Steve Jobs, one of America’s most successful entrepreneurs, relied on outsourcing. In Steve Jobs’s biography, Walter Isaacson writes at length about Jobs’ fascination with controlling everything about Apple products.
But somewhere along the way, Jobs had a damascene moment. According to Isaacson, “he let go of his control-freak desire to manufacture products in his own factories and instead outsourced the making of everything from the circuit boards to the finished computers.”
Lesson one: learning to let go!
Jobs was ousted from Apple in 1985. It appears that sometime between 1985, and 1997 when he returned to Apple, he had a damascene moment. It was after his comeback that Jobs “let go” of his desire to control everything. In your company, you need to let go of tasks that consume your time and hold you back from greatness.
Steve Jobs and his team were able to create awesome products like the iPhone because they chose to concentrate on what truly matters: the design of the iPhone, marketing and other central elements. Everything else, as Isaacson notes, they left to outsourcing.
Sometimes, success doesn’t come from holding on, it comes from letting go. How many roles and tasks in your company are better off left to outsourcing? You need to have this evaluation. You need to let go.
The first step in letting go is realizing the benefits of outsourcing are too many to ignore. They include better use of in-house staff, reduced costs (the amounts you can save on labor costs are unbelievable) and access to specialized skills, among other things.
Lesson number 2: focus
Referring to Jobs in his comeback period, Isaacson writes: “His management mantra was “Focus.” And what did this entail for Jobs? It meant maintaining laser focus on the bigger picture. It meant outsourcing. Are you focusing on what truly matters in your company?
You cannot focus on your core business if your staff is handling mundane and routine tasks such as RCM which can easily be outsourced. Ask yourself this: are fixing tech issues, answering calls and booking appointments your core business? The answer is no. Then why are your in-house team members doing those tasks? Their time is better spent on high-value work. Never do in-house what can be left to outsourcing.
Lesson 3: ensure excellence
Outsourcing can be difficult at first. There is always the question: if I outsource, will the outsourcing company do things right? Jobs had a great way of ensuring outsourcing companies delivered exactly what he wanted.
“Under Steve Jobs, there is zero tolerance for not performing,” the CEO of a company Apple outsourced to is said to have remarked, according to Isaacson. When one company failed to deliver computer chips to Apple on time, Jobs took them to task.
While, according to Isaacson, Jobs sometimes stormed into offices of partner companies when something wasn’t done right, there is a much better way for you to ensure excellence. During Steve Jobs’ time, outsourcing mostly meant handing off tasks to another company with its own way of doing things. Today, it is possible to outsource and still maintain your organizational culture.
The best way to ensure excellence in outsourcing is to delegate tasks to someone who is fully in sync with your way of doing things. That is exactly what we provide at ZimWorX: remote virtual team members that seamlessly integrate with your organization’s systems and culture.
If you don’t already have remote/virtual team members handling your non-core business, you have come to the right place. Book a discovery call today and find out how our remote/virtual team members will help you cut labor costs and raise profit margins.