Deloitte Study: Outsourcing Can Unleash Marketplace Speed

Arnoux Mare, managing director of Innovative Staffing Solutions (ISS), opined that in an ever-increasing competitive landscape coupled with the crippling effects of COVID, companies that want to survive must examine their core mandates. (Slater, 2020)

“Businesses should not be weighed down by the management of functions that have nothing do with their business, but rather consider outsourcing those elements to a third party allowing an organization to use its resources more effectively to grow,” said Maré.

ISS assists firms focus on core mandates and competencies by ensuring new hires and staff are trained, proficient and suited to the specific business’s needs.

A parallel can be drawn to what we do at SeeSaw Services.

If you are an architect your core competencies almost certainly reside outside of accounting, bookkeeping and other back office tasks. While you are engaged with these tasks it comes at a great cost.

The same applies if you are an engineer, designer or operate within the construction field.

Then there is the issue of office space.

COVID has introduced a new reality where 6 ft distance rules will be in place for the foreseeable future.

Suddenly your workspace’s occupancy has been reduced.

Chief Robotics, based in the Bay Area, was recently profiled in the Wall Street Journal. (Cutter, 2020)

Chief Robotics is a smaller firm totaling 8 employees. Their workplace did not have the requisite square footage to safely accommodate all 8 employees.

They had to make decisions on the margin and invite in the employees whose jobs were best carried out in office.

SeeSaw Services’s parent company, Elliot Bay Design Group (EBDG), is an architectural and engineering firm serving the marine industry. Our engineers are best suited to an in person, collaborative environment. It is hard, if not impossible, to replicate that milieu over Zoom.

Our finance team, however, has done an amazing job, with zero interruption to business as usual, working remotely. The nature of finance and accounting is somewhat linear and while arcane at times, there are well established rights ways of carrying out bookkeeping and accounting duties (e.g., GAAP guiding the way).

EBDG is 60 plus employees and at that size in house teams are the norm.

If you are a firm perhaps 10 employees or smaller, is it prudent to dedicate space and the resources required to hire FTEs in accounting and bookkeeping?

It is a tough question to ask but one that must be asked. It goes to the continued viability and success of your firm.

Your in Success,

Wally and Team SeeSaw