Success Through Outsourcing: Services On Demand

Wednesday, Apr 21, 2004


Gaining a Competitive Advantage

Any business tasks which are not part of a company's core competency are prime targets for outsourcing, not only to save money but also to increase quality.

A company's employees are usually well-trained on projects related to the company's business objectives. While good employees would be able to pick up skills related to areas outside this domain, doing so would require time and money for training, which would often not be cost-effective for small projects or those which are performed once or infrequently. Instead, the best solution is often to outsource the work to a firm that has an expertise in the subject area -- a group who does that sort of work all the time and knows the tricks of the trade. If the company doing the outsourcing is a trusted partner, they can perform higher quality work for much less than the total cost of training and implementing new initiatives internally.

For example, when Televox, a Mobile-area messaging-solutions company, needed a continuing series of voice menus, they could have laid out the capital for a recording studio, sound engineers, voice talent and training. Instead, for less than the cost of a single engineer, they can leverage the existing skill and production capability of Dogwood's experienced audio engineers to produce quality work with rapid turnaround. By outsourcing the voice work, they obtain services on demand and only pay for what they actually use.

Likewise, when a local corporation was finishing up an important sales pitch in Powerpoint, they needed that little extra graphical punch to make the final push. Instead of taking their time to learn graphical design, or employing internal people with those skills who would only be used infrequently, they contracted with Dogwood to polish their existing ideas into a slick presentation. A small investment paid off in obtaining the perfect combination of internal knowledge and external communication development techniques. Once again, instead of allotting a significant capital expense for services to be available even when they were not being used, they were able to leverage the outsourcing advantage: services on demand.

Outsourcing allows companies to focus on what they do best, while partnering with other firms to perform other tasks that they do best. Combining efforts produces a synergy of cost-savings and quality by eliminating wasteful redundancy and maximizing productivity. Small companies face an array of challenges throughout the day just focusing on their primary business. In addition, they often have to perform a variety of other tasks unrelated to their objectives just to keep operational. Moving some of these tasks to outside, trusted firms can often save money and increase the quality and responsiveness of one's work.

Dogwood Productions offers a wide variety of outsourcing services, including audio production, email hosting, web hosting, data conversion, networking, database development, e-commerce solutions, custom cd-roms, presentations, kiosks, web-based applications, and much more. We like to tackle almost any technology-related problem that your small business may encounter!

Contact us today to see if our skills can complement your business offerings and provide successful outsourcing opportunities!