Category: Outsourcing

If you have an eCommerce or retail business, you must know about the complexities of handling the logistics. Besides the surging consumer demands, you need to handle various channels to sustain yourself in the industry. Infact, it becomes so resilient to manage things (at times) that even the in-house logistics team doesn't seem enough to meet the targets! 

So, what's the ideal way to deal with such situations? The answer is logistic outsourcing. Logistic outsourcing ensures that you get high-end logistics services for your business. It's that little help in logistics management that takes away your burden. Here's more about logistic outsourcing and its importance. 

What Do You Mean By logistics outsourcing?

Before knowing the entire term, let's understand outsourcing first. Outsourcing is a well-known business practice where you hire a third-party professional to perform any in-house task. Thus, when we say logistic outsourcing, it means taking external help from third-party service providers to handle the logistics for your supply chain. 

For example, say it's a rush season, and you are falling short of productive staff to manage outbound shipping and deliveries. That's when you can reach out to a logistic outsourcing company and hire a professional to handle the work. They will ensure that the targets are met timely, and everything's done accurately.

The best thing about logistics outsourcing is that they are self-equipped. Be it warehouse, tools, technologies, or safety; they are well-sourced with all the essentials. You can stay assured of any such investment hustle. 

As per data on third-party logistic users (3PL), domestic transportation is the most frequently outsourced service, followed by warehousing, custom brokerages, international transportation, and freight forwarding. 

Importance of Logistics Management   

Primarily, logistic management means handling, controlling, and supervising the movement of goods. But, it also includes other aspects like transport/inventory management, order fulfillment, and material handling. Logistic management is useful to satisfy customer demands while also keeping you ahead of the competitors. Some other reasons behind its importance include: 

Better Services and Customer Satisfaction

Logistic management is useful for improving delivery timings. This helps the customers to get timely deliveries and hence better services from your end. In the US, 55% of shoppers prefer same-day deliveries, and 58% of customers require less than 40 minutes of delivery. With such statistics, you can offer better deliveries and warrant customer satisfaction to the consumers.

Higher Efficiency and Supply Chain Transparency

Supply chain transparency, in simple words, means having complete knowledge of what's going on in your supply chain. Logistic management provides clarity on your business supply chain, which can further contribute to better efficiency. 

All your data will be thoroughly tracked and documented. Be it data analysis or operations; everything will be clear cut visible to you. So, there will be negligible disruptions and mismanagement. Having a clear picture of your logistics could also reveal your mistakes and help you improve with time.  

Brand Reliability and Higher Revenue

With customer satisfaction comes brand reliability. If your customer is happy, they will speak strongly about you to others. This will ensure a better reputation and positive customer experience while generating more business for your company. Also, nearly 70% of customers say that they would support a company that offers good customer service. So, that's a plus point. Once your business grows, revenue is likely to increase itself. 

Cost-efficiency

With adequate logistic management, you will have optimized inventories, lesser inbound freights, and negligible goods backflow. All these factors can ensure cost-efficiency and adequate savings. So, directly or indirectly, logistic management can help you with money management. On top of that, if you outsource logistic management services, it can contribute to more cost reduction (around 70%).  

Relationship between Logistics And Supply Chain Management

Logistic management is focused on the storage and goods movement. Simply put, it ensures that the products are stored and delivered precisely to the customer. On the other hand, supply chain management is a broader term. 

It involves the methods and process that ensures an effortless flow of goods to the customers. While logistic management features transportation, fleet/inventory management, material handling, supply chain management, including sourcing, manufacturing, storing of goods, etc. 

Both logistics and supply chain management relate to each other through goods movement from start to end. Both these concepts require the synchronization of labor and supplies to ensure an efficient flow of products. Some key common aspects between logistics and supply chain management include:

• Both of their motives are to encourage company growth and keep them ahead of the competitors.
• They focus on common factors like customer satisfaction, information, goods, services, etc. 
• Both logistics and supply chain management features a similar goods flow, starting from suppliers to customers. 

What is Outsourcing in Logistics and Supply Chain Management?

Outsourcing in logistics or outsourcing in supply chain management means hiring a third-party service provider to cover the services of the respective domain. This means you will be taking external help to manage and boost the supply chain functions (including logistics). Everything from warehousing to shipping and fulfilment is covered in this type of outsourcing. 

