Innovative Outsourcing in Small Business: Identification, Full-Cost Assessment, Firm-Level Evidence and an Interactive Center Model (Evidence from Namangan Region, Uzbekistan)

Small firms increasingly buy accounting, IT, legal and analytical functions from external providers, yet they rarely know whether such outsourcing is innovative, whether it is cheaper than in-house work once all costs are counted, and whether it is associated with better performance. This paper addresses these three questions and proposes an institutional model that helps small firms act on the answers. First, we propose the F–D–T approach, which identifies innovative outsourcing by separately recording the function transferred to an external provider (F), the digital tool used to perform it (D) and a documented change in the business process (T). Second, we propose a full comparative cost algorithm, TCout = P + I + M + R + Cret + Cexit, and a decision rule that adds quality, security and continuity constraints. Third, using a balanced panel of 25 small enterprises in Namangan Region for 2021–2025 (125 firm-year observations), we find that the year of joining comprehensive innovative outsourcing is associated with about 5.1% higher annual revenue growth (p = 0.009) and about 9.5% higher growth of revenue per employee (p = 0.032) in first-difference models; the firm fixed-effects estimate is positive but significant only at the 10% level. Finally, we describe the Interactive Center of Innovative Outsourcing (ICIO), an 11-step intermediary model, and its adoption by a national sector association and a regional chamber of commerce. The results are associations, not causal effects, and call for larger samples.