Seventy-five years ago, Ford's River Rouge plant turned shiploads of raw ore, sand and latex into columns of road-ready Model A's. Those glory days of integrated manufacturing are gone forever. Today's cell phone or PC nameplate offers no clue who makes or sells the product. Each year, thousands more manufacturers outsource - subcontract products and services to specialist firms. Specialists concentrate resources and purchasing power, and spread fixed costs over high volumes. Their economies of scale give clients better products and services than they could produce themselves. What's more, outsourcing lets companies concentrate on activities where they add the most value, and adapt quickly to opportunities in their markets.
In Sales and Marketing, these economies have propelled outsourcing far beyond its roots in call centers and trade-show management. Today, companies outsource services ranging from evaluating incentive programs to running worldwide sales organizations. And while most outsourcing programs are launched to cut costs, they're sustained by growth – in efficiency, agility, customer satisfaction and especially revenue.http://www.marketstar.com
Outsourcing: How Fast, How Far?
Companies have outsourced since the railroads hired Pinkerton's to run down Butch and Sundance. But today's margin pressures and Internet communications accelerate the process. The move to outsourcing has been so fast and deep that statisticians have been caught flatfooted - the US Economic Census didn't even start compiling information on the topic until 2003.
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The data available on service outsourcing – mostly from surveys – reveal a boom. Gartner, Inc. predicts business process outsourcing (which includes Sales and Marketing) will grow from $110 billion in 2002 to $173 billion in 2007 – an annual compounded rate of 9.5 percent.
The strongest endorsement of outsourcing is that companies do more of it as they gain experience. Manufacturers now outsource everything from R&D through Sales and Customer Service. Some consultants and authors predict "virtualized" corporations, and advise companies to outsource everything but an essential core of high-value activities. And every year, more companies act on their recommendations.
Outsourcing Sales and Marketing requires a few special techniques, and like any business venture, there are risks to be managed. But with the information in this guide and an experienced partner, you can quickly draw on specialized resources for operations you choose to outsource, and concentrate your company's own resources on delivering its core value more effectively to more customers.
Outsourcing Sales and Marketing
Sales and Marketing are tightly linked to a company's reputation and key customer relationships. Not so long ago, few would have considered it a candidate for outsourcing. Yet carefully planned and executed outsourcing of Sales and Marketing succeeds for more companies every year.