Is Outsourcing a Part of Supply Chain Management?

In supply chain management, outsourcing can reduce the overall service cost and ensure better flexibility in supply chain operations. It can ease out things for your business and help you meet customer demands in a hassle-free manner. So, if you make outsourcing a part of supply chain management, it will benefit you from top to bottom. 

For example, outsourcing in supply chain management can take your workload and provide additional time to develop new business ideas. Similarly, it can offer exclusive knowledge and facilities that are necessary for business upliftment. It also offers other benefits like flexibility, adaptability, lesser financial risks, professional assistance, and so on.  

How Does Outsourcing Affect the Supply Chain?

While the benefits listed above are just small highlights, outsourcing has various positive effects on the supply chain like:  

• Supply chain outsourcing ensures better visibility that can help you identify the risky areas and mitigative solutions accordingly. 

• Thanks to their personal tools and technologies, you can get high-quality services without spending a fortune. 

• You can access these useful resources to sustain yourself in the industry for a longer time. 

• With supply chain outsourcing, you wouldn't face any downfall during peak seasons or employee holidays.   

How Can a Logistics Outsourcing Company Help You to Handle Your Supply Chain? 

With so many benefits, you must wonder how a logistic outsourcing company can manage your supply chain. Till now, we learned some experienced professionals take up the workload and meet targets for you, but what services do they exactly cover? 

• 3PL outsourcing services utilise their advanced resources to process and audit thousands of bills easily. They handle critical logistic pursuits and ensure easy operations. 
• You can use their expert assistance to manage the logistics even when you are well-staffed. That's because their long-term- expertise isn't worth missing.
• These service providers can manage the safety ratings, insurance certificates, distribution in supply chain management, and carrier contracts. Besides, they can provide back-office help like carrier betting and invoicing variances which eventually results in lower liabilities. 
• Their charges are low, and you only have to pay for the services you took. This cuts down the cost for a full-fledged in-house team that requires employee benefits. 
• Most 3PLs service providers offer real-time tracking assistance where you can check loads. Some of them are integrated with warehouse management systems for better safety. 
• These professionals handle petty expenses like insurance costs, transportation, docking costs, etc. This ensures a lesser burden on your financial management team.
• They also cut down the hassle of training costs, teaching, and directing the logistics team to understand the work. As they are experts already, all you have to do is hire, and they will handle the rest.    

What to Look for When Taking logistics outsourcing Services? 

Like any other outsourcing service provider, choosing a proficient team is important when hiring an logistics outsourcing company. Thus, it's recommended to do thorough research and select a professional company that offers diverse services. Here's what to look for:

• They should cover important services like supply chain operations, gap/cost analysis, distribution in supply chain management, and practicality. 
• If they have a website, check for their expertise. Look for their warehouse capacities, customer support team, transportation, and more.
• Make sure that they cover crucial logistic processes like receiving, pick-up and drop, inbound inspection, etc. 
• Estimate a budget and look for a company that offers services within a similar cost range.  
• Navigate to the review section, and check the experience of their prior customer. Avoid a company with a large number of bad reviews or ratings lower than 3.4 stars.  

To Conclude

logistics outsourcing is one of the most useful ways to manage your business supply chains. It guarantees effortless goods management while saving your time and money from doing the same. However, to get the best services, always choose the best outsourcing logistic company. 

At Wow Customer Support, you can get the finest assistance for your business logistics and supply chain management. We cover everything from shipper coordination to email/chat support and data entry to be your ideal logistics back-operations partner. 

Besides that, we can also help you with invoice processing to ensure customer satisfaction. So, if you are looking for expert assistance with logistic operations, reach us today. We are happy to help you!

Did you know that nearly 82% of small businesses fail due to poor financial management? That's why effective financial management is vital for any business, small or big.

Businesses often face many challenges, and finance management is one of them. That's why businesses spend capital and resources on recruiting, training, and retaining staff responsible for managing finances. But maintaining an in-house finance and accounting department can be time-consuming and expensive, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs.)

That's why many SMEs prefer outsourcing financial services as a flexible solution that fits their specific requirements and budgets.

This blog will explain how you can benefit from financial services outsourcing. We’ll also explain what kind of tasks you can outsource and how to find the right service provider. 

