Tag Archives: outsourcing

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Why you should outsource web development

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Web design and development is a broad term referring in general to activities that your business would like to conduct over the internet. Large companies have huge I.T. Departments taking care of their web related activities. Mid range companies also have their own I.T. Departments but outsource some of their work to make up for personnel or skill shortage. What’s a small business to do? They don’t have an I.T. Department, they at best have one guy who knows how to reboot their systems or do minor trouble shooting on their PC network. How are they supposed to establish their web presence and then grow beyond to implement CRM systems and market their services on multiple marketplaces and beyond.

Depending on what you are trying to achieve with your website, to sell a product or attract customers and get word out about your business, developing your website may be a long and expensive process. Not to mention the fact that a well-rounded website requires a team consisting of a designer, developer, content writer, SEO expert and Social Media Managers. Bringing such a team in-house is expensive – too expensive for a small business. What to do? You can either give up on competing over the internet or outsource.

When you outsource, the outsourcing company marshals it’s resources to work on your project. They get their designers and developers working on your website till its up and ready and functioning smoothly. Then they withdraw their staff and assign them to a new client while giving you only periodic attention as needed. You didn’t have to advertise for employees. You did not have to interview them. You did not have to create office space, desks etc. for them. You did not have to arrange for their benefits and vacations. And most importantly, once the project is completed, they don’t have to be on your payroll for doing nothing. You save, save and save.

Another benefit of outsourcing is that you can get the full deal of design, development, maintenance and promotion from one company. If web development is not a core competency of your business, outsourcing it will free up your time to focus on what you do best.

Even if you want to do it in-house, the challenge is finding a good designer and a developer and a CRM specialist and so on. Chances are talented web developers in your area are already working elsewhere. This leaves a certain talent gap which outsourcing companies are perfectly capable of filling. Focus instead on finding the right team.

Time zones can be an issue especially if you outsource to an off-shore company but with good planning they can be overcome. Many good outsourcing companies like InterloperInc.com have their project management office in USA and their worker bees are overseas. They assign you a US based project manager who is your day-to-day contact in your time zone. This makes communication easier and good communication is critical to outsourcing success.

At Interloper Inc, we design, develop, test and implement your website and web based applications in the areas of Content Management Systems, Social Media, E-commerce, Custom PHP, Shopping Portals, Auto Responders etc. You can find samples of our work on our home page https://interloperinc.com

In conclusion, chose an outsourcing company wisely. Then work with them and help them understand your business. If you establish a solid relationship with a good outsourcing company, they almost become your I.T. Department at a fraction of the cost.

Good Luck!

Why you should outsource web development
Your outsourcing partner
Services

Why will it take three weeks

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Why would it take 3 weeks? It looks like a one week project to me.

That’s one of the question clients quite often ask us, it can be a one week, two weeks or a 10-week project. Sometimes the client is right, it is a one week project but what the client does not realize is that developers are not idle, they are not unemployed, they can’t leave everything and start working 100% now on your project. So when you give a project to a freelancing company, they have to reschedule and adjust their developer’s time to squeeze you in and in the first few days, your project would get less time compared to whatever they are currently working on and as that ebbs off, your project will start getting more time. You’ve got to understand that developers have to juggle multiple jobs.

Sometimes the client says “No no, I want you to dedicate 100% off your time to me. Well, even if that could happen, the project manager will say, “Okay we can do that, but you have to guarantee it”. You can’t make us drop everything and work for you and after 10 days say ‘Oh I’ve changed my mind, I need to do this after two months, put a hold on it!’ If you do that, what is he going to do with his developers now? You must guarantee then and pay up in full.

So you’ve got to understand the other side, whether it is an individual freelancer or a freelancing /outsourcing company. This is how they make their living by renting their time, and unless you can guarantee it, they cannot give you exclusive either and even if they can give you exclusive, that would be after a certain number of days, so approach outsourcing with the mindset that your developer or your Virtual Assistant or your SEO specialist whatever you are outsourcing, they will manage your account along with two or three other projects, that’s the nature of this industry. I hope that helps.

Good Luck!

 

Services

The benefits of outsourcing for small businesses

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Are you a small business owner? Are you so busy with the day-to-day running of your business that you are loosing track of your goals? If the answer is yes, you need to take a step back and think about outsourcing. It is perfectly okay to let professionals take some of your workload.

What is outsourcing?

Outsourcing is a cost and time-saving strategy that has become really popular in the past two decades. It involves transferring some of your workload to professionals elsewhere because it is more cost effective for your business. Even though it seems like a big step for a small business and you want to keep all the strings in your own hands, the outsourcing strategy will prove beneficial for you in the long run.

Why outsource?

