Regardless of the size of the fitness business you run you can freely shape an organizational and managerial structure of your company. Every business owner or a manager, and it clearly applies to you, whether small or large, undoubtedly strives to optimize the costs and maximize the profits. One of the strategic decisions is to delegate tasks to employees or outsource them.
Starting from the basics- outsourcing refers to the use of an outside service, i.e. outsourcing certain tasks to other service providers. According to Peter Bendor-Samuel, one of international experts in this field, outsourcing is transferring the realization of a specific process to a service provider, with a detailed definition of the outcomes the contractor intends to obtain but without the instructions on how to perform individual tasks, leaving the initiative to the sub-contractor. This type of cooperation is intended to be long-term so do not confuse it with a regular order. Today companies are entrusting many of their activities, projects and complex processes to external specialists in order to increase business benefits. Outsourcing can be carried on a full or selective scale. In the full version, a company outsources a complex service of a selected business area by an external company in a selective - selected tasks. The decision about outsourcing depends on the company's needs and available resources. Outsourcing is a very broad term and applies when an enterprise, such as a fitness club, is looking for solutions to reduce operating costs or optimize internal processes.
What services can be outsourced in a fitness club?
One very important remark at the beginning - keep in mind that strategic areas of your business should be managed by people inside the club as well as the outsourcing process needs to be supervised and once done and implemented- not left on its own. Outsourcing is used best in the so-called support functions: HR and payroll administration, accounting, training, IT, supply, logistics, cleaning, security, catering. Also additional services offered by a fitness club from for example beauty & spa category: massage parlors, physiotherapy, dietetic consultations and a shop- these can be provided by experts who are not your full-time employees.
The idea of outsourcing was created to relieve businesses from all activities that are not their main business. In this way the company can focus on the development of its core business and service the provider to perform activities that are generally time-consuming and cost-intensive. You should remember however, not to outsource any features that may seem irrelevant even though they are in fact necessary for your business. It’s crucial to take your company's core objectives and organizational culture into account before decision about selecting a particular service provider is made. Moreover, there are few important questions to be answered by you: what business goals are you trying to achieve by outsourcing this particular task? What effect on the course of work will have the transfer of this task to an external service provider? Is the feature we assign to sub-contractor the key to generate revenue or compete with companies with similar profiles? Is the delegated task mundane, taking lots of time and energy for employees that can be used in a different way?
Much more things to consider will come up to you head once you start considering using such services. Still worth thinking about pros and cons of such a solution. There is nothing to be afraid of – many companies from different industries rely on outsourcing. This gives them time, space and capacity to focus on the core business and gain the competitive advantage. Think of outsourcing in the same way as about management software like PerfectGym which helps you to improve, support strengths, find weaknesses and build a proper strategy for the future.