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Why outsourcing makes sense - even for micro businesses
You may know what is best for your business, but sometimes you just can’t do everything yourself. Whether for lack of time or skill, sometimes that best thing to do for your business is to hire someone else to do a certain job. The problem with hiring a contractor or employee is that the best candidate for the job doesn’t always live in your town, or even in your country. However, when outsourcing your IT, the Internet now makes it possible to connect to workers online, so you can truly choose the person who will be the biggest asset to your company.
The Players
Your first step to outsourcing your IT work is to sign up at an online is to sign up at a website specializing at connecting contractors with employers. One of the most popular of these websites is eLance. If you head over to www.elance.com, you’ll find many different categories, and subdivisions within those categories to help you find someone who truly does specialize in the job you need done for your company. For example, let’s say you are in the process of building a website, but your text doesn’t sell the item like you find at a competitor’s website. On eLance, you can search for writers, and then within that category, search for someone with specific sales skills.
Another great site for outsourcing your IT needs is www.RentACoder.com . This site specializes in helping you contact coders with many different skills to make the computer end of your business run smoothly and efficiently. The great thing about RentACoder, as well as eLance, is that you can find a person to do one specific job or you can hire someone to work on a long-term basis. These websites let you find exactly what you need.
Between the two eLance typically has professionals with more of the “soft skills” such as creative writing and Rent-A-Coder has more software and web engineers specializing in coding but both have highly skilled professionals in both areas.
Benefits of Outsourcing
A major benefit is that you can find exactly what you need because you get to view hundreds of thousands of profiles to look for candidates. There are two main ways in which to outsource your IT using an outsourcing website. First, you can simply browse through the profiles and find users who seem to meet your needs. However, the problem with doing that is that some profiles might be out of date. In fact, some coders, writers, and other online writers may not be doing outsourced work at all anymore. The other problem is that the online profiles only give users so much space to relate information. Wouldn’t it be perfect to find a user who has uploaded an example similar to the project you want done? Maybe they have such a project but have simply chosen to upload different examples, so you may never know!
Therefore, a better choice than browsing online profiles is to post your job. At both it is free to do this—they make their money by charging the contractors for a membership, profile or per transaction. There is no additional cost to the buyer. When you post your job online, fill out all information completely and accurately, making sure to list it in the correct category. That’s all you have to do—sit back and the workers will bid on your job.
Choosing a Bidder
After a few days, check back to your listing and browse the profiles of the people who responded. One thing to note here. There are over 150,000 coders on rentacoder alone. Most of them are from outside of the US. Do not be afraid to accept a bid from companies outside the US. Most of the coders speak fluent english, are talented professionals, and will be 30%-40% less than what you might pay in the US. Although the thought of outsourcing your IT work to someone in another state or even another county may seem unusual to you, the fact is that more and more companies are doing this. It is important to find the best people for the jobs in your business and with current technology communication is makes it seem as if they are right down the street.
However, most the workers you can find online typically are less expensive. First of all, since posting the project is free, you don’t’ spend any upfront money like you would to put an ad in the newspaper. Because people are bidding, it is also possible that two or more users want the project badly enough to bid a lower price than you offered. Remember, though, that the lowest bidder may not always be the best candidate for the job.
If price is an issue, at least look at the lowest three bids. Anyone can use the Internet, and if you have a credit card you can get a membership at a contractor website. That means that a high school student can bid on your project as well as a professional coder with ten years of experience. You may want to take the higher bid simply because the candidate will probably do a better job. It depends on the needs of your business.
Safety and Security
Once you choose someone to do the job, you must agree on terms of time and payment. This is a very important step, since it is fairly easy for both a worker and an employer to disappear online. Email addresses and user names can change quite easily! If the project you have in mind will be long-term, or if you expect to pay more than $300 for it, you might want to consider a contract. A signed contract will protect both you and the person you hire.
It is also an excellent idea to use the escrow service, which is provided by both RAC and elance websites. An escrow service tells the person you hire that you have the money and that it is in a fund simply waiting for the project to be complete. Most people imagine paying for a website to someone you don't know halfway around the world and it is a little scary. But If you use the escrow service, when the finished product is uploaded and all of the materials are released to you, that is when the money is released.
Should a dispute arise both have fair arbitration services in which a third party will review the dispute and make a judgement as to the completeness of the project, the amount of money owed (if any) and who owns the copyright.
Final Steps
Basically, when you outsource your IT, you should just be sure to be honest and easy to contact. If you frequently work with contractors over the Internet, it is possible that you will meet some dishonest people who disappear without a trace and never complete the project, which can set you behind schedule even if they didn’t escape with any of your money. However, that doesn’t mean that every freelancer with which you will work will do this. In fact, most take their online business very seriously. The great thing about outsourcing websites is that you can rate the user or leave comments (similar to eBay's feedback system) after you’ve worked with him or her. If a provider does not have good ratings, you will probably be unwilling to work with the person and people with poor ratings do not last very long on either site. So check out www.rentacoder.com or www.elance.com today to get started outsourcing your IT.
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