efficiency hacks

Outsource To Better Efficiency

Outsource To Better Efficiency

Outsource To Better Efficiency

Humans are lousy multitaskers. Too many people claim to be great at it, but the truth is they are not. They are fooling themselves. If they take on too many tasks, the result is they either don’t get anything done, or they have to cut corners in an attempt to get everything done.

Buddhists believe you should concentrate all your efforts on one task and become great at it. You will do it better than everyone else. It doesn’t matter what the task is or how small. Just do your best to get it done using all of your efforts.

There is a way, however, to multitask that will lead to efficiency gains. You can outsource some of your tasks. Outsourcing has exploded onto the scene in the past decade and is a great way to leverage your time.

You can get multiple tasks completed in a fraction of the time and depending on the quality of the outsourcers, it will be done correctly.

The good news is you can be selective on who you choose for your outsourcing. If one doesn’t work out, you simply ask them to correct their mistakes, or you don’t use them again. When you find a great team of outsourcers, you become an unstoppable force.

More companies are adopting the approach of outsourcing. Many companies are outsourcing entire departments where this makes sense. Why fund a credit department when there is a company that can do it for you?

The same is true for payroll, IT, and a host of other company functions. You don’t worry about salaries or benefits when you do this. You simply pay a fee for services based on your agreement with them.

Depending on the size of your company and the services that you are outsourcing, you can save a significant amount of money when you do this.

Some companies are even allowing their employees to outsource portions of their duties, where it makes sense to do this. For instance, web programmers are not typically known to be good designers. The company either doesn’t have a graphic design department or the group is booked solid with work for other groups. Outsourcing the design can solve this dilemma and give the project the right look and feel.

Of course, you will need to manage the outsourcers, and that often includes getting the specifications right for what you want to be accomplished. But, this is a skill like any other and is something you will get better with over time.

Can Efficiency Experts Help Your Business?

You read that being more efficient will make your company more competitive. That seems to make sense, at least from a theoretical perspective.

You accept the premise and decide to hire an efficiency expert to evaluate and recommend improvements to your business.

It seems like the right thing to do, but how do you go about finding experts who are qualified? This activity seems as though it can contain subjective judgments.

If you are not familiar with what efficient measures are, you are at the mercy of the expert. This is true with most experts in any field. However, efficiency experts are likely to be expensive.

The first step when considering any candidate is to get some information about them. This could take a bit of detective work. It may require you to reach out to other companies who have used the candidates and are satisfied with their results.

This may be easier said than done as many businesses remain tight-lipped about services or companies they use to improve their operations. They either want you to believe they didn’t hire anyone, or they don’t want you to have access to the same people who helped them. Thus, they simply won’t respond to your inquiries.

At the very least, find out how long the company you are considering has been in business. Is the company new? If so, this won’t give you confidence in the company’s experience. When you find companies who have been around for a while, ask them about any special licensing they can show you or high-level certifications they have obtained. Try to find out if these credentials are common for this type of service.

Try to gather up as much information as you can online. If there are complaints, you can be certain you’ll find them via search. If there are only a few complaints, it could be competitors who are bashing the company for the sake of keeping them from getting sales.

However, if there are many complaints, this could be a good indication to stay clear away from the company.

You want to be able to measure significant efficiency improvements with any expert you decide to use. Make sure you are comfortable with what constitutes improvement and insist on guarantees.

As mentioned, this service is going to be expensive, so you need to be able to recapture the costs through successful implementation of his or her advice.

Does Your Company Need A Silo Coordinator?

Do you know what a silo coordinator is? You probably don’t because it’s a made-up title. However, this doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be considered as a job for many companies.

It’s likely the company you work for, is divided into departments or what is sometimes referred to as silos. Departments become autonomous over time.

This can be a problem when departments need to depend on each other to get their jobs done.

A silo coordinator, for lack of a better term, could help bridge the gap between the autonomy that exists within groups. Without one, groups are left to their own vices when trying to use the services of other departments.

While groups manage to get by coordinating activities with other groups, problems can slow the process down, which makes an organization less efficient. For example, what happens when a department with critical resources is booked up and unavailable?

Other groups may complain to their respective managers, but those managers don’t have much pull in helping resolve the situation.

Enter silo coordinators. They can step in and bring up these types of issues to upper management. They will already have relationships with these higher managers, and they will be expected to reach out whenever needed. They won’t be accused of going over the heads of departments because that is their job.

When there are conflicts and problems between groups, the coordinators will step in and try to mediate the situation. After hearing all sides of the arguments, they can come up with a solution that can help move the groups forward.

Companies will need to give authority to these coordinators. Otherwise, they become figureheads who will only serve to placate the groups. This makes the entire concept of coordination fail.

If they don’t have the power, they simply are another layer of management that gets in the way of the process.

It’s probably a good idea to have multiple silo coordinators so that favoritism of groups doesn’t become a problem or at least it doesn’t become prevalent. Of course, you don’t want too many coordinators as this can slow down the process as well.

Companies should probably work on coming up with better structures than silos and departments. However, because that’s the way it’s been done for a long time, this is not something that is likely to happen soon.

Until it does, silo coordinators can be a great way to manage these silos so that companies can progress.

Well, there is a lot more to be learnt about outsourcing for efficiency; far more than can be covered in this short post, but if you’d like to know more about this, then click on the featured resource below where you can pick up a free report that covers this topic in more detail. Download it, read it and take action 🙂

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