If it wasn’t bad enough reading about the world’s doom and gloom news in 2008, it has well and truely hit our fair shores in 2009 and I would suspect is here to stay for at least the year!

We could moan about and use it as an excuse as to why our businesses are performing badly or alternatively we could use it as a great way to improve the effeciencies in our businesses and enhane the service levels to our key clients and beyond!

Without pushing our own barrow too much I read an article in The Weekend Australian March 14-15 2009 titled “Others go to pieces as Lego builds a future” and it mentioned the following:

“The outsourcing of non-core activities and even sharing common facilities with other companies are also being adopted as prudent strategies.

“One businessman told of a group of manufacturing companies that re using the same warehouse space to reduce the cost of rent and maintenance.”

Personally I think that it is a fantastic idea. We recently finished renovating our house and stupidly I decided to manage the whole project and then do the bits that I could do… The end result is that we got it done and yes I saved some precious $$$ on the way, BUT along the way I took my eye off the ball at work, my family suffered and I moaned about my builder each night to my wife. The smarter alternative would have been to get my builder to manage everything from beginning to end and for me to keep out of his way. The job would have been done quicker, my family would not have suffered and just as importantly I probably would have use that time to work on my business!!! There is a common pearl of wisdom.

Don’t get stuck in the rut of thinking that you have to do everything yourself. Find a partner with a similar culture and a similar size and outsource your non-core activities to them. Then use the time that you have created to grow your business.

Food for thought any way.