It is an exciting time when your business is flying high and you are looking to expand. However, you do have to keep your feet on the ground, as it is very easy to get carried away and leave your business struggling for money due to overindulgence. Here are some points to consider.
Making sure that you have enough room to grow
When you are thinking about expanding your business, it is important that you think about how much room you are going to require, especially if you are thinking of renting premises.
When you started out on your business venture, you may have had dreams about sitting in a big office or having a large factory. However, there are very few businesses that require this kind of room from the outset. If you were smart, you would have prepared yourself so that you had a little bit of growing space before you actually needed to expand your horizons.
Luckily in this day and age, location is not so important as most customers will come to you via the internet, and when you are looking at renting an area—whether it is an office or a factory or even a warehouse—you can look at the cheaper rents rather than go for the classy areas and paying through the nose.
Although when you are looking at space, you will probably be looking at units larger than the one you are currently in, you do have to be aware not to go for a too large a unit as you will then be paying for empty space unless, of course, your business is growing exponentially and square footage equates to money.
When looking for a location, make sure that there is somewhere for your employees to park, that the parking is free if your site will not have its own parking available, and that the unit is close to public transport links for those who do not drive.
The importance of outsourcing work
When growing a business, it is important to use outsourcing businesses in order to keep your costs small, but to have the advantage of experts working on your projects.
Using outsourcing businesses is a good idea and will save your growing business money, as you can have them take care of the specific areas of your business when they are needed rather than paying an hourly rate (though for some businesses, you may well be paying a monthly fee). Within departments such as IT, you may not feel that you require someone continuously to do the job, especially when it comes to offering support to your workers. Therefore, by using people on an ad-hoc basis—for example, by outsourcing your IT support to a reputable business—you will have all the services and support you need but for a fraction of the price of paying an employee who is on an hourly rate.
Outsourcing work to subcontractors or businesses is not the same as hiring temporary employees via an agency.
When you hire employees from an agency, they will be working as one of your employees, only you will be paying the agency for their services, and you will still be paying by the hour. Usually, as the agency takes a cut, you will be paying a higher rate for your temporary employees than for your permanent employees.
By outsourcing subcontractors, you will be paying them a pre-agreed price for a job to be done and not by the hour, so you will only be paying for the time they spend on your job and not for any time they spend away from their workstation.
