After surviving the recession, most manufacturing companies understand the importance of budgeting and reducing overhead costs all too well. Unfortunately, with energy and transportation costs rising more each day, some companies look to cut spending on vital research and innovations.
In the long run, reducing spending on product research and development can cost manufacturers significantly more as they struggle to compete with growing international manufacturers. How can companies shrink their budget without sacrificing product quality and innovation?
Crowdsourcing IT and HR Tasks
The last few years have shown a notable increase in outsourcing of human resources and information technology departments as companies seek ways to shrink company budgets without losing the skilled workforce they need to operate. Contracting third party companies for HR and IT needs enables manufacturers to offer superior benefits and take advantage of improved technology at a much lower rates.
In a discussion about the value of outsourcing human resources, business specialist Renu Chopra discusses the flexibility of outsourced programs because they “…can turn relatively fixed HR costs into variable costs that can scale with business changes such as acquisitions, divestitures, growth in new markets and contraction in times of economic downturn.”
In addition to the overall costs of outsourcing these departments, companies benefit as HR and IT firms work to improve quality of service and resources to remain competitive. Working with an agile, adaptive third party allows companies to focus spending and time on growing their business rather than updates and training for stagnant in-house departments.