What businesses who grew during COVID-19 can teach you about scaling teams

As Australia emerges from lockdown, there’s a new cohort of small businesses in town. Businesses born during a pandemic. Lean, mean and bred to survive the harshest depths of COVID-19, pandemic-born businesses are driving the next evolution of SaaS. An evolution where businesses can access skilled labour packaged with intelligent software to scale their operations in record time. And, in the process, catch less agile competitors napping. 

Tapping talent through technology

Technology has always been about doing more with less. But that is only possible when the technology is paired with the right human skills. Traditionally, small businesses have dealt with this by scaling their teams internally, hire by hire, as they bring in new systems and tools. These scaling activities can take years, sometimes decades, if successful at all. 

With less opportunity to hire internal talent during COVID-19, savvier businesses turned to outsourcing models from a new breed of vendor to fill their resourcing needs. Using software platforms to connect you to an expert team to manage all your workflow requirements, these vendors combine the best of SaaS and traditional outsourced resourcing models to deliver software and skills in one neat bundle. 

Flipping SaaS on its head

Driven by the imperative to create resource leverage and competitive advantage during COVID-19, SaaS has been flipped on its head. No longer is software as a service enough. For a business to thrive in today’s environment, they need service as a software.

Introduced to the market by a host of pandemic born companies like Visory, service as a software is revolutionising how businesses grow their teams and scale by combining software and skills in one easy to access bundle.

Delivered through intelligent platforms that manage all the workflow and communication requirements, customers are connected to a package of on demand services. These services are delivered remotely by a team of experts specifically curated for your business needs. 

That effectively means customers can now add a whole business function that is delivered remotely through technology in one engagement, providing them with the instant ability to scale, pivot or transform.

In the case of Visory, customers can add an entire financial back office to streamline and manage their bookkeeping, accounts, and payroll services.

How SMEs can leverage service as a software 

What makes service as a software so valuable in a post-pandemic environment is its ability to connect your business to the best talent for the job, regardless of their location. On top of this, it is completely customisable around your business’ needs and desired outcomes, and you only pay for what you need. 

For example, Visory connects SMEs to bookkeepers and accounting staff with specialist expertise in their industry or business niche. So, instead of being constrained to hiring the best bookkeeper they can find locally, customers can access the best talent for their specific business requirements, no matter where they are located.

Additionally, they can choose to engage a full-time team and plug in a whole finance function. Or, they can start with a niche skillset like a bookkeeper to help them get their books in shape. Whatever they choose, they can dial the service up or down according to their business’ budget and requirements without ever losing contact with the core team they’ve partnered with.

“Simplicity and oversight” were what first attracted director and co-founder of Tetratherix, Terence Abrams, to the service as a software model when he recognised that his early stage biomedical company needed financial expertise to help it scale.

Abrams explained, “Managing a growth stage company requires constant oversight in all aspects of the business, including bookkeeping.” By partnering Abrams with a team of finance experts experienced in his industry through the Visory platform, he’s “been able to maintain oversight in a far more efficient and productive way” which has afforded him “more time to concentrate on other aspects of the business.”

Against a backdrop of skills shortages, ‘The Great Resignation’ and reduced immigration, access to talent has emerged as a critical component to future-proofing your business in a post-pandemic world. To scale in this environment, smart companies will leverage technology to close the gap between talent supply and demand. Those that don’t, will have to make do with whatever is left over.

This blog was first published on Smart Company as user contributed content by the business I lead, Visory.