The Pandemic has come to teach us the importance of many things – outsourcing being one of them. During the pandemic, many businesses had to close down. Others adopted a work-from-home framework to make sure the employees could carry on their tasks.

At the end of this period, we were left with many important questions – How competent is our current work model? Is Outsourcing the Future of workplaces? Even then, what is the future of outsourcing and how does it affect us?

Let’s find out.

What is Outsourcing? 

Outsourcing is hiring professionals from outside to carry on the tasks of your workplace. Depending on your needs, you may hire individuals or teams to complete your tasks.

You can outsource your work to skilled freelancers through freelance marketplaces like Fiverr, Upwork, 99designs, etc. Another alternative is finding BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) companies to take care of your task.

Under any circumstances, Outsourcing isn’t as alien a term or notion as it once was. Today, a lot of successful businesses outsource parts of their workload – to achieve their goals. With more and more businesses signing up for outsourcing, it is gradually becoming a norm for business practitioners.

Fun Facts about Outsourcing

• The Global Outsourcing market in the last 20 years (2000-2019) is valued at $92.5 billion out of which ITO (Information Technology Outsourcing) amounted to $66.5 billion and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) amounted to $26 billion.
• By 2019, 37% (more than one-thirds) of SMEs outsourced their business processes.
• The IT, Healthcare & Fintech Sector is predicted to be the Highest Investors in Outsourcing.
• Further analysis indicates that within 2021, the revenue from the IT outsourcing industry would reach around $351 billion.

Future of Outsourcing

Take, for instance, Nike or Apple. Even though the companies are based in America, most of their shoes and devices are assembled in China. The trend is similar for other big names in different industries. They keep the strategic work to themselves and outsource the rest. This is much more resource & cost-efficient (due to cheaper infrastructure and labor in offshore countries).

As businesses look to specialize in tasks and cut costs, outsourcing will continue to grow. Offshoring helps reduce costs and ensures greater expertise onboard in niche tasks. Big shot companies in nations with leading economies outsource everything.

Here’s a Few Other Factors Determining the Future Standing of Outsourcing

1. Cloud Sourcing 

Experts suggest that Cloud Computing is going to merge with outsourcing providing better solutions to businesses. Although few companies explored the benefits of cloud sourcing (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) before, more and more companies are considering sourcing their data on cloud networks come the Pandemic.

We live in times when businesses are data-driven. Companies have realized that it’s better to outsource their data to specialists and let them take care of it. Through Cloudsourcing, organizations are now able to store and access their servers, data, and applications through cloud-based services. This saves them much effort, time, and money.

2. More Expertise onboard

SMEs can’t always keep up with big companies due to a lack of capital and expertise. However, buying in on the outsourcing game lets them compete with big companies. They are able to outsource tasks that require expertise that they don’t currently have. This lets them explore beyond their current limitations.

3. Cost Effective

Outsourcing is almost always more cost-effective than in-house operations. This is especially true for first-world nations. Companies are able to enjoy better profit by reducing their costs.

With the rising demand for outsourcing, more and more outsourcing solution provider firms are joining in on the industry worldwide. This is giving rise to higher competition than ever. As a result, companies offshoring are able to achieve greater expertise at lower than ever costs. As the competition goes even higher, this trend is meant to sustain.

Meanwhile, the pandemic has taught us that we can work remotely and get our job done. This allows companies to save loads on equipment, utility bills, employee bonuses, etc.

Trusted Outsourcing Destinations

According to recent studies, India and China are leading countries in the Global Outsourcing scene followed by The Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Vietnam.

Nowadays, Asian countries are leading in skills and cost-efficiency. This is the reason their global market share is growing exponentially.

Other than this, the UK and other European countries are also fast-growing destinations for IT offshoring solutions.

Conclusion

Due to the features of outsourcing that we’ve discussed along with many others, experts suggest that the future of outsourcing is rather secure. Offshoring puts the outsource and the outsourcer in a win-win situation ensuring sustainable growth.

So if you’re thinking about outsourcing, it’s a good game to buy in on – but make sure to wisely determine which parts of your work you ought to keep and which ones to outsource.