Knowing When to Outsource
© 2000, Rutherford Publishing, Inc.
Reprinted with permission from Tyme Management™

Outsourcing can be a strategic tool for making your business more productive and profitable - if you know when to take advantage of it. Consider the following criteria when deciding whether to outsource:

• The activity isn't central to generating profits or competitive success.
• The job is a routine one that wastes valuable time and energy.
• The task is a need that's only temporary or that recurs in cycles.
• It's less expensive to have someone else do it than to do it in-house.
• The activity can be done cheaper in-house, but drains resources that could be better used elsewhere.
• The skill required is so specialized that it's impractical to have a regular employee do it.
• The activity isn't one that people enjoy doing.

Outsourcing is a viable option for everything from payroll, accounting, manufacturing and delivery to customer service, employee training, property management and computer services. The key advantage of outsourcing is that it enables you to invest your resources into more profitable activities. Companies, however, should be careful not to outsource functions that appear negligible, but that are actually essential, such as customer service operations in a small business that relies on building rapport with a loyal customer base.

"When considering IT purchases, small businesses are concerned with how technology will keep them competitive and cut overall expenses, and how well it will be serviced and supported by vendors," said Doug Gold, vice president, content development and educational programs/COMDEX. "It's important for IT vendors to realize that small businesses need reliable products and long-term vendor support."

For years we had an old DOS version of FilePro that we used for all our billing and contact information.  Saunders Business Solutions helped us move all our information into a contact management program called ProTracker. They created an additional module in Microsoft Access that uses the ProTracker information to manage our billing and portfolios.  We can even download our stock prices from the Internet and update the portfolios.  It used to take us three days to do our billings, now it only takes a few hours.  It only takes a few minutes to update the portfolios.  I highly recommend Saunders Business Solutions.

Donna Minshew, CFP
President
Wesban Financial Consultants, P.C.

Cobb Theatres was the largest theatre chain in the state if Florida until we sold the chain to Regal Cinemas in 1997.  We have started Cobb Theatres again as of May 25^th 2001 .  Saunders Business Solutions has developed and is maintaining our web site at www.cobbtheatres.com and we are very pleased with the site and activity level.

Bobby Cobb
President
Cobb Theatres

We have used Saunders Business Solutions for our GoldMine support since 1997 and have been very pleased with their performance.  They have always been quick to respond to our needs and we highly recommend Saunders for your GoldMine support.

Doug Eddleman
President
Eddleman Properties

We have had some rather unique billing and client record information that we have had to move from an IBM system to a PC environment.  Saunders Business Solutions was able to write a couple of programs and convert the information for use in those programs. They wrote the programs in Microsoft Access and we have been very satisfied with the performance of the programs.

John Donaldson
VP Group Sales
Hilb Rogal and Hamilton Co of Alabama