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Should we hire or outsource?

The question is which constraint you are buying — capacity, skill, or management attention — and what fully loaded cost you are comparing.

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The short answer

Hire vs outsource is fully loaded cost, utilisation of the role, and whether the bottleneck is actually a person. Hiring into an unmeasured bottleneck creates a more expensive version of the same stall. Outsourcing a core differentiator creates a cheaper version of someone else's product. Name the bottleneck first.

How to tell this is actually your problem

The move that usually makes it worse: Hiring because the org chart has a hole, before you know the hole is the constraint.

When Percision is the wrong tool

Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures.

If it is your problem and you want the analysis on your numbers, the live page is https://percision.app/should-we-hire-or-outsource. The engine routes this question to Operating model. Metrics that decide it: fully loaded cost · utilisation.

Industry variants: Professional services · Banks & financial services · Healthcare providers · Healthtech / digital health · Logistics & supply chain · E-commerce & DTC · Manufacturing · Construction & trades · Retail · Real estate & property · Fintech

Strategy School lesson: who-to-hire-next

Questions people ask

When is Percision the wrong tool?

Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures.

Is a fractional hire a third option?

Yes, when the need is skill-for-a-season rather than a permanent seat. It is still a bottleneck question.

What data do we need?

Fully loaded cost of the seat, what output you would buy instead, and whether last quarter's stall was capacity or decision latency.

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