Skip to Content

Efficiencies: CASH in on outsourcing

Efficiencies: CASH in on outsourcing Q. Will outsourcing parts of my business offer an efficient return on investment?

A. As with many business decisions, a lot depends on your outsourced business partner. With a dependable partner, you may lose some day-to-day control, but you will likely gain valuable expertise and scalability. Common outsourced options on the market, used by many providers, include drop shipping and billing.

Set up a testing model to help you evaluate the risk/reward of outsourcing for your company. I call it the CASH model:

C—Creative solutions.When bringing outside resources to your operations, you should expect a certain amount of added creativity to the table that you can't replicate. For example: an innovative way to handle patient collections or a LEAN inventory strategy.

A—Authentic reputation. Check references. Compare what you hear from those references to how you envision your needs being met by your relationship. Remember, things are not black and white when evaluating subjective strategies. Ask key questions of the reference, like, “how did the consultant follow up?”

S—Shop your decision. After deciding to outsource, look at the options. If drop shipping is your goal, look at more than just fees. Does your choice interact with current strategy or do you end up committing the same amount of work to the process? If your purchase power grows or shrinks, how would that affect the relationship?

H—Hierarchy. Are you willing to give up control of the subject you're seeking assistance for? How will that work in your organizational chart? Will you be able to refocus labor efforts with your staff or will the commitment necessitate reduction payroll?

Ryan McDevitt is a professional services consultant at Brightree. Reach him at [email protected] or 678-243-1135.

Comments

To comment on this post, please log in to your account or set up an account now.