I was recently talking to a business owner who wanted to upgrade the way his company managed its finances.
In common with so many people right now, he was finding it hard to hire in-house. He just couldn’t find the people.
But even though he was really keen on our Outsourced Finance Department, something was stopping him.
It was that word: “Outsourced.”
He seemed very stuck on the fact that we would not be directly employed by his company.
What exactly, I asked, was bothering him?
“I want someone in my office,” he finally confessed. “I feel I get to know them better and they get to know the company better, too.”
I did a double-take.
“How often do your team come into the office right now?”
“Oh,” he said. “They all come in on a Thursday.”
In other words, everyone who worked for him directly spent 4/5 of the week working from their own homes. His entire business model was remote!
When I pointed this out, he realised that his discomfort was out-of-date – a legacy of old biases against outsourcing. And he’s now a happy client…
I understood where he was coming from, though.
Before COVID, I felt strongly that we wouldn’t take on any clients more than 50 miles from Insight’s offices. I wanted to be within easy driving distance of all our clients, so we could see them in person as much as possible.
It felt essential to our relationship and the quality of the service we offer.
Nowadays, remote working is routine and here at Insight we’re set up for it, with outstanding video conferencing tech. And the truth is…
…I still believe strongly that it’s an advantage to be in the same room, and we visit all our clients as often as necessary.
But we now have several clients hundreds of miles away, who we communicate with largely over Microsoft Teams. It feels completely normal to everyone now.
And in many ways, remote working has brought us closer to our clients. We still speak to everyone several times a week, but instead of using a phone we can see each other on video. Everyone is happy with this.
COVID changed many business models. It destroyed or hurt some – like airline business travel. But outsourcing is an interesting example of a model which has benefited.
The change in our working arrangements has completely destroyed one of the most common objections to outsourcing, that people need to be physically in your office in order to be available, understand your business and do a good job.
It was never true!
Even before COVID, many businesses struggled with under-performing, unreliable or untrustworthy in-house staff…
…while others thrived with outstanding, experienced outsourced services.
There is no automatic correlation between ‘being in the room’ and making a success of the role, especially for your non-core services.
So nowadays, when the next member of your finance department is likely going to be working remotely for much of the time, anyway…
…What difference does it make, whether you’re hiring someone in-house or outsourced?
You should have only one criteria: Hire the best person for the job.
Or in our case, the best people – because with us, you get a whole team 😊
Then call us on 01279 647 447 to talk to us about how we might be able to work together.
