How can outsourcing environmental services benefit your business?
Does your business have environmental compliance obligations? Keeping track of permit applications, data gathering, report submittal deadlines, knowledge of which processes require environmental permits and developing relationships with regulators can be complicated and take considerable time and effort.
Your choices are: hire a full-time staff member to be in charge of environmental compliance, assign environmental compliance responsibilities to existing personnel–in addition to their primary duties, or outsource environmental compliance to a professional environmental services firm. In this article we will explore eight reasons why outsourcing may be right for your business.
Outsourcing is the process of delegating a company’s non-essential services to third parties or external consultants. The number of companies choosing to outsource their environmental services continues to rapidly increase—and for good reason! Environmental outsourcing has become the new business trend over the past few years because of its ability to save valuable time and money for a company.
Business owners and managers can wear too many hats, and any company is only as strong as the people who do the work. If one of your employees is taking on too many tasks in various areas of the business, the company is only as strong as that employee’s capabilities in each area.
Lower Labor Costs
Among the primary reasons your company may choose to outsource is the opportunity to complete certain tasks for lower operational and labor costs. All tasks do not require the same level of expertise. When properly executed, the outsourcing firm will have a depth of personnel so that work can be assigned according to the expertise required to complete the task. Every task does not require a world class expert, but some do. Some tasks can be completed much more cost effectively if they are merely supervised by an expert.
Investing in your company’s strengths while outsourcing other aspects of your business will have a positive impact on your bottom line in the long run.
Focus on Primary Business
Delegating services that do not fall within your company’s realm of expertise frees up time and budget space. Internal personnel are able to focus on their core responsibilities so as to avoid diversion from the business practices that generate revenue.
Freeing Up Internal Resources
There is no reason to tie up your employees with issues that are not central to their core competencies. Allowing them to direct their energy toward effective purposes will drive business priorities forward.
Improved Service
Odds are your company is not full of experts when it comes to environmental issues, regulatory compliance, and requirements set forth by Federal, state and local environmental agencies.
Rather than waste valuable time and resources hiring, training, and providing benefits to new employees, why not hire an environmental professional who is able to complete the task in less time for less money? Environmental services are some of the most commonly outsourced jobs, and companies around the world offer hundreds of specific areas of expertise to ensure the appropriate professional is hired to address the situation and provide the most beneficial solutions.
Increased Efficiency
Your company can spend weeks or months searching for candidates with the right environmental experience to add to the internal staff. Eliminating the hiring and training curve by enlisting the support of an Environmental Professional saves your company time and money because the task will be completed correctly and your company will pay for the service only when you need it.
Help with Expansion
As your business expands, it may become subject to additional permitting and waste treatment requirements. Environmental professionals who do this stuff everyday can advise you about threshold limits for various substances, waste treatment options, and environmental infrastructure improvements necessary for expansion.
Potential clients and investors will see the professional relationships built between your company and the environmental consultant and realize the trustworthiness of both entities.
Resource Shortages
If your company lacks a critical resource—such as available employees with essential environmental compliance knowledge–you may need to look to a third party to fill those gaps. Knowing the compliance status at a given moment gives you, as a business owner, much more capability not only for real-time decision making, but also for accurate decision-making and confidence in those decisions.
Peace of Mind
Aside from ridding yourself and your employees of hard-to-manage tasks, your risk of non-compliance decreases. Professional environmental services firms have a wide range of experience and expertise with compliance issues and important relationships with the regulators. Good environmental firms also carry very expensive professional and pollution liability insurance coverage, which provides an extra layer of financial security.
With the right level of expertise advising you on environmental situations, your business will avoid potentially serious legal and financial headaches. Having the best skill set available to you, only when you need it, will allow your business to concentrate on its core competencies.
