Hi,

Most people own computers today, and chances are that you’ve also run into problems with the equipment. 

Where did you take it?  Perhaps back to the place you purchased from.  Did you notice if the person fixing your PC was an employee or an outsourced technical support person?  Couldn’t tell, could you?

Or how about when you called for support? 

Companies like BestBuy outsource all their technical support – and the outsourced company works in the business and in many cases I’ve seen them work the sales floor as well.  Not a bad deal for BestBuy.

This is what outsourcing is all about. Many businessess outsource certain jobs jobs to other companies in countries such as the Philippines, Mexico, India, and China because of the lower cost of labor and doing business.  Outsourcing is popular because of inexpensive labor, and quality services and it allows the business to focus more on important tasks such as growing the business.

Here are some of the advantages of outsourcing services:

• Lower personnel costs; pay for only what you use
• Allow the business to focus on more important tasks
• Increase your productivity and efficiency
• Free up your time

However, with all the advantages of outsourcing, there are also disadvantages that you should consider.

Here are some of the disadvantages that outsourcing may have:

• Potential quality problems
• Slow resolution and/or response times
• Reduction of product sales because of frustrated customers or people who boycott a company’s products because they outsource

Ideally when you outsource you want to spread the work out to multiple people.

For example if your plan is to outsource blog posts, it may be beneficial to provide the same list of topics to 3, 4 or 5 different individuals.  If one person doesn’t submit their posts on time, you know that there are several others that will.  In this way you can also weed out the resources that have not worked for you and retain the best. 

Outsourcing has a lot of benefits that your company can take advantage of. However, before you outsource, you should first weigh the advantages and disadvantages and know whether outsourcing is for you.  In most cases, especially with online businesses outsourcing is essential and since you would use multiple individuals your risk is lower.

Regards,

Mohamed

Technorati Tags: Business Process Outsourcing, Internet Business, internet marketing, Outsourcing

Hi,

Running your own business, whether it is online or offline or combination of both can be a challenging task.  Initially you may be doing much of the work yourself (of course, this will depend on the type of business you are running) but eventually you will need to either hire someone to help you or you will need to consider outsourcing parts of your business process – such as marketing, payroll, help desk, management, human resources, IT and possibly other tasks.

Some companies may outsource parts of departments – for example, they may rely on recruiters for HR but handle payroll and benefits internally.

As Director of Customer Support and Operations for my employer, I outsource certain positions since it give me flexability in retaining those individuals.

When you think about outsourcing business processes, draw up detailed plans or job descriptions of what the process is and what the position entails.  This will ensure that you are able to find and retain the right person to do the job.

Why Should You Outsource?

The simple reason is to help your business grow.  By outsourcing repetitive tasks, you leave yourself available to grow your business.  You have time to research the market to see where the shifts are and to stay on top of the latest trends.  This is especially important if you are running a bricks and mortar business.  For an online business, such as Internet Marketing or Internet Business or other online venture you will be looking for ways to generate more traffic or product development.  There is always something to be done regardless of the type of business.

Business process outsourcing is one of the most popular and the most cost-efficient business decisions that you can make. By contracting others to perform a specific task, you will be taking off extra work involved in your company and focus more on important aspects in running your business.

For example posting daily to your blog can be time consuming and if you want to post 2x, 3x or more per day — down right difficult!  So why not outsource one or more individuals to write posts for you?  You could even outsource someone to post the entries to your blog!

Another example would be your help desk or customer service center.  Virtually every company needs one, and if your business is online you MUST have one. This particular business process is a way to communicate with your clients and know about their feedback in your products and it is also a way to assist your clients in case they encounter difficulty with your product.  Running your own help desk/customer service department by yourself will prove to be very time consuming.  Why not just outsource it?  You can come up with various methods to pay the individual to ensure you are getting maximum benefit from the individual.

Companies regularly outsource their business process offshore, particularly to developing countries filled with qualified and talented individuals, such as China, Philippines, Mexico and India. These countries offer good quality services for your business process and they charge a very cheap rate for these services.

If you use eLance, RentACoder or other services you will see that many of the individuals that are providing services are offshore and their rates are comparable or lower than a similar resource in North America.

Always keep in mind that you should first check the quality of an offshore outsourcing resource first before you committ to anything and if at all possible consider multiple individuals so if one doesn’t come through — someone will.  Regardless you should always have back-up plans in place for unexpected events.

The goal of business process outsourcing is to cut operational costs — this really means freeing up your time for more productive tasks like growing your business.

Hopefull this post gives you plenty of reasons why you need to consider outsourcing your business process.

Regards,

Mohamed

Technorati Tags: Business Process Outsourcing, Internet Business, internet marketing, Outsourcing