While researching current market trends in the B2B industry, I stumbled upon a recurring theme: Companies are turning to outsourcing to ease the stress of the recession. In fact, the B2B outsourcing market is expected to grow 18-20 percent this year.

With so many companies turning to outsourcing, how do you know if it’s right for you?

When you should outsource:

1. Not part of your core competency

An economic recession is the time to take a good look at your business and redefine your focus. Delegate what is not core to your business model. You will have more time to focus and refine what actually creates value and revenue for your business.

2. Some else can do it better

Now that you’ve established what your core competencies are, focus on your expertise. Don’t try to do everything in-house – you will waste valuable time and money training your team when you could be hiring experts to take care of supportive business tasks like public relations or marketing. By outsourcing your supporting tasks to experts, you ensure optimal results in those sectors while still focusing on what drives your business.

3. Pressure to cut costs but increase revenue

In a recession, departments face pressures to reduce costs to help the company stay profitable. Outsourcing reduces costs by controlling operating costs such as overhead, equipment and software, training, and possible facility costs. The money saved can be reallocated to investing in improving your core competencies to create more revenue. You can focus on hiring people that will add substantial value to your company instead of just support.

4. Improve quality

By outsourcing to experts, you can efficiently improve the quality of your supportive business tasks. The outsourced company focuses on providing the results your company needs – it’s their core competency. You control the quality through legally-binding service level agreements without having to sacrifice excess resources.

5. Gain efficiencies across multiple business units

Even if you are thriving in the recession and acquiring new business through mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing allows you to create a standard throughout multiple business units. Outsourcing experts optimize the communication through all your different business units to create efficient and effective results.

What made you choose to outsource or what is preventing you from outsourcing?