A common phrase uttered by the older generation is 'You young people have it lucky, things were a lot harder in my day!' and to an extent this is somewhat true. We no longer walk 27 miles to school and back in the wind, hail and rain wearing nothing but a pair of shoes with cardboard soles held together with a piece of string, we're much luckier - we have all sorts of gadgets and gizmos at our disposal to make our lives so much easier. However it seems that the very technology that was invented to make things easier for the Generation Xs and Ys is almost causing us to have less and less time to spend with our family, and indeed ourselves. Sure we have microwave ovens that can cook a meal in two minutes instead of twenty, but in todays society it still seems that we get home from work later, we do chores around the house later, and end up finally going to sleep around midnight, only to wake up in 6 hours time tired and weary and ready to do it all over again.
Take for example the wonder that is the cellphone (or the PDA). 'You can communicate with anyone, anytime!' the brochures stated 'Wonder at the amazing mobile technology!' Yes times have changed since the 60's - not only does Dad wear a t-shirt and jeans to the office, but he also carries a PDA that beeps work at him 18 hours a day.
What a weary race advancements in technology seem to have made us. But it doesn't have to be that way if we begin to embrace technology and utilize it in a way that WE define, not that is defined for us.
You see 'in the old days' it was easier for people to switch off between work and home life. Growing up in the 70's it seemed that everyone was home for dinner, the customers never rang outside of work hours and evenings were spent either watching tv or doing a hobby of some sort. Now the customers ring or email all hours and it seems that all you do is work - whether it be in the office, on the road, or catching up with the chores at home.
Similarly, any business will know that it is harder to get everything done these days. Wage and general running costs mean that companies don't have the overabundance of staff they may have had twenty years ago, which means that the day is spent fighting fires, and not spent guiding and promoting business growth. How many times have you heard 'I've got quite a few big plans for the company, if only I could find the time to implement them!'
So where to start? One way to do this is look at what we fill in our days with, and see what can be outsourced to someone else. Outsourcing simply put is employing someone to add value to your business or life without having them as a permanent employee. In fact many small businesses have outsourced for years - getting accountants to do their tax returns, and print bureaus to design their brochures (to name but two examples out of the many). So, if it's been done 'manually' for years, why not embrace technology and try the internet way of doing it? The internet-based outsourcing business is one that has grown considerably over the past few years and has slowly been embraced by business owners as a way to cost effectively dole out some of their day to day business activities thus leaving them time to focus on the core aspects of their business that they want to grow.
Some businesses approach internet-based outsourcing warily. They believe that outsourcing work to overseas markets for a quarter of the price it takes a local to do the task is anti-local, anti-national, and that it is taking jobs away from ones own countrymen and women. What a lot of people fail to understand is that with outsourcing you don't HAVE to take the cheapest offer on the outsourcing table. You don't have to take an offer from a freelancer in a country different to your own if you don't want to. Ultimately you take the offer that offers the best value, expertise and skill for what you are prepared to pay.
To successfully make the most out of outsourcing, a business owner needs to decide 2 things - 1. What processes they have that can be easily outsourced (and easily managed); and 2. How much they are prepared to pay for it. Most business processes outsourced via the internet tend to be along the lines of logo or website designs, bespoke software development, admin and data entry tasks, marketing, call messaging, with Virtual Assistants being touted as the next revolutionary outsourced occupation. With Virtual Assistants for example you can have your minutes typed, meetings scheduled, out of business hours calls answered, and all by someone who may live in another state or another country.
How much a business is prepared to pay for outsourcing services differs from business to business, but this decision must be approached sensibly. A business owner with a limited budget may find that choosing someone who charges only $10 per hour may not necessarily deliver the quality of work required, ending in added costs involved in getting rework down by someone else who charges $40 per hour for example. In saying this though, hourly rates quoted by freelancers do not necessarily define the quality of work that may be delivered (in some cases the quality of work carried out by a $10 per hour freelancer can be vastly superior to that of one who charges considerably more). At the end of the day to ensure the outsourced work is completed to the expected standards and requirements, business owners need to get a feel for a freelancers work skills, quality and ethics before deciding on the right person to fulfill their allotted task.
The most common form of internet based outsourcing is bid based. Project details are posted on freelance marketplaces by business owners and prospective freelancers with the required skill sets bid on the project - listing the services they offer, examples of their work etc. The business or 'project owner' then looks at the offers on the table and chooses a winning bid that matches their requirements and budget. By outsourcing work in this way businesses get the change to have enquiries of interest come to them instead of having to spend countless hours tracking down companies to get quotes.
By embracing the modern technology of the internet, businesses can free up time during their working day to spend on future planning and business growth - the flow on effects of which can be increased productivity, increased workforce, and increased profits.
Embrace the internet by outsourcing and ultimately you will give your business time to think.
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