What is Financial Service Outsourcing?

Any time your company hires an outside team of consultants, experts, or advisors to help with finance and accounting, this is called business accounting outsourcing. You can hire outsourcing financial services for both a permanent or temporary basis.

Financial services outsourcing refers to outsourcing several or all of your company’s finance and accounting functions to a third-party service provider. The company that you choose can handle all or some of your finance and/or accounting processes, from bookkeeping to tax returns. This saves a lot of hassles and costs involved in hiring an in-house team or managing finances yourself.

An outsourced finance team you choose should consist of experienced individuals who can provide the best quality results. Each professional on the team should be outstanding in their area of expertise, whether it's making capital strategy or financial reporting. In addition, the team should be available whenever you need them. Such a team helps create consistency, avoid stress, and ensures using best practices. 

Benefits of Outsourcing Financial Services

Today, businesses, particularly small and medium-sized companies, need confidence, timeliness, quality insight, and reliability in their financial performance. Each of their financial transactions must be processed without any fraud or error. 

You should be able to close books timely, create insightful financial statements, and provide accurate investor reporting. All these require financial leadership, which can be achieved with outsourced accounting services.

Here’re the most important benefits of financial services outsourcing:

Access to Global Talent and Expertise

You're restricted to the local talent pool when you hire an in-house team. But the right fit for your company may not be available within that pool.

On the other hand, when you decide to outsource, you can hire experts with specialized knowledge from across the world. Reputable outsourced firms employ highly trained accountants and finance professionals. They work with a variety of businesses across different industries and bring that experience and best practices to serve you. 

Moreover, there may be fluctuating needs for bookkeepers, controllers, accountants, and CFOs. SMEs can't hire all of them. Outsourcing financial services may help receive any such services as and when needed.

What’s more? Time zone differences allow you to extend your company's working hours. So, you can benefit from the timezone disparity to boost your financial activities through proper management.

Cost Saving

From hiring and training costs to infrastructure-related expenses, businesses have to shell out huge amounts of money to handle their financial and accounting management needs. 

But with outsourced financial management services, these costs are cut down. You save on:

Hiring costs: You don’t need to spend time and money on finding the best talent. By outsourcing financial services, you can get started right away.

Training costs: Since outsourcing professionals are experienced in their area of expertise, they save you time and resources you might have to spend on training an in-house team.

Software pricing: Not using the latest software programs can make you lag behind in the competition. But these programs can add high costs to you. On the other hand, outsourcing financial services have access to updated technologies so that you can benefit from high-end tools at a fraction of the cost.

Infrastructural costs: By outsourcing financial services, you save on real estate rental, utility bills, and many other costs by financial services outsourcing.

Flexibility

Sometimes, you may need only 2-3 people to manage the current workload. You may need more people to handle the seasonal peak at other times. You can't keep hiring and laying off staff members. 

But achieving this flexibility is easy with outsourced accounting services. You can either pay only for specific services rendered by the outsourcing provider or hire a full-time team. It’s possible to convert fixed costs into variable costs and invest capital in other areas. 

Improved decision making

If you handle your company's finances yourself, there's a fair chance that you don't find time to assess your financial situation. It’s because you’re often caught up with endless duties in addition to running your business. So, it’s unlikely that you’re able to make sound business decisions that align with your financial situation.

By outsourcing financial services, you can free up time for other business activities while still being able to keep a tab on your financial picture. The outsourced team keeps you updated on everything with regular financial reporting. As a result, you can make better decisions to ensure business growth and profitability by outsourcing financial services.

Security

A dedicated and good outsourcing service provider follows strict practices and protocols for data protection, security, and client confidentiality. There is no chance of fraud as the external team closely monitors and regulates your accounting and financial activities to ensure everything is on track.

Meeting compliance deadlines

Failure to meet regulatory compliance deadlines can significantly affect your business. It can result in hefty fines or other non-monetary penalties for your business and you personally. For example, non-compliance with deadlines may cause problems in acquiring tax rebates or refunds due to your business. It can also cause trouble when renewing your trading license.  

By outsourcing financial services, the external team ensures that your business returns are updated timely. In addition, they ensure that all your business-related financial obligations are fulfilled, and compliance requirements are met. 

What Kind of Financial Services can be Outsourced?

