Upscale or outsource? Taking the next business step
Sustainable business growth is the holy grail for any commercial enterprise. In order to capitalise on opportunities in your market, you need to be able to grow in response to increasing demand.
This leaves businesses of all sizes with a dilemma: upscale or outsource? The traditional model is to recruit in-house talent, provide training where necessary, and build your capability that way.
The alternative is to outsource all manner of business processes, from ecommerce fulfilment, storage and warehousing, through to call centre and virtual receptionist services, print management and more.
A trusted partner like MRM can take on many of these processes, giving you a single point of contact and freeing up valuable time for you to focus on your core profit-making activities.
But which is the right step to take in the current economic climate and jobs market? Let’s look at some recent data to help you decide.
The state of UK SMEs
Outsourcing is a tool used from microbusinesses to multinationals, but it can be particularly effective for SMEs looking to combat growing pains during a period of success.
Despite the challenging conditions of the pandemic, figures show a marked recovery in the percentage of UK SMEs achieving annual growth. In Q2 2023, 70% of surveyed small businesses reported they had made a profit in the previous 12 months, almost a return to the 72-74% seen throughout 2019.[1]
But at the same time, more UK employees are choosing to change jobs than in previous years, making it harder for employers to retain talent and protect their financial investment in training.
A report by Statista highlights this, with job-to-job resignations peaking at 342,000 in Q4 2007, shortly before the recession, but rising to a new high of 446,000 in Q2 2022 at the height of the post-pandemic ‘Great Resignation’.[2]
Outsourcing to access talent
This increased turbulence surrounding in-house talent has led more businesses to look to outsourcing as a way to secure access to necessary talent during an expansion period.
For example, a March 2024 survey of more than 3,000 UK marketing professionals found that 46% of their firms outsource to third parties, including 41% of B2C marketing companies and 50% of B2B agencies.[3]
Outsourced marketing services can provide much-needed expertise across multiple channels. For example, the survey found that 28% of respondents outsourced digital marketing tasks, while 10% specifically outsourced their social media marketing.[4]
For some, outsourcing is a way to cut costs, compared with hiring, training and retaining in-house talent. One in seven (14%) reported that this was the case; however, nearly half said that their motivation for outsourcing was a lack of in-house skills.[5]
At MRM, we have an experienced team with decades of knowledge in the marketing profession, ready to share the load for businesses facing growing pains.
Where’s the expertise?
Despite the rise in remote working, recruiting talent is still often a postcode lottery, with the most experienced candidates naturally found in the areas with the highest population densities.
A November 2024 IBISWorld report, Call Centres in the UK – Market Research Report (2014-2029)[6], said: “Access to labour is key. That’s why the highest share of call centres are in the three most populous UK region: the North West, London and the South East.”
The report estimated the size of the UK call centre sector at £3.2 billion in 2024, following five years of 4.7% annual growth. Over 60% of this value comes from customer support call centres and answering services such as outsourced virtual receptionists.
Outsourcing customer support can be a powerful way for businesses to access experienced individuals with strong communication skills, no matter where the company’s own head office is located.
You can also benefit from access to a much larger team of professionals with expertise across a range of disciplines, which would not be possible to assemble in-house.
Europe leads print outsourcing growth
Meanwhile in the outsourced document and print market, a February 2025 Technavio report predicts that Europe will provide the largest share of growth in the sector throughout 2025-29.[7]
This is, in part, due to pre-existing maturity in the US region leaving less room for further growth; however, it is also a sign that businesses across Europe are capitalising on the opportunities presented by outsourced document management.
Technavio said: “The need for cost reduction, enhanced efficiency, and regulatory compliance is the key driver of the market.”
Scalability is also a factor, as the report noted that SMEs are accessing cloud sourcing services, enabling them to store digital documents in the cloud with scalable yet cost-efficient capacity.
In 2024-25 alone, the sector’s global value grew by 5.2%. This is predicted to accelerate in 2025-29 to add nearly $20 billion to the outsourced document market at a compound annual growth rate of 5.7%.
The rise of WaaS
Finally, let’s look at the rise of Warehouse as a Service (WaaS), which encompasses disciplines like outsourced storage, warehousing and ecommerce fulfilment.
In January 2025, Pro Market Reports published a study that again found Europe is among the global leaders in the sector, with a 30% share ranking it behind only North America with 40% of the market value.[8]
Asia Pacific ranked third with 20% of the industry’s value, while Latin America and the Middle East & Africa region both contribute just 5% to the WaaS sector’s global value.
The report estimated the global market for WaaS to be around $20 billion in 2022, with the industry predicted to achieve a blistering compound annual growth rate of 22% from 2019 to 2033.
Driving forces behind this increase are similar to other fast-growing sectors:
- Focus on sustainability and WaaS providers with eco-friendly practices in place
- Growth in outsourcing by SMEs seeking logistics efficiency via managed warehousing services
- Investment in data analytics and inventory optimisation to reduce costs and improve order accuracy
- Provision of optimised warehousing solutions for fulfilment of ecommerce orders
- Tech such as AI and robotics enhancing warehouse productivity and efficiency
Once again, SMEs are singled out as a major injection of value into the outsourced warehousing market in the coming years, helping to sustain that impressive growth forecast of 22% per year
MRM’s own warehouses span over 35,000 square feet of secure storage in Leicestershire, a central location for distribution across the UK and beyond. With 24/7 real-time data via your dashboard, you can always see your inventory and ensure that you never run out of stock.
To outsource or insource?
Businesses of all sizes need to reconsider traditional recruitment and training methods and look to the potential of a more distributed, connected, service-oriented workforce.
Outsourcing relieves much of the admin burden of hiring in-house, as well as the delay caused by onboarding, orientation and any initial training that may be needed.
Instead, outsourced marketing, customer support, document management and even outsourced fulfilment of physical goods can all underpin new levels of growth at a time when two thirds of UK SMEs are turning a profit.
To find out more about how our experienced team of marketing professionals can shoulder the burden of growing your business to new heights, contact MRM today.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/291239/uk-sme-business-performance/
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1283657/uk-job-to-job-resignations/
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1341385/share-companies-outsource-marketing/
[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1338943/marketing-outsource-uk/
[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1338927/reasons-marketing-outsource-uk/
[6] https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/industry/call-centres/4325/
[7] https://www.technavio.com/report/document-outsourcing-market-industry-analysis
[8] https://www.promarketreports.com/reports/warehouse-as-a-service-waas-market-8233