Author: Writer

Starting an ecommerce business is only the beginning of your adventure as an online entrepreneur. With the market being as competitive as it is today, you also have to be meticulous with how you run your online store in order to stay competitive.

Cutting costs and keeping your overheads at a minimum are among the ways you can be more competitive on the market. One of the things you can do to manage your costs is outsource certain workflows to service providers. Here are three things you can outsource immediately.

IT Support

Even as an ecommerce business, you don’t have to have a large IT department. In fact, you can make do with a small and lean team of web developers or engineers and let a third-party IT support service provider help you with everything else.

Rather than worrying about maintaining your own business phone system and other IT infrastructure, for instance, you can turn to 24x7it.com, a leading name in managed IT services, for some ready-made service packages. This offloads the burden of maintaining a robust IT system altogether.

Working with a company like 24×7 IT Solutions also helps you stay lean as the company grows. You don’t have to worry about scaling up your entire IT infrastructure to support the company’s growth. Everything will be handled for you at a low (and manageable) cost.

Accounting

Another workflow you can completely outsource is financial management, particularly accounting and bookkeeping. There are many business solutions designed to tackle the challenges of keeping detailed accounts, so you don’t have to have several in-house accountants for the job.

You need to begin the process of outsourcing accounting by deciding on a system to use. Depending on whether you use cash-based accounting or accrual-based accounting, you can choose the most suitable managed accounting service for your business.

On top of that, there are service providers that combine accounting services with add-ons such as reporting, financial management, and risk management. Combined with the ability to integrate the other business solutions you use, outsourcing accounting is a great way to save money.

Shipping

Few ecommerce businesses actually handle shipping in-house. You may already partner with shipping companies for your ecommerce business, but that doesn’t mean you cannot outsource some of the shipping-related workflows even further.

Handling, for instance, can be outsourced to sorting centers. This means order fulfillment is no longer a task that you need to handle manually. Some sorting centers will even go as far as helping you manage inventory and automating other parts of the business.

With handling and shipping out of the way, you can focus on what really matters: delivering products to customers quickly and effectively.

You can do all of these things without spending a lot of money in the process. In fact, you can outsource these workflows to reduce costs and be more efficient as an ecommerce business. That’s how you gain a competitive advantage in a tight market.

When a global health emergency like the outbreak of COVID19 takes place, it often highlights gaps in the infrastructure of the world, and in workplaces. Companies then need to figure out where these gaps are and make the essential changes and improvements to protect their employees in the future. And global pandemics and illnesses often cause a significant strain on the economy. The flu season alone racked up a cost of almost $6bn in healthcare and lost productivity in 2016, while the swine flu outbreak in 2009 caused serious economic losses in the affected countries. And today, the coronavirus outbreak is having a similar effect around the world. Here are some of the main ways that it’s likely to affect the future of the workforce.

More Remote Working

Telecommuting has grown massively over the last decade, with around 91% more workers now working remotely. And given the fact that coronavirus is so contagious, it’s suddenly become the new normal for a huge amount of companies, including many who’ve never had their employees working from home before. More and more companies are encouraging their employees to work remotely, and many have been forced to consider changing the way that they do things to make this possible. As a result, it’s likely that companies will be better prepared for remote working in the future – and may even realize the benefits that it can have.

Increased Reliance on Tech

Companies are going to be relying more on technology and less on travel during the coronavirus pandemic, with travel being canceled all over the world, borders being closed, and the future of many airlines put at risk. As a result, businesses who’d normally have somebody travel to meet face to face with clients overseas have had no choice but to rely more heavily on technological solutions like video conferencing; a trend that is likely set to continue after COVID19 is all over.

Unlimited Sick Days

Several companies, including LinkedIn and Netflix, have led the way in updating their sick time policies to allow employees to take unlimited sick days, which has actually led to employees taking less time off. Most people, when faced with the ability to take as many sick days off as they please, will actually do the right thing and only use their freedom when they really need to. And with an outbreak like that of COVID19, restricted sick days have risked employees coming into work when they are ill, and infecting others.

More Online Options

For businesses who’re not yet fully invested in their online presence, things are about to change. Small business owners who tend to deal with customers face to face are hurriedly looking for money to update their website, invest in online ordering facilities and brush up their social media profiles. If you’re a small business owner looking to boost the online side of your company during the COVID19 outbreak, visit LoanPigUSA who may be able to help you get a quick injection of cash to grow your online presence.

How do you expect businesses and workforces to change after the coronavirus outbreak?