The goals and needs of your company determine what kind of tasks you can hand over to your outsourced financial management services. Generally, SMEs often outsource forecasting, budgeting, variance analysis, bookkeeping, cash flow management, etc. Different types of financial and accounting services that can be outsourced are:

Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is a time-consuming, repetitive task that demands high-level accuracy. Bookkeeping outsourcing services handle this monotonous task while delivering comprehensive reports. These reports can provide better visibility into your company’s financial data and support informed decision-making. 

Moreover, bookkeeping outsourcing provides access to highly qualified bookkeepers who use the latest technology to ensure secure, accurate, and error-free data.

Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable (AR/AP) Management

Outsourcing financial services for AR and AP ensures that you’re paying you on time. They can handle all or any of the following tasks:

• Invoice imaging and storing
• Invoice approval
• Online payment approval
• Check processing
• Vendor inquiries handling
• Order management
• Billing and payments
• Collection management
• Debt management
• Cash forecasting and reporting

As a result, you can stay focused on revenue-generating tasks like acquiring new clientele, building business strategies, improving customer experience, etc.

Financial Reporting

Preparing financial documents and reports requires accounting experts and a team of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) who consolidate your income and expenses through financial statements. CPAs record and update your account books while ensuring the security and accuracy of your financial data. Outsourcing financial services to a skilled team of CPAs also creates financial reports for your board members, the general public, and stakeholders. 

Financial Planning and Analysis

Your outsourced finance team can provide a detailed evaluation of your company's financial health so that you can make the right business decisions. Outsourcing your financial planning and analysis gives you access to useful resources 24/7. You can access the required financial data anytime you need:

Your outsourced partner can offer the below functions efficiently:

• Preparing management reports
• Data collection and analysis
• Audit support
• Board and bank reporting
• Investor reporting and communication
• Planning, budgeting, and projections
• Creating reports for cash flow forecasts

Cost Accounting

Cost accounting is the core of accounting, and it determines the actual costs of any service provided by your company. Cost accountants work collaboratively with supply chain, manufacturing, R&D, and marketing functions to help you make the right pricing decisions. 

Business accounting outsourcing makes it easy and smooth to scale up and down your resources according to your growing business needs. 

Tax Reporting and Filing

A reliable outsourced financial management services firm can ensure your compliance with federal, state, and local tax laws. They help avoid vulnerabilities to financial and accounting computation errors that can affect your business in the long run. CPAs employed with your outsourcing financial services provider can submit your taxes timely and help with other functions like:

• Preparing federal and state income tax returns for your business
• Tax assistance
• Franchise tax support
• Collecting, filing, and paying payroll tax
• Tax planning 
• Recording and reviewing tax statements

Other tasks you can delegate for outsourcing financial services are:

• Payroll processing
• Forensic accounting
• Controller services
• And more

Conclusion

By now, you should be clear about how beneficial outsourcing financial services can be. Finally, make sure you hire a reliable outsourced partner with a team of finance specialists and serve as your complete solution for finance and accounting management. Ultimately, they will scale with your growing needs and help your company achieve the desired growth.

Although the adage "the customer is always right" has been confirmed for a while, consumer power has never been greater than it is today. When looking to buy brand-new luxury goods, customers are no longer limited to just a few options. They have dozens now. Possibly hundreds.

In recent years, not only has the number of retailers increased dramatically but so has the amount of information made available to consumers. This indicates that savvy consumers spend a lot of time researching their purchases and considering the entire retail customer support experience before making a decision.

Running a retail business requires doing and knowing a little bit of everything. A "master of all" eventually becomes a "master of none," though.

As a busy retailer, it might be time for you to start the retail process outsourcing and delegating some of the tasks that keep you alive and away from expanding your company.

Retail process outsourcing or removing some tasks from your to-do list can be helpful in this situation. In this post, we'll go over a few things you can (and should) outsource so you can run your business more effectively and give yourself a break.

Retail Process Outsourcing

Instead of hiring someone to complete the work internally, businesses can employ retail process outsourcing to an external expert, agency, or company.

Yes, you can always hire retail process outsourcing to help with your workload and give more of your responsibilities to dependable staff members. However, business owners who operate independently—or cannot yet afford full-time assistance—can contract out some of their more time-consuming or labor-intensive tasks to contracted, outside helpers.

