The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Creative Work

There are certain areas of business which require a focus on creativity in specific disciplines in order to achieve specific aims or objectives.  Not only is the core activity of many businesses not creativity itself, but there may be the need for specialized creative skills which either aren’t currently available in-house, or aren’t available in the right measure or balance to achieve those aims or objectives.  Achieving, maintaining and nurturing true and focused creativity has traditionally been a part of businesses which has proven elusive due to number or constraints and pressures.  It has often been something which has been found to work best when separated from what are considered to be more practical and less creative aspects of the day to day running of businesses.  Outsourcing per se is an increasing global trend, and is commonplace in many different areas of business.  Outsourcing of creative work is therefore particularly beneficial for many companies for a number of sound reasons

Why Outsource Creative Work?

A Fresh Perspective and New Ideas

Most businesses and organisations of all kinds have their own culture and the restraints of their own particular business environments which they operate within. Whatever that organisation does internally generally takes place within and is influenced by the confines and context of that culture and business environment. As such, getting a truly fresh creative perspective and creating the right environment to allow this to happen is often hard to achieve in-house.  Even ‘creative’ companies have tended to separate their creative function from other aspects of the business in order to achieve the necessary creative quality.  Outsourcing creative work can therefore bring many more creative solutions and ideas which can help to establish differentiating factors and a competitive edge which are very hard to copy.

Allow Greater Concentration on the Core Business

With the creative factors essentially being taken care of elsewhere by trusted experts, this frees up the organisation’s time and resources so that they can be focused fully on what the organisation does best – its core business.

Leverage the Benefits of Specific Skills, Experience and Expertise

Taking 3D visualisation and digital content provision as an example, many organisations are unlikely to have or to realistically be able to develop the necessary skills and expertise in-house in this area within acceptable time and budgetary constraints.  It may also be the case that these specific skills are only needed ‘as and when’ rather than on an ongoing basis, so that best use can be made of available resources.

It is also likely to be the case that with a 3D visualisation and content provider that offers a wide range of services, beneficial integration of skills and services for the customers will be much easier and much more likely.

Highly relevant project management skills are also something very valuable and difficult to acquire that outsourcing to a specialist creative company could provide.

Lower Costs

The costs of setting up a creative centre in house e.g. specifically for effective 3D visualisation and digital content provision would simply be prohibitive and unrealistic for most companies e.g. specialised staff, equipment, training etc.  It makes much better business sense to use the services of an organisation which already has all of these in place, and has the experience and economies of scale to provide the right quality of services at the right price on demand

Reduced Risks and Better Problem Solving

The risks of investing time, scarce resources and money into areas that organisations have limited knowledge or experience of can be dramatically reduced by outsourcing to a creative company for whom it is essentially their core business.

The experience and knowledge that specialist creative companies already have can also mean that potential problems with projects and ideas are anticipated, minimised, and solved much more quickly and easily using the outsourcing route.

Why Not Outsource Creative Work?

An Unknown Quantity

The thought of outsourcing work to an organisation that you have not worked with before can lead to many worries based around trust, protecting your organisation’s name and reputation, dissonance, and a general fear of the unknown.  High quality creative companies however should be able to provide references, testimonials, and detailed case studies and examples of how they have or could overcome similar challenges to the ones you are facing with highly beneficial results.

Loss of Control

There is a natural need for all of us to feel that we are in control of our situation and environment, particularly where business in concerned.  However, trying to maintain, manage, and control something which we have little knowledge about or experience of can often bring an amount of stress and problems which are not only not worth the cost and trouble, but may also have a negative impact on our ability to manage many of the day to day aspects of business that we are normally capable of doing e.g. due to more limited time.  Outsourcing to a specialist is in fact often the best way of retaining and gaining control of a situation, and is often likely to bring the best and most effective outcomes.




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