Admin outsourcing... where to start

Even if you know that outsourcing your office admin makes good sense, the chances are you are not clear about where to start. Not all admin is equal. Discrete tasks are easier to delegate, whereas others may be more complex or lie at the heart of your business, making them more difficult to control. Admin tasks fall into 3 categories – Basic, Specialist and Integral - as defined by their impact and success factors.

1. Basic Tasks:
Quality of work is the key measure for simple tasks, which includes delivering on time. These tasks tend to revolve around documents or files and are low risk: you retain the original file, so if there’s a quality issue you can go elsewhere with little or no cost impact. Examples include:

• Typing, document formatting and proof-reading
• Producing presentations, newsletter and fliers
• Web research and maintaining spreadsheets.

Tasks such as telephone answering and booking appointments can also be categorised as "basic" because they are relatively simple, easy to monitor and are low risk, which is why many people use these tasks to test a new service provider.

2. Specialist Tasks:Impact is the most important measure for specialist tasks, because good quality work and achieving results can be quite different. Small businesses often outsource tasks requiring specialist skills, because they don’t have the expertise or the time to learn and do it themselves. Book Keeping has been a favourite for many years and is recently joined by Marketing. Other virtual specialist support, fast gathering momentum include:

• Property Management for Landlords and Developers
• Financial Data Collection for IFAs and Wealth Managers
• Legal & Medical and Expert Witness Secretarial Support.

It’s important to monitor the financial outcome of all specialist support because you are paying for their “expertise”, even if they fail to deliver results.

3. Integral Tasks:
Reliability is the most important requisite, along with data security, when outsourcing business processes involving company information. If you allow 3rd Party access to your systems, you have to be sure you can trust them to maintain your business integrity, just as you would for a new employee because the same risks apply. This is why companies often outsource in stages, testing a provider with low risk tasks and building up trust before inviting them to handle sensitive data or access their IT systems. Integral tasks include:

• Administering Business Processes (e.g. sales, recruitment, customer service)
• HR Administration (e.g. holiday records, whereabouts, personal data)
• Sourcing & Purchasing (e.g. re-negotiating office supply contracts)

Understanding the nature of the work and its success factors are important before outsourcing any aspect of your business. It will help ensure you outsource in a controlled manner and minimise the risks.


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