When you first start up a business, your product is probably designed by you, but very little of the actual production is probably in your hands. You might contact a factory to outsource your production, or perhaps your product is just a spin-off that uses a template from another company. Whatever the case, creating your own product and putting the entire manufacturing process in your own hands is one of the hallmarks of a successful business.
Unless your business involves buying and trading or digital products, there’s probably been a time where you’ve wanted to invest in a factory or something similar in order to take control of your manufacturing process. However, there’s a time and place for that, and unless you’ve decided to invest in a factory from an early time, then here are a couple of things to consider in order to help you take control over your production.
Know what’s suitable to take into your own hands and what isn’t
It’s natural for you to want to take control over your production, but there are certain things that you can’t reasonably create or control. For instance, if you’re creating electronics, then it’s unreasonable for you to assume you can create your own electronics components from scratch. Things such as transistors, converters, transformers and so on must be provided by an electronics manufacturer. Creating your own can have heavy startup costs that won’t be mitigated until you’re a successful business with a lot of connections. Focus on cost-effective ways to take production into your own hands and don’t go too far.
Understand what you want to achieve by taking production into your own hands
No matter what your business idea is, you have to remember the end-goal when it comes to taking over your production. If you’re making plenty of profit and you’re content with the end result of your outsourced production, then why bother changing something that works? One example of switching over to manual production is to save money. For example, if your financial advisor has calculated that you can make a lot of savings over the course of a year by ending your contract, then that’s a valid reason to put production into your own hands. If you want more control over how you customise your product and the third-party factory doesn’t allow it, then that’s another reason to potentially make your own production line.
Starting a factory isn’t a joke
Some small businesses look forward to building their own factory. This is because they’re run by hopeful entrepreneurs that want the best for their business, and they understand that if they control production by building a factory, they’re creating more jobs to help the economy, they’re making huge savings over time, and they’ll be taken more seriously with higher quality products. Unfortunately, it also carries a lot of responsibility. Not only do you have to worry about hiring lots of extra staff, you also need to be able to trust your management team and believe that they’re going to be as efficient as possible in order to see your business grow. Take it slow and don’t even consider starting up a factory until you have trustworthy members of staff.
