outsourcing

Cost-cutting is every entrepreneur secret undercover business mission - Wait! Why the statement?

You see, we as entrepreneur often use lots of excuses and implicit languages when we were asked about our business decision. For example, when I was asked, “What is your strategy to beat the gloomy outlook of this year’s economy?” my answer would be, “Well, first thing first, I have to reorganise my management team and take closer control on our financial numbers in order to sustain continuous growth this year.” What I really mean by saying this are:

“…I have to reorganise my management team…” - The real meaning: I have to fire the non-performing, expensive, employees and hire new, passionate, fresh graduates on a 3-month ‘trial’ period on basic wages.

“…take closer control on our financial…” - The real meaning: Cutting cost vigorously while pushing (a.k.a motivating) employees to perform beyond-normal-human ability!

My point is, you can’t avoid the fact that EVERY business, big or small, local or multinational - will EVENTUALLY look to cut costs. It’s in every entrepreneur’s magic formula: increase sales + cut costs = more profit.

One, infamous, way to cut costs is to outsource your workloads.

Outsource Your Workloads

What is outsourcing? In essence, there are two definitions on outsourcing:

1. Having one of your business departments or operations staffed by the employees of a staffing company. For example, an outsourced call center department or function.
2. Contracting out or sub-contracting works that are usually done in-house to outside suppliers or service providers. For example, a graphic design firm outsourced several of its projects to freelancers.

The beauty of outsourcing lies in the collaboration between a client and an outsourcing provider. Outsourcing is a win-win situation - As a client, you will receive instant cost cutting by outsourcing your excessive workloads, because handling them yourself are time and money consuming. As an outsourcing provider, outsourced jobs are almost everywhere. From my experience, satisfied clients are almost guaranteed stick to their outsourcing partners, because in most cases, quality of works overpower price tags; Price wars, to me, is unlikely to affect outsourcing companies much - quality of finished tasks are the critical success factor.

I do outsourcing, too - both as a client and outsourcing project provider (in this case, as a freelancer).

I joined GetAFreelancer.com and have been using their services since 2004. It’s free to join, but you are required to pay a certain percentage of commission for GetAFreelancer.com services.

Here’s the payment details from their FAQ section:

How much will I have to pay GetAFreelancer.com?

It’s free to join GetAFreelancer.com! We only charge a small commission. For regular projects that is closed Service Buyers will have to pay 3% or $3 commission(whichever is greater) and Service Providers will have to pay 10% or $5 (whichever is greater). A project will be featured for a fee of $25 upfront, paid by the Service Buyer. If the project is featured there will be no other charges as with regular projects. As a Gold Member you don’t pay commissions on completed projects. VAT will be added on fees where needed according to law.

Good enough for me!

As a client (service buyer), I post projects for service providers to bid on. Very easy, simple, and straightforward. Post now, and within 24 hours you will get bids on your project. I suggest you to carefully determine your project budget, as it will determine the number and type of bidders you will receive.

As a freelancer (service provider), I bid on projects that suit my situation. Don’t bid on project that you KNOW you wouldn’t be able to finish it on time and up to minimum standard. You’ll receive negative feedback rating, and your freelancing career in this site is almost guaranteed over.

Just to sum it up, there are many outsourcing providers out there. Please make sure to take any trial offers they make (most does offer this, but if they didn’t offer any trial, I’d suggest you to walk away - find those that offer free trials). Also please make sure they are the right kind of outsourcing providers you want - failing to do this, your cost-cutting campaign will be in vain.

Regarding my recommendation on GetAFreelancer.com, please allow some time to visit it (they offer free trial and no commission cut for first time buyers - 100% profit is yours). There are bigger, better outsourcing providers on the Net, but I trust this one to be the best fit for my noobpreneur journey.

Happy outsourcing!

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Virtual Assistant - I am Thinking About Hiring One

You can’t deny the fact that outsourcing is so hip! From humongous companies, such as Microsoft, to your neighbourhood two-wheeler repair shop, Mike the Motorcycle Mechanics - all do outsourcing in a certain extent. Microsoft outsourced its Call Center operations overseas, while Mike the Motorcycle Mechanics outsourced its motorcycle detailing services.

It’s so hip, that nowadays, anyone try to handle his/her business by him/her-self will be considered as anti-social and socio-phobia! :D

Anyway, I was cordially invited by a business contact to have a look at her outsourcing business. As I explore her company website, I have to say something about it. With all due respect to other outsourcing companies, they may provide quality outsourcing services, but her outsourcing company IS hip, sociable and so web 2.0!

Prime Outsourcing, a Philippine-based outsourcing company, offer outsourcing services one step further - While other outsourcing companies battle for securing long-term call center contracts (it always happen in better-english-speaking Asian outsourcing providers, such as India, Malaysia and Philippine - They are battling to close call center deals with European and North American big companies), Prime Outsourcing differs itself from the rest. Here’s why.

Internet-based Content outsourcing services

Sure, you’ll encounter this more and more often in the future, but right now Prime Outsourcing is one of the unique provider of this outsourcing niche.

From general tasks, such as search engine submission, email answering service, and message posting, to creative writing, such as blog posting, SEO writing, and daily website content writing - You feel that you should have this kind of service earlier! Other services includes web design and developing, graphic designing, and video editing - a complete package.

Web 2.0-savvy Virtual Assistants

Although the concept of virtual assistant (VA) services is not new, the specialisation of web 2.0-savvy VA is quite new (and lucrative!). This area is currently in a high demand due to the inevitable facts that blogging and friendster-ing is not only for fun anymore - it’s the $$$ - and $$$ will only come if ads, posts and contents are being written right and on target. Prime Outsourcing can do this for you.

So many things to talk about Prime Outsourcing, but rather than blabber with useless words, I’d suggest that you should better be visiting their website now if you are really thinking about outsourcing your works.