I have been working with an interesting client for the last few months. The company sells a high tech product and revenues in 2010 are forecast to reach $300 million but $400 million is possible. The company operates worldwide with major customers in four countries and no business in the U.S. The company has nine employees.
Six employees are devoted to sales, with two accounting types and a supply chain management executive. This lean staffing is possible because the company outsources manufacturing, product development, logistics, IT, PR and website management. HR will soon be outsourced to simplify management, although taking care of nine employees only takes two hours per month.The plan in 2010 is to add 1 or 2 staff in sales and to expand the office to 3000 square feet.
Such an approach offers several benefits:
- The whole company is focused on sales because nearly everybody is a sales person
- Dealing with product development and manufacturing is very efficient because we dictate how these two relationships are handled; very few spontaneous (routine) inquiries
- We have world class outsourcing partners who have been trained by the Fortune 500 to be very professional
- Whenever you need something special you naturally contract it out, which means you take less time away from sales;
There is one disadvantage to the heavy reliance on outsourcing and the passionate focus on sales. It is not always clear who is responsible for the non-sales functions, but I am becoming the utility infielder and special projects person, when I am not selling.
For you marketing mavens, we have no marketing! We have a terrific PR program and a website that explains everything about a complex product, but that is the total "marketing" effort. In traditional terms I suppose you could say we have outsourced marketing (PR and website), but I prefer to say we have none:)