Doesn’t Technology mean that Everything is going to be Automated? If so, Why Outsource?

There is no question that along with outsourcing, another big economic shift has been underway for decades, and that shift is automation. Computers are taking over a lot of the functions that used to be done by employees both in manufacturing and in services. Parts of the production chain are now fully automated. A client can request what they want on a website and that website can actually deliver a service to that client. This is happening in bookkeeping for example. Modern bookkeeping programs are in the cloud. Customers go online and just interact with the software. While the automation-is-everything argument may seem appealing, the truth is that computers cannot do everything (at least not yet).

Going back to the bookkeeping example, there are still lots of bookkeepers and accountants out there helping people keep their books using the software. In fact, bookkeeping for these cloud-based platforms is a growing industry. Why? Because, at least in this century, technology will probably not get advanced enough to entirely replace human employees. There is still too much nuance and soft skills and judgment in a lot of work that cannot be automated away. For example, a bookkeeper can actually understand the underlying business by speaking with the executive team or owners. Then, she can use the software categories to best mirror the underlying economic reality of the business to get the most meaningful metrics out of the software.

All of this automation and cloud software is actually helping remote workers like our India team. By putting everything on the internet, work that used to require being in the same office can now be done remotely (including by overseas workers). Yes, from our perspective, some of the software out there does remove some of the manual labor, but the de-localization of work more than makes up for it in terms of making it easier to provide service to our clients. And from our clients’ perspective,

they get to use excellent software that saves a lot of time (and therefore money) while our team has the experience to get the most out of the software while at the same time doing any of the work that the software cannot do. It truly is a win-win for our clients, they get to use excellent software that saves a lot of time (and therefore money) while our team has the experience to get the most out of the software and can do any of the work that the software cannot do.