The true worth or monetary value of a brand has caused some confusion amongst business analysts the world over. However, the belief that outsourcing services can boost brand value is causing even more consternation. To fully understand both statements, it makes sense to look at how brand value has changed.
Introduction to the Benefits of Outsourcing Services
During the last couple of decades, businesses have undergone massive changes, largely due to having to adjust to ongoing technological advances. With the inception of the digital age, companies had to forego the traditional approach to doing business and adapt to a new norm. It affected every possible element pertaining to trade.
It’s not that the adjustment was the great concern, or obstruction, to how business might have been done in the past. It was, in fact, the absolute rapidity of new developments and technological advancements. The computer, as it might have been appreciated in the 1980’s, had been pumped with steroids and pushed into a tiny (and shiny) hand-held box with liquid crystal displays, able to play videos and emit sound.
While we can take a moment to understand the impact the mobile or cellular device had on the business world, spare a thought for the older generation of entrepreneurs and management, the movers and shakers of the non-digital world. They had to catch up to new trends while having to rewrite company gospels to try and cement the future existence of their companies.
This might sound a bit severe, but the idea that a company CEO could review performance statistics by means of cloud-based reporting and planning systems, while checking his e-mails and having lunch with his family, was completely unthought of. Granted, that is probably not the healthiest example of doing business!
As a consequence, the nature of business became a hurried thing. Technology had caused a haste to manifest itself on the reporting, planning, and execution of everyday business practices. It is no longer a question of who can make the best product, but more a question of who can make the best product and go to market the fastest. In the same vein, it’s not about who gives the best customer service. It’s about who can engage with customers the fastest and deliver customer satisfaction the fastest.
Along with technology, customers became wiser. They began spending money more wisely than before. They were suddenly able to research and compare every purchase within seconds, complain about poor service by simply posting it on social media, and assist with content creation by sharing their experiences of, or interaction with a brand.
And this brings us full circle to true brand value. It is no longer important how financially secure a company is in a globalized, yet volatile, economy. It is all about what they could offer that no one else could. So, in short, brand value became the sum of how much extra people would pay to engage with a brand, as opposed to dealing with the competitor.
If companies continue to give great brand experience, the customer satisfaction is bound to lead to customer retention, and customer retention leads to brand loyalty.
Seven Ways That Outsourcing Services Can Add Value to Your Growing Business
The above interpretation of technology’s impact on commerce could push some folks to the edge of panic. Even those who have adjusted to the digital age are often overwhelmed by the pace and the sheer bulk of modern business. It seems impossible to keep up with paperwork, reporting, planning, and expansion.
Therefore, the concept of outsourcing some services to professionals has become a favorable solution to getting to everything. Here are some examples of how outsourcing services can help you boost the value of your brand in a way that will grow your business.
1. Better Productivity at Low Costs
In short, outsourcing is the process of using third-party service providers to handle certain business functions. Initially, outsourcing was a very convenient solution to curb rising labor costs and satisfy the ever-expanding marketplace. Since then, the need for outsourcing has been adopted by many businesses.
When the delivery of goods and services become hindered by the company’s inability to tend to back office tasks, it is time to consider outsourcing. Some tasks are simply too costly, too complex, or too time-consuming to be done in-house.
Obtaining the services of a company that specializes in completing those tasks means that, besides cutting overhead costs, the workload is being streamlined, and more attention could be devoted to excelling the business and increasing trade.
2. Outsourcing Lets You Focus on Core Activities
If you are good at sales and marketing, then that is what you should focus on. If you or your company’s structure and performance become obstructed by internal paperwork and reporting, then find the right company and outsource these services to them.
Any business has an abundance of tasks at any given time. Some of these you might be good at and some of them you might be terrible at. The ones you are terrible at will rob you of your time and your productivity. Every minute you work on tasks outside of your skills set is time spent inefficiently.
It is estimated that core activities result in 80% of a company’s productivity. It will probably be more cost-effective to outsource everything but your core business processes.
3. The Best Customer Service
The costs and other demands of running a customer service department can be incredibly high. Besides the added labor costs, your operating hours will not cater to International clients unless you extend into overtime.
Outsourcing customer service, or even other back-office functions, removes some of the workloads from your operations, allowing you to concentrate on more critical aspects of the business.
4. Team of Professionals Will Handle Your Company Services
Companies delivering outsourcing services should have licenses or accreditation which enables them to perform the designated tasks or services. For you to have obtained these licenses would have been an unnecessary expense and additional time spent.
Moreover, outsourcing services to a company which is better at a task than yourself means you are technically tapping into their knowledge, experience, and resources. This makes business sense.
5. Run Your Business and Build Your Brand 24/7
Much as we don’t want to admit it, this is probably one of the essential benefits to outsourcing services. While you are at home, asleep in your bed, the business tools are not really in down mode. All the elements that have been outsourced continue to operate in your absence.
You might have locked up for the day, but that doesn’t mean your customer service, manufacturing, or bookkeeping and accounting services should also go into sleep mode. These services could fear to a company in a different time zone that is far better qualified and far better equipped than your company. In this way you can run your business 24/7.
6. Give Your Company a Competitive Edge
Logically, if you were to outsource marketing to the top marketing company, your accounting to the top accounting firm, manufacturing to the top factory, and your staffing work to the top HR company, then you are empowering your business with the competitive edge.
The services you outsource and to whom you outsource will give you a real competitive edge. Get those who are better at something than yourself on board and let them do what they do best. Strategic outsourcing allows you to manage your internal resources wisely.
7. Increase in Business and Sales
While the outsourcing of sales and marketing services is still a hot debate, it stands to reason that any form of unburdening of time-consuming, labor-intensive tasks will free up an organization’s internal resources to focus on the one thing which had caused their birth, and that is to make money, whether by delivering a service or manufacturing goods.
How Outsourcing Services Helps Build a Strong Brand
In keeping with the view that a brand is only as strong as the customer perceives it to be, outsourcing should enable your business to produce superior deliverables faster and to ensure that customers receive their goods/services within a short time-frame.
Do this long enough, and your satisfied customers will help you build your brand with return business, by sharing their experiences in user-generated content, or by doing reviews. A brand can’t claim superiority without a loyal customer base.
-Back Office Pro