As a beginner entrepreneur, you need to have your eyes firmly set on your business. You have a promise to deliver to your customers. Whether it is a product that takes some time to assemble or a service that is yet to be organized, your customers expect you to deliver as soon as possible. If you are the head of a new start-up, chances are that you will be doing all the work by yourself for a while. But, are you capable of running the show alone? Can you afford to spend so much time and money on learning how to do every little thing? If the answer is no, you need to consider the possibility of outsourcing some of your work.

When should you start thinking about outsourcing?

The answer is right away. Considering the fact that customers place their confidence in you and your business, you need to clearly state what you can offer. Having the big picture is great, but do you have the time to work on all the tiny details it consists of?

Whether it is an online store, where you have to make sure that the website is user-friendly; easy to navigate; bug-free, or a small coffee shop where you have to create the perfect ambience; choose the suitable background music; be in charge of the marketing campaign, etc. in the grand scheme of things, these are all distractions from your main goal. As they say, “time is money”, so the more time you end up spending on finding a solution to the small problems, the more money you lose in the long run.

What should you outsource?

Let’s take the coffee shop example again. You want to open a place that is going to be the synonym of relaxation, a place where you can spend a pleasant time chatting with your friends. You have a logo in mind, and the array of music that would be best suited for your type of clients. Unfortunately, you are not a graphic designer that can create the logo representative of your ideas and you could end up spending hours in frustration, trying to learn how to use one of the many graphic design programs. At the same time, you have to think about the interior and how you are going to promote your shop. By outsourcing the task of creating the logo to a designer, you save precious time. Time that you can spend doing what you are doing best and promoting your business. Of course, there are always tasks that are too important and you have to handle them by yourself as the manager or owner, but delegating the smaller things to professionals will prove to be a good investment in the long run. Consider outsourcing your web development, part of your administrative work, your social media content and your book keeping and you suddenly have a lot more time to spend on growing your business.

In conclusion, outsourcing represents a real time and money saver for small businesses. By letting others take care of what you are not great at, you can focus on your strengths and grow your business. Even though when you outsource, it seems like dollars leaving your business, hour for hour, outsourcing delivers a better bang for the buck than doing everything yourself.

Convinced? Contact us at InterloperInc.com and let’s help you out from data entry to web design, virtual assistants to customer service. Contact us. You’ll be glad you did!

Services

Upwork or Freelancer or People Per Hour or Guru

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Upwork or Freelancer or People Per Hour or Guru

Considering outsourcing? Thinking of finding a freelancer to do some of your web development work, or data entry or administrative work? You are on the right track. You can save a bunch and get a lot of work done if you find a good freelancer or a team.

Many people start looking for a freelancer using a freelancing portal but are not sure which one to start with. Here is a brief review:

  1. Freelancer – Popular and getting bigger by the day. They bought out several smaller competitors and have become quite big. Large pool of freelancers. The interfaces are too graphic intensive and that makes it slower than it should be. It seems the designers are not that great at UI design and mistake big graphics to be user friendly. The encouraging part is that they seem to be headed in the right direction. Let’s hope they can incorporate a work room like the old Elance used to have, that is, the client hires a freelancing team and then the team assigns resources to the work room. That is a key feature favored by clients whose jobs require multiple resources. Instead of hiring 4 separate people, a consolidated work room will allow a client to hire one team and then let the team manage by assigning multiple resources and aggregating their hours. Chances of finding a good freelancer – High. Chances of finding a good team – High.
  2. People Per Hour – Small – more popular in UK but gets a decent clientele from USA also. Simple interface. They don’t waste your time with clunky graphics. Chances of finding a good freelancer – Fair. Chances of finding a good team – Fair.
  3. Upwork: This is the big behemoth resulting from the merger of Odesk and Elance. Elance had the better framework and UI. Unfortunately the merged company took the clunky interface of Odesk and has imposed it on the new company. It’s amazing how the bigger the company gets, the farther from reality it gets. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. The people in charge seem to be oblivious of what’s happening to the UI. Every day without fail they have system outages. Neither clients or freelancers can access the system, their messaging system does not work. Their dispute resolution team behaves like third world monkey courts. Instead of trying to simplify, they are trying to make it more complicated and add even more features.
    As if all that was not enough, they raised their commission to 20%.
    A ton of clients have abandoned Upwork in total frustration and freelancers are following suit. Good news for competition. Chances of finding a good freelancer – Medium. Chances of finding a good team – Medium.
  4. Guru: This is the smallest of the bunch. Not a bad portal. They don’t have the wherewithal to promote themselves so they don’t have a large number of clients but they have a good number of freelancers. Worth looking into. Chances of finding a good freelancer – Fair. Chances of finding a good team – Poor.

 

Whichever portal you go with, proceed carefully and in small steps. Try to establish good communications with the freelancer or team first, be it through Skype or telephone or email. Once you get comfortable with each other, outsourcing can be a great way of stretching your dollar.

Good Luck!