Worried about the future of work, and globalisation of the workforce? Don’t worry, we’ve got your back – and your business covered. Time for another exciting edition of Gone Global!
Who would you hire if you had an unlimited budget?
The common business trope is to ‘hire the best and get out of their way’.
I’ve already written about my issues with that irritating oversimplification. But it can serve as a useful thought exercise.
Most businesses are tormented by too many new ideas and opportunities but constrained by too few staff, resources, and cash to pursue them.
Personally, I have a million ideas for my business for new areas, iterations, and products. But alas, I have too little time, people, and cash to explore them all.
Who feels the same?
Maximalist
As a thought exercise, it can be valuable to let it all go, and imagine who you might hire, and what projects you might do – if you had infinite resources.
Would you hire an army of 10,000 sales agents, 200 engineers to develop a new product, or 5,000 biotech scientists to work on solving cancer
But be careful what you wish for.
Bigger teams offer more ‘manhours,’ but they also increase operational complexity and bureaucracy, resulting in diminishing productivity and a maddening work environment. It is easy to coordinate in small teams of 5 but technically impossible to coordinate with hundreds of people.
Back to reality
In reality, most businesses do too much with too few people.
It is the role of a business to have enough staff to not only manage existing operations but to have additional people who can prospect for new clients and plan and build new features, departments, or business units.
Most businesses struggle to make a profit as is. So it’s a luxury to be able to afford to have staff in excess of your operational needs.
After all, the all-in cost of an extra staff member can easily reach 6-figures. It’s serious cash.
Hiring additional staff to take your business to the next level is never a guarantee of reaching that next level. Plans backfire, and things go wrong. It is risky to grow, and investing in the future is uncertain.
As a result, most businesses hit a certain scale and then cannot break through. They reach stasis and can’t afford, or risk, the extra resources to get to the next level.
There is an alternative.
Hiring offshore staff can save you 70% on staffing costs. This massive saving drops both the cost and risk of hiring additional people.
It also enables you to hire more staff so that you can move beyond the day-to-day operations and into the planning, growth, and iteration phases of business-building.
In addition, hiring offshore via professional operators allows you flexible terms so you can expand and contract as needed without too much obligation or headache.
Offshoring is our flexible friend – and at a 70% discount to traditional employment, it could be your ticket to the next level of growth.
The question for your business:
Are you stuck in stasis? Too expensive, or risky, to invest in the next stage of growth?