Benefits of Outsourcing
Most outsourcing decisions begin with cost-cutting – but rarely
end there. Once the efficiencies of outsourcing are in place, companies
find ways to use them for a broad range of improvements to processes and
performance.
Reduced Direct Costs
As mentioned above, the economies of scale experienced by
outsourced
Sales and Marketing providers allow them to offer equivalent services
at lower direct costs than in-house approaches. What’s more, outsourcing
partners are free to use creative cost-cutting approaches unavailable
to companies like yours: locating in more favorable employment markets,
assembling full-time coverage from part-time or seasonal employees, and
so on.
Reduced Indirect Costs
The costs of in-house Sales and Marketing support are often
Underestimated. Employees need to be recruited, trained,
managed and equipped – and turnover may be high. At
ATS,
we face these problems head-on, and solve them for our clients. Freeing
your Sales team from low-value activities is a significant reduction
of hidden costs.
Relieved of the need to manage day-to-day administration and support,
they are free to focus on generating revenue – the reason you hired
them.
Reduced Opportunity Costs
Focused outsourced programs improve sales coverage. More leads are qualified,
geographic regions or channels are covered in greater depth, and more
sales can be wrung from secondary sources. In these and other cases, sales
are recovered from previously overlooked sources, improving sales performance
at low marginal cost.
Fixed Costs Become Variable
In fast-changing markets or companies, outsourced solutions’
variable pricing helps during expansion or contraction.
Outsourced programs grow to meet opportunities or mergers, or shrink
when the market turns down. And if they outlive their usefulness, they
are much easier to cancel.
Business Process Improvements
Quantifying current performance – necessary for any outsourcing
program - reveals gaps in measurement, and points the way to simple but
powerful remedies. If you don’t already measure lead qualifications,
partner turnover, or cost of sales by market and channel, putting metrics
in place will improve performance.
Focus and Expertise
Sales and Marketing outsourced specialists live in the market– knowing
their surroundings is a matter of business survival.
Agility
Outsourced specialists design their technologies and processes to scale
up quickly, so they can always say “yes” to new business.
Their clients benefit from all this reserve capacity In case of acquisition
or change of direction, a manufacturer can scale up or redeploy its efforts
faster through a partner than it could operating alone. Their flexibility
and agility also make outsourcing ideal for experimental and pilot programs.
Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction
Manufacturers are acutely sensitive to customer complaints about service
providers, and service providers know it. They stay in business by outperforming
comparable in-house programs, and putting measurements in place to prove
it.
The data available on service outsourcing – mostly from surveys – reveal
a boom. Gartner, Inc. predicts business process outsourcing (which includes
Sales and Marketing) will grow from $110 billion in 2002 to $173 billion
in 2007 – an annual compounded rate of 9.5 percent.
Sales Expertise
Many companies are launched by engineers, or operations professionals.
They are able to grow their business to a certain level, but in order
to achieve their next level of growth, they need to look for outside sales & marketing
expertise.
Tactical Revenue
Sales Outsourcing solutions, which range from advisory services to outsourcing
services, focus on developing Tactical Revenue Plans that will help companies
achieve the next level of growth quickly!
Speed to Market
Another factor is time to market. It is much quicker to have a well
trained and managed Sales Team out the door making calls then for the
company to be starting or rebuilding a group.
What are other indicators or reasons that suggest your company may need
to look at Sales Outsourcing.
Outsourcing, often referred to as the most important management development
of the decade, is based on the principal “if it isn't your company's
core competency, then take the activity or business process and contract
it out. It [outsourcing] is an indispensable tool for world-class companies,
allowing them to improve their products and services, lower their costs,
and enhance their flexibility.”
The Outsourcing Institute surveyed its membership to determine the top
reasons companies outsource.
Top 10 Reasons Companies Outsource
• Reduce and control operating costs
• Improve company focus
• Gain access to world-class capabilities
• Free internal resources for other purposes
• Resources are not available internally
• Accelerate reengineering benefits
• Function difficult to manage/out of control
• Make capital funds available
• Share risks
• Cash infusion
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