Outsourcing has long been seen as a way to reduce costs and administration hassle. But you don’t need to be a large corporation to do this and you don’t need to outsource to a big team in India or China.
For SMEs (which make up almost 100% of businesses in Wales), you can outsource locally and it needn’t cost you a penny… in fact it saves you money – yes, real money on your balance sheet in black and white.
I talk to Zokit. member Mike Holman about his take on this growing trend.
Tell me about your business.
Mike: In a nutshell, we help businesses boost profitability by cutting overspend on their running costs. We undertake a free review to find out where businesses can reduce costs and then work closely with each business to manage their contracts with suppliers. In many ways we act as an outsourced procurement department for essential business costs such as energy, telecoms, insurances, business rates, water rates, staff, vehicles and green services. Most of our services are completely free.
Are more businesses taking advantage of local outsourcing?
Mike: Yes, we’ve seen this kind of approach is becoming more and more popular. Local outsourcing is nothing new, but it has evolved with improved technology and communications businesses get the best of both worlds – they can develop a close working relationship with a local business for outsourcing certain activities, and through this they can tap into the experience and expertise of a larger network of providers nationally or internationally to obtain better quality and a more competitive price.
So how do businesses benefit from outsourcing these functions to you?
Mike: Well firstly they save money – we are able to save significant contract costs in 9 out of 10 cases. Businesses also save huge amounts of time and money as they don’t need to do all the legwork – we do all this for them and present them with our findings. We also track contract end dates so businesses don’t get caught up in expensive automatic renewal contracts with suppliers.
What geographical areas do you cover?
Mike: We cover the whole of the UK but I’m based in Penarth so most of the businesses I work with are in Cardiff, Newport and across South Wales. We can work with people remotely over phone and email or face to face.
If you’d like to find out more about Mike’s services he can be contacted on Tel 0844 692 6914 or Mob: 07786 431 951 or Email: michael.holman@bcrassociates.co.uk