Outsourcing is one of the most successful and modern ways to manage your business. It allows you to delegate tasks to remote workers so you can focus on core functions. But successfully managing outsourced projects can be challenging if you don’t know where to start.
What if we told you there’s a way to simplify project management outsourcing?
Virtual assistants are a game-changer for business productivity in sales, accounting, customer support, and more. Project management is one of the most common outsourcing tasks that you can give to a VA!
In this article, we’ll look into how you can outsource project management, leverage VAs for your business, and maximize productivity tools to help simplify your workflow and scale your business. These tech-savvy helpers can streamline processes, lighten workloads, and ensure that projects are done well and on time.
Before we dive into project management outsourcing, let’s look at what outsourcing is. 👀
What is Outsourcing? Outsourcing is hiring someone outside your business to do tasks or provide services to assist your in-house team. You can use outsourcing to fill in work gaps or get extra help when there’s too much to do.
For example, a business may outsource its customer service to a third-party provider. The customer support outsourcing firm will then handle tasks such as setting up chatbots, resolving customer issues, and providing support via phone, email, or chat.
This can help the business provide 24/7 support to its customers, even with limited operating hours. It can also free up internal resources so teams can focus on their core competencies, such as sales or product development.
There are many ways to outsource depending on your business needs and preferences, including:
- Offshore Outsourcing: When a business hires an outsourcing firm in a different country or region to fulfill specific tasks or services
- Onshore Outsourcing: When a business brings operations back to its home country
- Dedicated Outsourcing: When a business hires a third-party team to focus solely on a particular project, function, or process
- Staff Augmentation: When a business supplements its internal team with a remote workforce
- Virtual Assistant Outsourcing: When a business hires and delegates non-core business tasks to a virtual assistant ## 5 Benefits of Outsourcing Services for Your Business
Outsourcing has many benefits, and businesses of all sizes use it to gain a competitive edge. Here are five of the main benefits of outsourcing.
1. Access to specialized skills and talents
With outsourcing, location is no longer a crucial hiring factor because you can hire highly-skilled workers from abroad without the additional cost and effort.
Tap into specialized talent and expertise that might not be available in-house to manage workloads efficiently and better prioritize and allocate resources.
Use ClickUp’s Workload View to see who is ahead or behind and easily drag-and-drop tasks to reallocate resources
This can help balance workloads by shifting certain tasks away from overloaded employees and onto external providers who can handle them more efficiently, and avoid ongoing labor shortages, while ensuring that tasks are assigned to the most qualified and capable individuals, ultimately leading to better outcomes.
Access to a global talent pool also gives you a competitive edge in becoming more innovative, responsive, and agile.
2. Improved productivity and project quality
Outsourcing allows you to focus on your core competencies and strategic goals while leaving non-core tasks to the experts. Plus, outsourcing project management can help your business streamline operations and reduce the time and resources required to complete tasks.
Virtual assistant services don’t just require extra hands to complete a few projects and more work. VAs can also help you analyze and develop the right productivity strategies for your business so you can get work done faster and at a higher quality.
3. Cost savings
Your business can cut costs on labor, overhead, and operations by outsourcing because you don’t have to spend as much time and resources on hiring and training new employees such as an in-house project manager.
Small businesses outsource to efficiently fill skills gaps via Clutch
4. Flexibility and scalability
You likely want to grow your company, which is easier said than done. But outsourcing is one strategy to accelerate your business growth because it offers the flexibility to adapt quickly to market changes without huge investments in hiring, training, or equipment.
A survey from Clutch found that business owners are optimistic about outsourcing as a business tactic, especially during the recession. It’s a cost-effective solution to bridge skill gaps, lower expenses, and scale the business to new heights.
5. Reduced risks
By outsourcing, you’re transferring certain risks to the service provider so you can diversify operations. Rather than having to invest the time and money in hiring internally, you can pass that responsibility to an outsourcing provider and get new hires nearly instantly if things don’t work out.
Plus, outsourcing companies have a list of professionals with varied skill sets, so you’re sure to find the right hire the first time rather than having to sort through countless resumes and sit through dreaded interviews.
What is Outsourcing in Project Management?
As we mentioned, project management is one of the most common tasks to outsource to a virtual assistant.
Project management outsourcing refers to hiring a third party or external project managers to handle specific tasks or entire projects on behalf of a business. It could include virtual assistant services in sales, customer support, accounting, graphic design, or any other PM tasks.
When you outsource project management, experienced workers will keep projects on time, within budget, and up to quality standards. This frees you up for value-adding activities such as driving sales or improving your products.
4 Benefits of Project Management Outsourcing
Project management outsourcing can be your go-to strategy for executing projects seamlessly .
Here are four key benefits of outsourcing in project management:
1. Access to a highly skilled workforce
Outsourcing project management provides highly skilled workers to augment your business. You can hire talent who has specific expertise in your niche or a generalist who is also a well-rounded and agile problem-solver.
