Outsourcing your work: options and choices

Outsourcing work can be a solution when there are staff shortages, rising costs, or work stress. A specialised party can often work faster and makes fewer mistakes. This allows you to focus on growing your business without worries. But which tasks do you outsource and what options do you have if you choose to do so? This article will help you make a choice.

Outsourcing payroll administration

Does your personnel administration take up a lot of your time, but do you not have the budget for an HR employee or do you not want to hire a permanent employee for this? Then it is smart to outsource your payroll administration. You have the following options:

• A payroll company offers a solution if you do not want to hire HR staff. A payroll company handles all personnel matters.
• HR software allows you to manage your personnel affairs more efficiently, which means you need fewer staff. With HR software, you automate salary payments or document requests, for example.

Outsourcing customer service

You can also outsource your customer service to a specialised company. Most customer service companies offer subscriptions. You then take out a subscription for a certain number of hours or calls. Consider the following when making your choice:

• The channels. Decide whether you want to be available via chat, phone, or email. Are you in doubt? Use customer research to find out which channels your target group needs.
• The availability. You can usually choose between customer service during office hours or 24 hours a day. Do you sell a product or service for which requests for help cannot wait? Then choose 24-hour customer service.
• The flexibility of the customer service company to switch to more or fewer hours when needed.
• The possibility of reporting and linking to your own systems. For example, a monthly or weekly report of the type of customer service messages helps you improve your product. Sometimes, it is possible to keep track of customer contact in a CRM system.

Outsourcing IT

If you want to outsource your IT management, you have many different options. You usually enter into a Service Level Agreement (SLA). This states exactly what you do and do not outsource to your chosen IT company. You can choose from:

• Outsourcing a specific process, such as the development, installation, or implementation of complex software. Consider, for example, a cloud solution, a system that multiple computers can work in.
• Outsourcing the monitoring of your systems, such as inventory systems, CRM systems, or invoicing systems. An IT business spots possible data leaks and hacks in time, protects you from cybercrime, and makes sure the systems keep working.
• IT support. In this case, your employees can contact the IT company for an agreed hourly rate with small problems, such as a laptop that won’t start up. This way, you do not spend time on it yourself and your employees stay more productive, because they do not have to look for solutions themselves.

Outsourcing finance

You can outsource various financial parts of your business:

• Your business administration. A bookkeeper will help you file your tax returns (on time), for example. If you do this too late, you risk a fine.
• Your debtor management. Are you losing money because invoices are paid (too) late or not at all? A debt collecting agency helps you collect those invoices, but also offers legal help if debtors refuse to pay, for example.
• Financial advice. Suppose you want to make a big investment, or you need help with retirement planning or asset management. A financial adviser will help you tackle this strategically.

Other forms of outsourcing

• You can outsource your production process abroad.
• A marketing agency helps you find and retain more customers.
• A legal adviser can help you draw up contracts and protect intellectual property, among other things.
• Do you want to expand abroad? A distributor or commercial agent helps you sell your products or services abroad.
• Want to import products from abroad? A forwarding agent will help you organise international transport and declare goods to the Customs Administration of the Netherlands.

Talk to a KVK adviser (088 585 2 222) about what work you can outsource and what would be a good choice for your business.

Is it important that the work is done by someone who knows what goes on in your business? Then hire an employee.