Why Managed Outsource Services?
Oak Services Group serves clients in a wide range of industries and specialties.
Managed Outsourced Services...
- Expert staffing at a fraction of the cost.
Fractional models allow a team to be staffed at all levels of expertise and for limited timeframes to work efficiently and replace less efficient full-time structures. - Flexibility in staffing allows roles to be filled that would not have been.
E.g. if you needed a controller for 25% of the time but can't find one for this duration, this role may go under or over filled.
Your team will remain focused on operating and growing your core business. There are many non-core competencies (e.g. hiring, managing and retaining finance professionals) that can be outsourced effecitively.
Under a managed services model, the Oak Services Group takes on the responsibility for:
- Recruiting, Training, Benefits/Benefits Management, Scheduling/Task Management, Personnel Management, Oversight, Time Management, Vacation and Continuity Planning
- All tasks and responsibilities that are considered non-core to what makes your business unique.
As the company's needs change, managed outsource services allows the:
- Ability to leverage expertise on an as-needed basis (e.g. you have an audit coming, you may need temporary help for 2 weeks)
- Abiilty to scale quickly and efficiently and in incremental units (no need to add/drop in full-time employee units)
- Ability to meet spot needs (both recurring and non-recurring):
- Need CFO services for a budgeting/planning cycle but not the rest of the year?
- Need additional support in preparation for an M&A transaction? Independent from your staff?
- Need a project manager to oversee an IT systems impelmentation as a one-off project?
Engaging in outsoucing through a managed services relationship provides significant benefits over hiring one-off temp workers.
Under this model, you get continuity in your staffing as the staff is vetted and engaged on a full-time (or recurring W2-basis) by the managed staffing company.
We are able to insure continuity in the team and knowledgebase of your company's practices, processes, systems, reporting preferences, way-of-doing-business, staffing and all the intangibles that allow us to provide consistent, reliable service.
We view our relationships as long-term partnerships and this provides a level of accountability that is simply not found in transactional models.
Outsourcing Considerations Typical for Small to Medium Size Enterprises:
- Areas outside of the core business of an organization (e.g. often including Banking/Financial Services, Compliance Services, Audit, Tax Services
- These are often areas where two sets of eyes are beneficial and independence is valued.
- Accounting is one area that can be effectively outsourced, particularly if:
- You are having difficulty attracting and retaining senior level accounting talent and/or don't have a strong accounting lead.
- If your struggle with retention and/or management of senior level accounting or finance staff.
- Whenver an employee is taking 25 hours/week or more on a dedicated task where there time could be freed up or
- Any time that Introducing efficiency into the business is possible by optimizing time allocations ,allowing increased focus on the core business.
(For example, if you are doing your own books, is this the most efficient use of your time? During this time, who is running and building your business?)
- Any time that Introducing efficiency into the business is possible by optimizing time allocations ,allowing increased focus on the core business.
- Whenever you need budgeting, forecasting, controllership or CFO functions but don't need them full time.
- Whenever you need expertise at fractional levels, allowing you to get the best possible talent at a fraction of the price.
- When you are outsourcing, you need to have clear communications, objectives, milestones, roles, responsibilities, and budgets/planning for it to be highly successful.
- As a small to mid-size business owner you should not be thinking of this as 'giving up control over your books' but instead be thinking about where your value can most benefit the company. Systems and processes are there to mitigate/controll against fraud.
- Depending on your situation, you might think of outsourcing the whole accounting department. If your goal is to get something off your plate, this effectively does that and assures full accountability for the numbers and reporting from the firm delivering the services rather than split responsibilities. We are happy to work in any fashion, but this is a reason why outsourcing the full accounting function is often a good choice.
- While there are lots of variables and not all companies and situations will fit in this range, a typical rule of thumb is that accounting should cost 1-3% of total revenue, depending on industry, size/scale, and current efficiencies. If it is costing more there may be efficiencies to be had.
Three Areas of High Value-Add for Outsource Services:
Accounting / Controllership Services
Accounting departments can be areas where efficiency can be gained in the form of direct cost savings and/or structural approaches, layering levels of talent on a fractional basis, to produce an effective managed staffing and reporting model.
In addition, this function, above all others, benefits from an objective third-party independence in reviewing and reporting financial results and operation KPI metrics.
Accounting is an area where consistency and process are key. Staff turnover can be disruptive. Having a firm committed to maintaining the integrity of the processes, responsible for all staffing concerns, replacement, training and providing career paths and benefits, can lead to greater stability and efficiency in your processes.
By outsourcing this function, business owners can focus on their core business activities that drive the outcomes for the organization.
CFO Services
There are two main factors driving this area for high-value managed service relationships:
(1) CFO/Strategic Finance needs of small to mid-size organizations are often limited. Many have a need for some level of financial management support, operational efficiency/metrics, coupled with some private or public investor reporting. This can often be satisfied with fractional services for some of the functions and pushing others to a controller or efficiently staffed accounting department.
Note: This does depend on the nature and size of the organization. Companies growing through acquisition for instance would have significant on-going needs.
(2) CFO/Strategic Finance needs may vary significantly over time and may require a "ramp up" of resources for set periods of time. For example: budgeting and financial planning, quarterly board meetings, M&A activities (buy-side or sell-side), operational metrics, or other special projects.
Managed IT Services
There are two primary areas where managed services make sense in IT services over more traditional models:
(1) Ongoing IT tech support, systems maintenance and daily IT work can vary in intensity and benefit from the scalability of managed services. Setting up systems and solutions is often time intensive. Monitoring and maintaining tends to be less time commitment. Many firms use cloud-based services, keeping operational support lighter. Security work is ongoing and crucial, and so is compliance efforts (e.g. Soc 2), but require specialized expertise.
This work can benefit from:
- having on-call services when needed
- having the right expertise when needed
- being able to scale a team when needed
- setting up the right fractional team for most efficient mix of personnel and adjusting over time as needed.
(2) IT project work can vary significantly from project to project. It would be prohibitive to maintain a staff with the highest level of expertise in each area.
Under managed services, you can scale up or down as needed and retain or replace resources and gain specialized expertise whenever desired.