When you’re scaling a business, it can be tempting to take on several new hires to fulfil the business’ growing needs. This can be an expensive process and may not be the right long-term solution – a resource that’s required today is potentially unnecessary in 18 months' time.

There’s also an inclination for the owner or manager to wear every hat. After all, you know your business best, right? But constantly working in the business leaves no scope for working on the business.

Some may even delegate to other team members. However, in a rapidly changing environment, these people are already stretched thin. So, while this is an acceptable short-term solution for smaller tasks, larger items like accounting, marketing, HR, finance, IT functions and customer support will need their own specialised resources.

In all cases, there’s a strong argument to be made for outsourcing. _­

There are significant benefits to outsourcing key functions within your franchise or multi-site business.

1. Access to subject matter experts within a range of niche areas.
2. Create consistency across your organisation, within every franchise or site.
3. Minimised costs and better ROI.

If you’re ready to scale up and take the next step with your franchise or multi-site business, here are five business functions you can outsource that will save you time and give you more focus.

HR and Recruiting

Elements of your HR process you might hand over to an external expert are recruitment, employee onboarding, corporate culture development, occupational health & safety, training and continued education, performance evaluation and remuneration, other employee benefits and internal/employee communications.

Most firms will provide a large cross-section of these services and specialise in a select few. If you don’t currently have an internal HR resource, you may wish to charge just one provider with your entire HR function.

Bookkeeping, Accounting and Finance

Running consistently accurate bookkeeping and accounting across franchise and multi-site businesses presents several challenges. Often leading to late and incorrect BAS lodgements, loss of visibility informing business decisions, cash flow management issues and impact on overall group profitability.

Whether your business is pharmacy, retail, health and fitness, trade services, hospitality, beauty or medical and allied health, your franchisees and location managers are not accountants. Stop asking them to be and let them focus on what they’re best at – your business will thank you for it.

Marketing and Advertising

Hiring a marketing team can be expensive, especially if you don’t require most individual marketing functions in a full-time capacity. There are several ways to look at outsourcing your marketing.

The first is to have just one internal marketing asset who can perform some of the marketing tasks – usually more at a strategic level – but will outsource most (if not all) of the execution. This is a great option for businesses going through rapid growth, as you’re only paying for what you need, and you can work with specialists within their field.

Alternatively, employing an agency or external contractor to own the entire marketing portfolio allows you to only pay for what you use as you use it. Simplifying marketing costs as a function of expected revenue, rather than as an ongoing fixed cost.

IT Infrastructure and Maintenance

Unless you’re an IT or hardware specialist, please stop tinkering with your IT infrastructure. Even still, you’re likely far too valuable to the business to be spending time on IT.

You may wish to nominate or employ an internal resource to be responsible for the management of your business IT infrastructure. They then decide on the business providers of individual IT services – systems administration, software management, web and domain hosting, digital security etc. and enlist them to carry out specific tasks.

Alternatively, you can consult with a single external provider that oversees and executes all activities concerning your company’s IT infrastructure. Many IT providers have access to automation, productivity and security tools that are often too expensive for individual businesses to purchase on their own. Further improving the ROI of outsourcing your IT.

Customer Support

Thanks to the technology that lives in our pockets, most problems can be solved with a quick Google. However, some of your customers will still prefer a one-to-one support interaction. While it’s important to ensure you provide this level of service when it’s expected or required, it can be quite expensive if paying local salaries to fulfil the role.

There are plenty of high-quality support centre providers based in both Australia and abroad. Offering a full suite of customer service, onboarding, feedback and complaints handling and emergency support, your customers will be in safe hands.

As your franchise or multi-site business scales, it can be tempting to manage every facet internally. But this is often impractical and can be a danger to your business. By outsourcing some of the functions listed above, you can free up time for your team members to focus on what’s most important. At the same time, you can also help mitigate the risk by only bringing on staff that are essential to the core business. Minimising costs and improving the day-to-day operations of the business.

If you’d like to discuss how Aretex can save your business money and give you back time, get in touch for a free consultation.

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