Growth Phases and Outsourcing: 4 Tips You Need To Know
Written by Nicholas Hastings, CEO and Founder
Any significant phase of growth within your business should always warrant celebration. It shows that the customers appreciate your work and want to reward you with their patronage. Remember, though, that with growth comes growing pains. I’ve witnessed many Australian enterprises fail to adequately cope with the ramifications of their success, especially if they realise it quickly. The result is under-resourced core staff and revenue left on the table. Balance is the key to scalability, and an optimal team balance incorporates expert offshore personnel.
Having partnered with businesses across all sectors, from hospitality to construction and beyond, the hammerjack team have seen what makes for efficient and effective business growth. This experience allows us to identify the shortfalls exposed by this acceleration, resourcing our partners with the staff to manage increased workloads without blowing costs.
Growth isn’t without its risk. Too much, too soon, and it could all come undone quickly. So, if you wish to help the business maximise this phase without growing beyond its means – then it’s time to pay attention.
Tip #1 – Spend In A Targeted Way
It’s a scenario seen all too often. A business witnesses a level of success (or ‘hot-hand’, you might say) and immediately rents a huge new office, triples the onshore team and buys a few new toys. Suddenly, there’s a dip in economic conditions, the customer base declines, and they’ve already spent all their money. The overabundance of enthusiasm quickly results in an overblown budget.
Regularly, owners and management fail to recognise a factor key to business sustainability: targeted spending that accounts for the extra workload. For example, instead of immediately renting a brand new, high-cost space, a growing business might actually need some essential bookkeeping or accounts support from the expertly qualified, shared services professionals on hand with Outsource Lite. That way, they can manage the growth in their customer base without clearing out the bank account. Growing customer numbers mean growing compliance and due diligence requirements, and our low-cost team members can help absorb that impact. Scalable up or down as the workload intensifies – this is targeted spending done well, so as to maximise growth potential.
Leveraging flexible offshore personnel allows you to exercise this necessary budgetary caution without coming to a complete standstill. The extra team members from shared services are there as you need them, when you need them, allowing you agility in your decision-making.
Tip #2 – Listen To What Your Core Team Members Need
Listen to any core team member in accounts, marketing, administration or any other department within businesses that didn’t adequately manage growth, and they will often repeat the same refrain. As the customer base increased, their workloads grew and their roles changed. Leadership, however, failed to adequately support them with the extra personnel to manage these changes. Without the additional resources to assist with extended to-do lists, the core staff emerged burnt out and overworked. As they struggled to manage their workload effectively, high-priority items were inevitably left by the wayside.
Suddenly, growth becomes a thorn in the side of the team. There is no time to think creatively and expansively about the future of the product. Every hour is instead dedicated towards excess menial work – administration, database maintenance, customer service, and so on. The business is beginning to stall. These indispensable staff desperately require the backup of expert offshore personnel, such as our Dedicated Outsource Staff team members based in the Philippines.
Many people mistake Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) programs as being a means to replace onshore team members. The reality is that they support and liberate them. This excess menial work, such as database entry, can be covered by our highly qualified staff, allowing the space and time for core team members to think about the big picture. They can focus on product and service developments that will genuinely improve the customer experience, allowing the greatest potential for continued growth.
Our scalable staffing solutions offer this support while exercising discretion over spending (see Tip 1). Even if you recognise this additional support that the team needs, it’s important that an onshore hiring blitz doesn’t reduce your profit margin to nothing. Resourcing your team with the exact support they need, at a fraction of the cost to the business, is our speciality. Then, when you know you need to hire additional onshore team members, you have the budget and infrastructure to be able to solicit those that will add the most to your vision.
Tip #3 – Know What You Know (And What You Don’t)
Sometimes it’s worth remembering that it’s powerful to understand your own personal limitations. If you’re an expert carpenter, then we trust you know carpentry. You have the know-how, and the qualifications, which can create the foundations for an exciting new business. With some intuition, you can definitely reach a certain level of success. However, your carpentry skills don’t make you a business administration expert.
When experiencing a growth phase in your business, there are always going to be efficiencies that you don’t consider. For example, maybe it hasn’t yet occurred to you just how much value a dedicated offshore Outsourced Virtual Assistant could add to your own time management during these intense periods. Our hammerjack difference is that we work comprehensively with our partners to help identify these improvable areas in collaboration with them. Once you find a staffing provider that genuinely wants to see you grow the right way, it creates the perfect mix for longevity.
Our dedicated Account Managers have successfully guided many young, growing businesses expertly down the pathway of sustainable growth because we have the experience. We’ve helped those enterprises implement communication systems, team-building opportunities, workload management resources and more – all designed to streamline the operation and keep it humming. A simple conversation with one of our Australian-based experts might be the key to unlocking tools and systems that could revolutionise how you do business.
Taking expert advice on the best systems and frameworks to implement will also go a long way to keeping the team unified and working in the same direction as you undergo growth. We know the best infrastructure to ensure that core management personnel understand exactly which team members are doing what task, when it is expected to be delivered, and the supporting information that they have been given. In contrast to set-and-forget offshore staff providers, we go above and beyond to ensure that everyone is in sync and aware of their responsibilities.
Tip #4 – Innovation Keeps Up With The Competition
If you’re in a growth industry, know that there are likely to be others who will quickly pop up looking to match or exceed your success. If they have to capture your market share to do so, then they will. If you’re not already exploring the perfect mix of onshore core team members and expert support players offshore, you can rest assured that a competitor will be. It’s one thing to get ahead; but you need to be innovating and optimising the way you operate in order to stay ahead.
Thankfully, you can make the process easier by ensuring that you have business partners genuinely invested in your long-term success. At hammerjack, we’re always exploring new and innovative ways to help our clients onboard their new expert team members, communicate with staff and improve their user experience. This sense of partnership sets us apart from those set-and-forget outsourcing companies who just want to put a backside in a seat as quickly as possible and move on to the next.
A small growth phase is admirable, but we want to see you leverage it into long-term vibrancy and success. We want to see you stay technologically literate, agile, and flexible in your thinking in order to stay ahead of the competition. As soon as you become set in your ways, there’s a chance that you’ll be overtaken. Make the most of the experience of partner businesses, ensuring that they have your best interests at heart. When you make a choice to engage with a provider like hammerjack, you’re putting the business in the best possible position to realise its potential.
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Making the most of a growth phase within the business requires shrewd decision-making, expert consultation, targeted spending, innovation, and an ability to listen. It requires exploring all of the available options to empower and support your core team members. All the while, you must ensure that you continue to do the most important thing: provide your clients with the best possible experience. You need a partner like hammerjack.
Make the most of this exciting phase of growth and recognise your potential. To learn how our expert, qualified offshore staff could transform your operations, all while maintaining cost efficiency, speak to one of our team members today.