How Outsourcing Helps You Lower Operating Costs

Are you spending too much to grow your business? Do you need more people but can’t afford to hire them? With outsourcing, you can grow your business while saving money. Are you still tied to the traditional ways when it comes to staffing? That is, requiring your people to report to the office every day and do their work there.  One of our clients may make you change your mind about outsourcing.

However, this role requires far more than its title of ‘data entry’. The perfect data entry professional will have an excellent combination of skills and attitude to get the job done. When it comes to hiring a data entry professional, there are four essential qualifications to look out for. This particular client runs an innovative company in San Francisco. After experiencing exponential growth, they ran into challenges. The company needed more people to work in high-end engineering services. 

Those in charge of the company approached Cybalink with a request to guide them through the process. And our proposal involved outsourcing those roles to qualified people outside the company.  After finding highly-qualified candidates, the solution worked out so well that the client wanted more. The client ended up bringing 30 new people on board between August and October 2018. In doing so, the company maintained its capacity to support its fast growth.

Outsourcing is not only about lowering operating costs. It brings with it other benefits, too. It helps businesses gain the leverage needed to go after more revenue and profit. After all, it saves them time in the hiring process and a lot of effort and money in operating costs. You can enjoy many of the same benefits for your company if you outsource judiciously. It can even be the best solution in many situations. With that in mind, let’s go over some of the benefits right now.

Benefit #1 – No Need to Develop Your Infrastructure Further

With outsourcing, you can grow your business without making infrastructural changes. It’s because that task falls on your outsourcing partner. You don’t need to create additional workspace either. Nor do you have to spend money on optimising the workflow in your company. All of that money saved is money that you can invest in something else. New technology, for one. You can invest it in marketing to bring in more clients, for another. Or if it makes sense to you, you can hold on to more capital for when times get tough.

Benefit #2 – Better Presence and Delivery Worldwide

If you run an international company, outsourcing could be especially terrific. Having people to represent you in different time zones can help you to deliver better services. For example, you can assign a project with a 12-hour turnaround and go to bed without worries. By the time you wake up, one of your off-site collaborators may already be in the processing of wrapping up the work. On top of saving money for the cheaper labour, this allows you to boost profit in other ways. As an example, you may be able to take on more projects – including those previously unsuitable for time zone constraints.

Benefit #3 – Lower Training and Recruitment Costs

Training and recruitment costs affect operating margins. In most situations, you have no choice but to spend money on new recruits. You may also have to hire an HR company to find the right candidates. After that, you may have to invest in on-the-job training – you have to then get new hires accustomed to your unique system and methodology after all. So, how does outsourcing help you in this regard? It allows you to hire people who already know what they have to do. As a result, you can outsource certain tasks that may be taking up too much of your employees’ precious time.  It also saves you money by not having to pay highly-skilled individuals to do time-consuming work. At the same time, you may also be able to acquire the services of experts in your field for less. The way you save money varies from one situation to another. But the point is that outsourcing promises to lower your operational costs in more ways than one.

Benefit #4 – Lower Capital Requirement

Another thing you may not realise is the significant salary discrepancy from one country to another. This is particularly so for countries in the developed vs. the developing bloc. For example, countries such as India or the Philippines have massive populations, many of whom are adequate to highly-skilled. It’s very easy to find people to outsource work to. At the same time, the rates in these developing countries are affordable in comparison. Not to mention that you won’t have to supply the office space – or the equipment. As it often happens, your remote staff have their own offices. Many of them are also working from home these days. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved. You can also take on much larger projects if you have the capital. The operating cost savings allow you to invest in smarter, more profitable opportunities. Your company may no longer have to worry about meeting client demands. And you can have more money to work with and invest in premium materials.

Benefits #5 – You Can Ease on the Arrangements

For most companies, full-time employees represent a large portion of operational costs. You have to pay competitive salaries and benefits. This doesn’t happen with part-time candidates. It also doesn’t happen as much with short-term contractual work. You can outsource work to a staffing agency that, in turn, handles the issues of business cycles for you. It’s a great way to get top returns for your dollars without having to pay extra for benefits, paid leaves, insurance, etc.

Benefit #6 – Save Money on Key Roles

All companies must keep up with accounting. If you want to avoid fines and legal issues, you need to stay on top of your finances. In many situations, this type of work comes at a hefty price. Even smaller companies may have to keep a couple of bookkeepers and accountants on the payroll. Either that or you hire an accountancy firm that charges by the hour. The difference can be massive if you send the work offshore. And you still enjoy the same perks – bookkeeping, monthly reports, etc. – only with lower costs.

Benefit #7 – Off-Site Administrative Support

All companies, including those in construction and engineering, deal with administrative tasks. And in some cases, this can take up a lot of time and money. Although necessary, this work might pull your focus away from your clients. It can create significant pain for you and your clients. Outsourcing administrative support allows you to focus on your most pressing issues. It allows you to be there for your clients, all while your business runs smoothly in the background. As mentioned, it can also save you money in operating costs due to the cheaper workforce. Furthermore, it doesn’t interfere with your allocated time to bring your services in front of new prospects.

