Is outsourcing there to place a sticking plaster over a practice’s problem?
If you were to imagine a job candidate in front of you and telling them that they were only really needed to cover a short-term problem. And that, when that problem goes away, they won’t be needed… But you may call them again in a few weeks if the problem again rears its head. You would expect that – if looking for permanent employment – they wouldn’t be impressed. In fact, they’d say that they weren’t interested in the role.
Emergencies and short-term resourcing issues do arise in accounting firms. And it’s fair to say that we have begun several of our journeys with firms when they were looking for short-term help.
But if we were to go back and forth with practices, helping as and when, then there would be two main issues. Firstly, the situation would be symptomatic that the firm has a structural and/or operational problem. Secondly, working with a firm in such a way is difficult: there is a lack of momentum in the work, or gaining a true understanding of that firm’s processes, workflows and their nuances.
In truth, none of us like constantly ‘firefighting’ in our working lives, and this inconsistent way of working is sub-optimal for all involved – potentially the end clients too.
When we build relationships with practices it is because we see Advancetrack as an extension of those practices – we are there to support them in delivering consistently high-quality work that enables the practice leaders to drive their business forward.
We can be open in saying that such consistency is conducive to us building better operations and improving what we do.
So, overall, we would call ‘outsourcing is a short-term fix’ as a myth.
If you’d like to talk to us about managing your resources and driving your practice forward, then book a call.
