Author: Paula Jones FCMA

Outspan is often asked “how big is big enough?” A lot of small businesses get put off outsourcing because they think they’re just not big enough to benefit financially or operationally from the services. This article focuses on why outsourcing has now become a viable strategy for businesses of all sizes, including SMEs.

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Look out for our next blog: Are you experienced?

For more information on outsourcing for SMEs, contact: Outspan. www.outspan.co.uk, 0845 838 1965

Continue reading Is outsourcing a viable strategy for SMEs? 

Author: Paula Jones FCMA

Outsourcing can deliver significant cost savings for businesses of all sizes. As Britain experiences its worst recession in 80 years, small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) have been particularly badly hit as their narrow product ranges and geographical market exposure provide limited diversification of risk, additionally they have smaller cash reserves than the large corporates to see them through the bad times. Why then are SMEs not embracing outsourcing more?

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Look out for our next blog: Is outsourcing a viable strategy for SMEs?

For more information on outsourcing for SMEs, contact: Outspan. www.outspan.co.uk, 0845 838 1965

Continue reading Outsourcing: the riskier option?

Author: Paula Jones FCMA

Over the last decade, there has been a marked increase in UK businesses outsourcing their non-core functions to achieve greater cost efficiencies and access to additional resource and technology. The impact that outsourcing has had on countries like India has led other countries to start to look at how they can tap into the economic benefits this industry can bring.

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Look out for our next fortnightly blog: Outsourcing – the riskier option?

For more information on outsourcing for SMEs, contact: Outspan. www.outspan.co.uk, 0845 838 1965

Continue reading Sri Lanka as a viable outsourcing location for UK business

Author: Paula Jones FCMA

Outsourcing, or more specifically offshoring, has been increasing in popularity within the business community in the last decade. What started in the manufacturing industries 20-30 years ago is now happening in the business services industries as a result of increased communication, technology and educational standards in offshore “host” countries.

There has been much debate in the media about whether outsourcing is good or bad for the UK economy, much of it has focused on the negative side such as the loss of UK unskilled jobs. However, it is important to note that there are many positive attributes of offshoring that can be a real benefit to our economy…. read more by clicking on the continue reading link below.

Look out for our next fortnightly blog: Outsourcing: a benefit to our economy or a threat – should we worry?

For more information on outsourcing for SMEs, contact: Outspan. www.outspan.co.uk, 0845 838 1965

Continue reading Outsourcing: Benefit to our economy or loss of UK jobs – should we worry?

Author: Paula Jones FCMA

Economic downturns have often been situations where companies fear disruption and change the most, particularly changing to what, in the past has been perceived as high risk strategies such as outsourcing. This is especially true of SMEs. However, with the current recession the worse we have experienced since the 1930s and as yet, no end in sight, companies are having to rethink their strategies to survive..….. read more by clicking on the continue reading link below.

Look out for our next fortnightly blog: Outsourcing: a benefit to our economy or a threat – should we worry?

For more information on outsourcing for SMEs, contact: Outspan. www.outspan.co.uk, 0845 838 1965

Continue reading Outsourcing: An important tool for helping SMEs deal with the recession

Part 3 of a 3 part series
Editor: Paula Jones FCMA *

As a small island economy, Sri Lanka has no alternative but to develop its export markets. “Export or perish”, is a truism for the island, and what can be exported has changed in a twenty-first century economy. In the past, goods and capital could be exported relatively easily while services and labour could not. Successful economic strategies attempted to attract capital to an economy in order to produce more goods that could be exported and traded for other goods that could not be produced at home. However, the technological advances of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries mean that it is no longer true that goods are tradable and services are not. In fact more and more services are easily tradable. And countries that are realizing this are reaping great benefits from adapting their economies to be able to better compete in services trade.….. read more by clicking on the continue reading link below.

Look out for our next fortnightly blog: Outsourcing: an important tool for helping SMEs cope with the recession

For more information on outsourcing for SMEs, contact: Outspan. www.outspan.co.uk, 0845 838 1965

Continue reading The impact of outsourcing on Sri Lanka

Part 2 of a 3 part series
Author: Paula Jones FCMA

Globalisation has seen its fair share of bad publicity over the years, with large corporations from the developed world offshoring of their production work, paying low wages and taking maximum profits back to their home countries. However, true globalisation provides an equal transfer of services, goods and profits between the developed and developing world, providing sustainable solutions to alleviate poverty.

In order to take advantage of this opportunity, it is therefore necessary for people in the developing countries to access international customers, and it’s often the services industries that provide the easiest access to these international markets. Outsourcing of services is one such industry that can achieve this.….. read more by clicking on the continue reading link below.

Look out for our next fortnightly blog: The impact of outsourcing on Sri Lanka

Continue reading Outsourcing and its impact on growth in developing countries

Part 1 of a 3 part series
Author: Paula Jones FCMA

Much has been written and debated about the issues of global poverty and the possible solutions. There have been many examples of dependencies created by the long term provision of humanitarian aid and much lobbying of governments to relax the trade restrictions on developing countries with the aim of creating a more sustainable solution to eliminating poverty. Both of these viewpoints are complex and have their own issues attached….. read more by clicking on the continue reading link below.

Look out for our next fortnightly blog: Outsourcing and it’s impact on growth in developing countries

Continue reading Trading the world out of poverty

Author: Paula Jones FCMA

As the UK prepares itself with the threat of dipping back into recession, more and more innovative ideas are required by businesses to keep their finances healthy and prevent becoming yet another bankruptcy statistic. However, through this urgent need to relook at the way a business is run, recessions can bring out long term sustainable opportunities that could otherwise be overlooked.

Cost pressures and the need for management to spend less time on administrative tasks and more on getting in new customers, or simply keeping the existing ones, are a couple of reasons why outsourcing is becoming more popular as a viable business option for small to medium size enterprises (SMEs). For a number of years now outsourcing has been the privilege of large corporates who have the resource to manage large scale outsourcing projects and the economies of scale to make them worthwhile. However, with the increase of access to technology and flexible global markets these opportunities are now being made available to SMEs…… read more by clicking on the continue reading link below.

Look out for our next fortnightly blog: Trading the world out of poverty

For more information on outsourcing for SMEs, contact: Outspan. www.outspan.co.uk, 0845 838 1965

Continue reading Is it time for Outsourcing to get a better name?

This video reminded me of the classic ’80s TV series “Child’s Play” in which children of different ages were asked to describe an object or thing without mentioning it’s name.  If only everything in business was this simple!