You have specific talents but you are not good at everything. As the President, CEO or Executive Director your time and talent can best be devoted to creating and implementing the organization’s vision and pursuing rapidly emerging opportunities.  This should be your core focus.   So why are you spending your precious time and talent building an internal finance function, an information technology process, or other noncore operations?
 
Learn from the 21st century CEO.  Today’s CEO is investing his/her time, money and people in the functions that they do best and that sets them apart from their competitors.  They are delegating or outsourcing support functions to experts who have the time, money and talent specific to that function. 

Outsourcing vendors invest their capital and operate under their own core focus of making that specific process as close to perfect.  The result is tremendous flexibility, use of cutting edge technology, and having a support function that will grow with the organization’s needs without taking a single step to expand its operations.  Today’s CEO recognizes that when it comes to support functions, an outside provider can perform the process better, faster, and often times cheaper than a process set up in-house.

Young companies seem to thrive when they recognize from day-one the benefits of designing their initial system based on outsourced support services.  The outsourcer is responsible for identifying the necessary skills and delivering them to the client.  In accounting, for instance, the outsourcer can attract better talent because it offers richer career opportunities.  Outsourcers can make things happen faster because they already have the infrastructure in place.  This allows the organization to operate competitively in a rapidly changing market.

You would like to speed up the pace of innovation in your business.  You are looking for the “edge” that will allow you to compete in the current marketplace.  You would like to cut costs by delegating to a vendor who has the economies of scale.  Outsource the administrative functions – accounting, human resources, and information technology.  It is the smart choice and one that will unleash your entrepreneurial creativity.

Maribel Torres-Piñero, CPA