Outsourcing Admin & Business Tasks Makes Sense

Administration is essential in whichever line of work you are in, but can detract from other aspects of your business often resulting in a decrease in productivity and profit.

Outsourcing your admin and other business tasks therefore makes good sense, especially to smaller companies or individuals that do not have a full-time need to employ someone, or who need a one-off more specialist task doing where it doesn’t warrant employing someone.

Admin can cover a wide range of activities such as, general typing, meeting bookings and diary management, to website, design work, marketing, sales, events and more.

Most admin tasks can be outsourced and delivered remotely, whilst other tasks are better undertaken on-site.

Basic Tasks

Basic tasks tend to be low risk, and examples include:

General typing, data entry, document formatting, proof-reading and copy production e.g. presentations, newsletters etc. Maintaining spreadsheets. Telephone answering, taking messages. Appointment booking.

More Specialised Tasks

Small businesses often outsource tasks requiring specialist skills because they don’t have the expertise employed or the time to learn how to do it themselves. Tasks such as Web research and data gathering. Web site updating. Event management. Marketing and Sales.

What are the steps?

By outsourcing tasks to a provider it gives the potential to add to and improve your business, its quality and efficiency. However at the same time there is the potential for a provider to cause damage to your business, so there is a need to gain trust and test reliability.

Companies often outsource in stages, testing a provider with basic tasks before inviting them to handle more sensitive data or demanding work.

Have a clear understanding of the business tasks that you need help with, and whether they should be undertaken remotely or on-site.

Interview the person who will provide your business with support, if you like them as a person, check out their references and seek recommendations from others.

Consider how you can try out your provider by selecting small simple tasks and requesting tasks in a controlled manner to minimise the risk to your business.

Once you are happy that your provider has the skills necessary, that they fit in with your business and are trustworthy / reliable, consider more complex jobs that they may be able to help with.