during the planning process. Returning to these underlying goals and reviewing key metrics can help your team understand whether the outsourcing efforts have succeeded.