Mike Sadler’s Travel Manager Blog

Outsource wherever possible.

Outsourcing is a hot topic right now. Over 50% of UK businesses now outsource some part of their operation. The popular areas for outsourcing are:-

• Marketing
• Web design, maintenance& hosting
• IT maintenance& support
• Manufacturing
• Accounts& payroll
• Recruitment
• Reception / Telephone Answering

There are many more areas where a business could outsource, but its important for the business owner to understand the real benefits associated with each outsourced area.

Small businesses are used to outsourcing marketing and web design. But far more benefit could be acquired by looking at other areas of their operation and identifying real business opportunity. For example the business may:

• Lack the skills or resources to do the process
• To replace a poor or difficult to manage internal service
• To scale efficiently and effectively
• The process may be performed better/cheaper by other providers / partners
• The process does not contribute to competitive advantageand can therefore be offloaded

Outsourcing IT infrastructure to a hosted solution is becoming the norm. Numerous ASP (Application Service Providers) / SaaS (Software as a Service) providers are available for all sorts of functional areas.  TravelManager is one such service for the people transportation industry. But if you require less specific functionality Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are all starting to move into the area.

Over the next 7-10 years SaaS will become the norm and businesses will expect software to be maintained for them. Imagine, no more upgrades or installs to be concerned about, no more onsite training, no more concerns about backups.

If you want to talk about how SaaS can help you and your business - contact me.

Regards

Mike