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How To Build An Optimum Mix Of Knowledge Workers And General Assistants

Guest post by: Gourab Nanda

Article Overview: When do you consider outsourcing most profitable? This is an ambiguous question, considering the general notion that outsourcing by default is profitable. As evolution innately leads to more profitability, outsourcing has also evolved from just giving out all non-core tasks, to a more productive tool that brings in more meaning and profitability to your business. Such a facet of outsourcing is to look for optimally mixing outsourcing of tasks, to diverse assistants, consultants, vendors or freelancers based on the skills needed to complete those tasks, to achieve significant cost benefits. Let me put this in a single sentence, “how to maximize profitability by optimizing outsourcing of tasks.”

How To Build An Optimum Mix Of Knowledge Workers And General Assistants

When do you consider outsourcing most profitable? This is an ambiguous question, considering the general notion that outsourcing by default is profitable. As evolution innately leads to more profitability, outsourcing has also evolved from just giving out all non-core tasks, to a more productive tool that brings in more meaning and profitability to your business. Such a facet of outsourcing is to look for optimally mixing outsourcing of tasks, to diverse assistants, consultants, vendors or freelancers based on the skills needed to complete those tasks, to achieve significant cost benefits. Let me put this in a single sentence, "how to maximize profitability by optimizing outsourcing of tasks." Picking the right person for the right kind of job is the key for optimizing outsourcing effectiveness.

For example: Online marketing activities require knowledge and expertise, which can be broken up into categories based on the depth of skills needed to complete those tasks like: selecting the right keywords, identifying the right places on the web for marketing your content, blog article writing, engaging with social media connections, website designing, and so on can be categorized as high skill tasks, and tasks like posting articles on article directories, inserting keywords in the content, URL submissions to directories, social media status updates, website updates and so on as low profile tasks. The former needs to be outsourced to knowledge workers and the latter to general assistants at lesser costs.

This is the core mix that you should be looking to achieve, if you tamper with this mix like; assigning all tasks to knowledge workers, will waste your money, and delegating all tasks to general assistants for saving money, will ruin the quality. So the mix here should be even and effective and well managed.

It is a well-known fact that is proven from time to time that knowledge workers can deliver more when they get the opportunity to utilize their core skills to the fullest.

So how do you go about it?

First arrange all tasks into categories; high skills based and low skills based, then precisely look for assistants or vendors who specialize in these skills; explore geographies, cost options, knowledge workforce groups, experience and so on and then assign these tasks accordingly. This optimum mix gets the best of outsourcing for you. You can also opt for single vendors who can offer this kind of flexible combinations at varying costs as per the specificity of the tasks. This kind of vendors can help you avoid managing multiple assistants and also bring in more benefits as they understand your business at a wider level.

Some of the tasks that can be categorized are: customer support; where complete customer support involving technical assistance, troubleshooting over phone, etc., can be grouped as skilled tasks; and tasks like taking feedback, wishing customers on their birthdays, etc., as general tasks. Similarly, administrative tasks: where analyzing sales reports, financial reports, suggesting to top management, etc., can be termed as skilled tasks; and filling forms, posting reports, preparing documents, etc., as general tasks. Coming to accounts; preparing final accounts, coordinating with clients, following tax norms are jobs for a skilled resource while entering daily transactions, coordinating with bank, are best done by a general assistant.

Similarly, you can group your non-core or outsource-able activities into categories like this and make the right choice as to who should be doing what. Do this and the benefits are assured.

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Article Tags: small business growth, small business management, small business outsourcing, small business tips



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