For instance, an outsourced project manager can help your business stay on track, manage risks, and take on larger projects. Focus on your core business duties while leaving the complex and often time-consuming task of project management to experts.
Setting up and previewing your virtual assistant profile via Magic
PRO TIP
Improve your onboarding process and ensure you cover all your bases by using the
ClickUp Onboarding Checklist Template
to get your external project manager or team up to speed in less time.
2. Fast hiring
With outsourced project managers on your team, you can avoid the costs related to hiring and training a full-time in-house project manager. Instead, you can pay for project management services on an as-needed basis.
This also means fast turnaround times as processes are streamlined. Top outsourcing companies can hire someone for your business needs in as little as a week.
PRO TIP
Set expectations and stay aligned from the start by using the
ClickUp Project Management Services Contract Template
. This doc template outlines key information about the agreed-upon services, such as the scope of service and
contract terms.
3. Multi-tool expertise
Outsourced project managers often have the resources needed to complete projects more quickly.
In particular, virtual assistants know how to use many project management tool s, such as advanced tools like ClickUp , which can provide a wide range of features for managing complex projects. A VA who is familiar with ClickUp can manage projects using common project management methodologies —Agile, Waterfall, or Hybrid, to name a few.
Project manager VAs can use these tools to stay organized and work more efficiently. They can also leverage them to find better ways to improve your workflows and achieve your goals.
PRO TIP
There are many variations of the agile approach that beginners and even expert project managers may find overwhelming—but the good news is that you can implement a basic
agile workflow
to your projects in just minutes with an agile template like the
ClickUp Agile Project Management Template
.
4. Access to new tech
With a project manager VA, you can access tech you may not be able to afford or don’t have the time to set up. This includes artificial intelligence (AI) that’s rapidly advancing and disrupting many industries.
With its continuous development, AI is changing the way we work. The need for AI and machine learning skills is predicted to rise by 71% in the next five years. So, there’s no better time to use this new tech to your advantage!
Rewrite tool in Magic AI, a GPT tool designed for virtual assistants to help them write emails more efficiently
For one, Magic’s remote workforce is equipped with custom MagicAI, which improves their efficiency. This successful outsourcing organization concentrates on empowering its assistants with AI to automate tasks , reduce human error, reveal new insights, and assist project manager VAs in generating email drafts, reducing the time and effort required to craft a message from scratch.
PRO TIP
Use
ClickUp AI
to help your internal teams write faster and produce high-quality written content, and work with Magic’s virtual assistants who are equipped with MagicAI to get more done in less time and deliver quality projects on time.
How to Outsource Project Management for Your Business
Outsourcing project management is a strategic move if you’re looking to streamline processes, cut costs, and free up time to focus on more important tasks.
There are different ways of outsourcing project management, so let’s explore the top options.
1. Business process outsourcing companies
Business process outsourcing (BPO) companies are third-party service providers that offer a range of business processes:
- Back-office tasks, such as data entry updates, manage workflows, and collaborate with the team, all from your ClickUp Workspace
How ClickUp can help improve project management and collaboration with external teams:
- Invite guests to your Workspace: Simply invite guests to your ClickUp Workspace Additionally, project management tools provide an effective way of collaborating with remote teams, enabling users to share important documents and updates seamlessly and easily. Users are able to keep track of who has seen the updates, thereby streamlining communication between team members from different locations.
Ultimately, implementing an all-in-one project management tool like ClickUp will allow internal and external teams to collaborate and communicate more effectively, resulting in higher productivity and better outcomes.
Leverage Project Management Tools and Outsourcing to Take Your Business to the Next Level
Outsourcing project management services will change the way you get work done.
It’s smart to save time and scale up without the stress and costs of hiring more people. With outsourcing, you also benefit from access to top global talent, greater flexibility, and reduced risks.
But it doesn’t stop there! If you opt to outsource project management to a virtual assistant, you can further boost business productivity as you take on larger, more complex projects.
Most people think VAs can only do data entry and write emails, but they also make great project managers. They provide personalized support and flexibility to meet your project or business needs and use a wide range of tools to ensure every project is running smoothly.
Ready to make project management easier, faster, and more cost-effective?
ClickUp is an efficient and hassle-free way to manage your projects. It has features and tools to support any project management methodology and make it easy to start outsourcing projects. And at Magic, their virtual assistants are among the top 3% of talent and are proficient in many tools and software.
Make training a VA as an external project manager even easier by using
ready-made templates
to jumpstart any type of work. Get started now and level up with project management outsourcing!
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Guest Writer:
Li is a content writer at Magic devoted to capturing stories that provide insights and spark conversations on a wide range of topics, such as business process outsourcing, sales, customer support, and business operations.