Business Online

There is one luxury one enjoys when one plans an operation as compared to when one runs an operation. That luxury is the fact itself that the operation is not running.

When the operations runs, when the salesmen start going out, when the server hangs, when the Internet drops, when agents don’t show up, when money doesn’t come in on time, when new business just refuses to show its face, that is EXACTLY when you DON’T have time to plan. That is the time when you can not afford to be stepping on other people’s toes. When Murphy shows up, that is the time to act. That is the time when different people in the team play their part! They play the part they are supposed to play.

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What to outsource? And where is the best place to outsource? Not only valid, but extremely important questions, both.

But let’s start with the why!

Why outsource?

That should not even be a question. If you think you do not outsource, you are wrong, that is how common it is. Every time you buy any business service from anyone (a signboard to display ads, an ad agency to make your commercial, an import agent to get that container off the docks), you are essentially ‘outsourcing’ one part of your business process. Is that business process essential to your business? Yes of course. But it is not core! That is not why you are in business. If you sell shoes, for example, your core business is selling shoes, period. Everything else can and should be outsourced. Two reasons that should be enough justification to consider outsourcing everything except your core business:

1. lower costs
2. more focus on core business

Core business is the reason you are in business. It is the answer to the questions, “why am I in business?” A shoe seller is in business to sell shoes. Core business should be said as simply and in as few a words as possible - this helps in staying focused. No fancy visionary statements or mission objective or bouquets like that, not when we are talking core. And just so that we are clear, focusing on your core business does not neccessarily mean that you do it yourself, but it is what makes your business yours.

So where do we look to outsource your business processes?

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I got an email from one of my friends over at Facebook. He has sent me a video link. As this friend doesn’t normally send out stuff like these, I though perhaps he has something really important or interesting to tell/show/share. When I clicked on the link, the first thing Facebook did was remove all doubt that I was leaving Facebook to a different site. I do not remember Facebook telling me that before, ever. (I could be wrong here). But onto the new site, the video site YuoTube told me that my Flash player is out of date and that I should update. They provided me with a link to begin update as well, my o my, how thoughtful.

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It was not long ago that companies thought that having a website was a drain on their time and money. That time has come and gone. Now companies, big and small, in Lahore or Faisalabad, want a website. They can see the benefits. It is a different story that many of them fail to realize the profits due to lack of planning.

Now it is the same with blogging. Companies in Pakistan are not blogging. Why blog? Or more relevant, what the hell is blogging anyways? These questions are not new to me, of course. I have heard these types of questions regarding simple websites. History, as usual, is repeating itself. There will always be people who are far sighted and those who have a vision.

If you are reading this and your company does not have a website, you should have one. If your company’s website does not have a blog, you should get one. For more reasons than one, a lot more.

Ask Treetech.com.pk and we will provide you a handy little e-book on why you should have a blog on your company’s website.

God bless & good luck.

It is essential that your business gets online. But putting up a website for your business is not enough. It never was and perhaps never can be. When was the last time your act of printing brochures to sell to customers was enough to get the customers in? Who is going to distribute the brochures? If you do not distribute the brochures, no one will know of course. If you do not ‘distribute’ your web address, no one will know about your website either. That does diminish their chances of visiting your website, now doesn’t it?

Ask yourself: what did you in the last one week to market distribute your website? It sounds circular to market the marketing material itself. But we do it for every other medium. Have you done that for your website?

P.S. Taking the brochure analogy further (hopefully not way too further) is that distributing this remarkable medium of advertising is the last mile. There are a lot miles before that. The creative content that goes into the brochure, the layout, the design are all essentials and require the most amount of creative talent.