The Liberated CEO: The 9-Step Program to Running a Better Business so it Doesn't Run You

CHAPTER 3

SMART SOURCING: HIRE THE BEST—OUTSOURCE THE REST

In our economic era, you have the advantage of choosing from an abundance of highly reliable experts and contractors available for virtual services. The reality is we live in an economy driven by on-demand labor because of the enormous cost advantages delivered by this evolution.

Global spending on business-process outsourcing in the financial and accounting industries will exceed $25 billion in 2013, and rise at an annual rate of 8 percent through 2017, according to a recent analysis by HfS Research and accounting giant KPMG.¹ The outsourcing revolution is about far more than vendors outside our country providing IT, technical, or administrative services. For small businesses and professional services firms, outsourcing is now a just-in-time, flexible-workforce strategy for bringing experts into your business when and where you need them.

Among the most common moves: outsourcing administrative functions such as marketing, bookkeeping, and IT services. The basic benefits of the approach are clear: Limit your full-time employees to those who are truly essential to operate your business and keep full-time employees with the costs and headaches off your books. But there's something missing from most of the small and professional services business literature: detailed advice on how to make these decisions to drive the vision and goals of your business.

Some have adopted the strategies of bestselling author Tim Ferris, whose ...