Outsource the Work You Don’t Have to Do to Focus on the Work You Must Do

Many roles in your company don’t have to get filled locally. The world is teeming with resources and opportunities for you to get the job done faster and more affordably. Look at outsourcing as the way of the future. Big companies have long used it to grow and sustain fast growth, and now outsourcing is just as accessible to smaller companies. It’s a way to achieve more with less capital. And it’s also one of the best ways to ensure that you can maximise your exposure and delivery timing with your clients. With outsourcing, your company can provide round-the-clock services. That’s even if you are to clock off, perhaps as usual, in the afternoon and not lift a finger until the next day. While you do need to have on-site personnel to deliver certain services, there are many roles that you don’t have to fill with local talent. Perhaps you’re convinced but you’re not sure about the best ways to go about it? Cybalink can help, and we specialise in remote staffing solutions in engineering and construction. Use our Wage Calculator to figure out how to proceed.

Find the best deals on local hires and off-site outsourcing opportunities.

 


Get in touch today to book a confidential call with our co-founders Kim Lombardi and John Rodgers.

 

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4 Essential Qualities of a Data Entry Professional

 

When it comes to hiring a data entry professional, you want to make sure you are getting a quality addition to your team.

This is why many businesses now look to outsourcing data processing roles. Because through outsourcing, they are able to take advantage of global talent to manage the increasing volume of data in their organisations and minimise overheads.

However, this role requires far more than its title of ‘data entry’. The perfect data entry professional will have an excellent combination of skills and attitude to get the job done. When it comes to hiring a data entry professional, there are four essential qualifications to look out for.

1. Knowledge of Basic Software Applications

A data entry operator must be well-versed with the necessary software applications including word processors, spreadsheets, databases, and CRM software. Familiarity across multiple applications and being confidently able to share data and information across these applications is vital for success in the role.

The ability to adapt and learn new applications and software is also recommended. For most specialists in this area, strong knowledge in a suite of applications will result in the ability to pick up new software. It’s important for you to gauge the technical abilities through the interviewing process to ensure your candidate is at a level that will suit your role and requirements.  

Keep in mind that accounting and payroll systems are common, but processes will vary for each organization. So be prepared for onboarding and specific training to cover how your business would like specific tasks to be completed.

Don’t be afraid to look for data entry professionals with specific industry training or education. This can be a skill or attribute that is “highly regarded” but is non-essential in the interviewing process.

2. Excellent Written and Verbal Skills

Being an exceptional data encoder involves strong skills in both written and verbal communication across internal and external departments. Accuracy and attention to detail is a vital element in ensuring data is correctly entered, transferred, or communicated.

When hiring a data entry professional globally, it’s important to do a basic communication test to ensure that your potential team member is at a level your team requires. This test could involve simple written and verbal tasks to be completed. For example, writing a short story, correcting grammatical errors on a document, or correctly naming and filing a document by following simple instructions.

Excellent communication also means observance of confidentiality. In fact, it’s not uncommon for clients to suggest a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) for team members in this role. A data encoder knows when and with whom to talk to about crucial information, so trust and secrecy are critical values in this type of work. Adhering to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) is imperative.

The right person for this role must also be confident in communicating with those he/she needs to in order to achieve their task. They need to be able to ask questions, suggest improvements in process and procedures, and be able to document these processes where required.  

3. High Typing Speed and Accuracy

To process volume of data, data entry professionals are typically fast typists and are familiar with shortcut keys for speedier data entry.

Speed tests are an additional test you could conduct when looking for a data operator.  The required speed depends on the nature of the business with a 30 – 40 words per minute (wpm) being the average acceptable speed.

However, data entry accuracy is as important as the typing speed. An 80-wpm speed is useless when the output is full of errors therefore attention to detail is an important attribute.

4. Has Exceptional Work Ethics

In most roles, skills can be taught, but attitude cannot be. The same goes for the data encoder you will be hiring. This person will need to be a personality fit for your team.

In order for you to match them, you will need to ask the situational questions that will help you determine if this candidate is a culture fit for your business. This will also help you gauge how they will handle specific scenarios. Some examples of questions you can ask include:

  • Tell me about a situation where you were faced with an overwhelming amount of tasks to complete.
  • What did you do to ensure that you completed the right tasks first?
  • If you found an error on a document that the CEO had sent you, how would you handle advising them of the error?
  • Give me an example of a time you improved a process to make it more efficient?

Apart from this, when hiring offshore team members, it’s important to have a communication plan in place. Your offshore team must be open to communicating with you, so you can be updated of any progress or issues that should be raised.

This is something an experienced outsourcing partner like Cybalink Solutions can guarantee you. We’ve nailed our process down pat so that clients can have peace of mind.

So if you have been thinking about hiring a Data Entry Professional, we can craft a solution just for you. With our years of experience and expertise, there’s no one remotely like us.

 

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