Outsourcing has emerged as a viable way to reduce overheads without sacrificing the quality of service or the standards that have come to be expected of businesses, both by their client base and the organisation themselves. In fact, many businesses throughout the world have found out firsthand that not only does outsourcing work out cheaper, but it also enhances the standards of service they provide their client base with.
Why outsource?
The most prominent reason for outsourcing is to reduce overheads, but it has also come to light in recent times that outsourcing companies can, more often than not, also provide companies with a higher standard of service than what they’re able to achieve in-house.
Whilst traditionally outsourcing was feasible in a limited number of fields, most notably accounting and manufacturing, over the years more and more services have become available and nowadays practically any activity that can be performed in-house can be outsourced, and as mentioned above, often more cost-effectively and to higher standards.
Virtual services: Outsourcing at its most beneficial
The days of traditional offices are numbered it would seem, seeing that more and more businesses around the globe are reducing their dependence upon the traditional administration and receptionist setup and are opting to utilise the services of virtual assistants, or alternatively, companies providing virtual assistance services.
Reducing overheads is one of the most prominent reasons for this behaviour on the part of business entities because they are able to reduce costly overheads in a number of ways.
Firstly there’s no need to hire fulltime staff, and therefore pay fulltime benefits and salaries, secondly they can reduce the amount of office space they hire, further reducing their overheads, and thirdly, they can access administration and receptionist services that are overseen by a company that specialises in the provision of such services and therefore takes care of quality control, training and the infrastructure that makes such services possible in the first place.
What services are available?
As the scope of virtual services expands so too does the pool of services that businesses are able to access. The list of services has now expanded to the point in which listing all the services available would prove exhaustive, so here are a few that are commonly utilised by business entities.
– Admin and reception services including phone answering and mail forwarding
– Bookkeeping and accounting services
– Conference, meeting and travel arrangements
– Digital services including digital design and marketing
– Event planning and related promotional activities
Home based businesses, start-ups and virtual services
Some of the most prominent advocates of virtual services and their benefits are home based businesses and start-ups, businesses that are just establishing themselves and are looking at ways to keep their operational costs low until they are able to expand, though having said that, many start-ups continue to utilise virtual services after they have expanded their client base and have greater cash flow to work with.
Virtual offices are a prominent example of virtual services that are utilised by home based businesses and start-ups, for in addition to providing them with the services that they require, most notably admin and receptionist duties, as well as business support services, they’re also able to impart an image of professionalism to their client base by working from an MWB business centre with a prominent business address. This proves very advantageous for home based business and start-ups, for if they provide a residential address as their business address they’re liable to not be taken seriously, and there’s something inherently shady about PO boxes that most businesses understandably try to avoid.