Identifying the tasks that are the most important uses of your time is the first step in retail process outsourcing. What tasks on your list require your completion? The tasks that require your attention and those that can be delegated to others will be clearest to you as the boss.

Here is a good structure. Think about retail process outsourcing projects that are:

• They are commonly delegated because entire sectors of the economy have been created to aid small and medium-sized businesses in freeing up more of their time.
• Those that can be outsourced at a lower cost than hiring someone in-house.
• Easy for others to complete

It's simple to assume that you are familiar with every aspect of your retail process outsourcing business, so make sure to develop handbooks and procedure documents to aid in the familiarization of outside staff with your needs and operations.

Here are some suggestions for retail process outsourcing that will help you organize your to-do list and maintain your attention on your company's core operations.

1. Content Promotion

Many companies use content marketing to attract customers and lead to their websites and brick-and-mortar stores. The content creation industry is booming, with companies and freelancers willing to assist you.

Every retail process outsourcing company has different content requirements. Most business content is written, but if the need arises, you might consider contracting out for photography, design, social media, and paid to advertise.

Retailers frequently lack time to devote to producing these assets, even though content marketing can be a successful way to increase traffic, establish thought leadership, and convert browsers into customers. A skilled freelancer or content marketer can quickly and efficiently produce blogs, infographics, whitepapers, and other assets.

2. Outsourcing Technical Support

It's unlikely that you entered the retail industry because you love maintaining point-of-sale (POS) systems or running an online store's backend. However, running a successful, omnichannel retail business requires technical support from time to time and e-commerce indisputably.

Because IT typically only requires a little bit of maintenance here and there, retailers frequently decide to handle it themselves. But what if something goes wrong, needs to be scaled back, or requires support from the expert, which impacts your business or clients?

According to Retail Dive, a growing number of retailers are starting to rethink the role of in-house IT as the digital transformation has taken hold over the last few years. For many in-house IT teams, it has become too much to handle. These teams have had to figure out how to harness an endless stream of emerging technologies efficiently.

Everything comes to a complete stop until it is fixed when something needs to be set on your website, with your POS software, or with your technical concerns. Broken IT equipment costs you time, money, and even customers (even if you are leasing the equipment). Your business can expand without worrying about reaching the limits of your capabilities thanks to the security and peace of mind that come when you outsource technical support services to assist you.

3. Fulfillment through Order Management Services

Do you handle, package, and ship your orders yourself? Self-fulfillment can quickly become too much for one person.

You might discover that you're spending more time printing labels and packing boxes than on your company's sales, marketing, and other crucial areas. Not to mention the space you need to set aside in your store or warehouse for inventory and packing supplies.

Your eCommerce business can expand effectively by outsourcing order management services without adding to the workload for you and your staff. A reliable fulfillment partner stores your products, sends orders out immediately, and handles returns.

4. Retail Consumer Support

Lastly, retail process outsourcing work is a simple way for any retail company to free up time and resources. Retail customer support is a huge help with all your daily client’s concerns.

In fact, customer support can assist consumers through emails, chat, phone answering service and more, depending on your needs.

Gain Customer Loyalty Through Good Retail Customer Support

A negative retail customer support experience is the most critical factor influencing a customer's likelihood to return, making it the most significant contributor to brand loyalty.

Remember that most customers also serve others in their daily jobs, so they want to feel important when they are behind the counter.

While discounts and other incentives can undoubtedly help customers feel special, good retail customer support is the secret to a truly memorable experience.

Retailers can increase customer loyalty by getting to know their clients through their prior purchases and interests. These conclusions can be drawn from data or even from a straightforward conversation. Which of these more practical approaches will undoubtedly depend on the company's size, but no company should be too big to chat quickly with a regular client.

The customer's preferred retail customer support can be used to deliver personalized content and offers that anticipate their wants and needs and direct them down the sales funnel toward their next purchase. Even a personalized email subject line can make all the difference.

How Might Outsourcing Benefit Your Company?

You can focus on big-picture issues in your retail business and hopefully find the time and resources to maintain a healthy work-life balance by retail process outsourcing.

You can return to what you love most—expanding your retail business—by employing Wow Customer Support. Get our exceptional customer support outsourcing services by contacting Wow Customer Support immediately! Was this a helpful blog to you? Spread the word to your friends!