It is not uncommon to any employee or employer that the trend for business to earn more profit and cut back on the expenses nowadays relies heavily on outsourcing. It’s no longer limited to Customer Service or Human Resource functions but even IT services are now being outsourced as well. IT outsourcing, especially in the Philippines, is recently gaining a lot of attention from various industries both foreign and local who are interested to improve, expand, and make their businesses more profitable by utilizing the power of the worldwide web. However, just like any other business ventures, engaging in IT outsourcing also has some risks and one (and the most critical) of which is the possibility of not being able to get the return of investment you have forecasted to hit and the quality of service you expected to receive. To prevent this from happening, there are 5 tips on how you can keep IT outsourcing on track:

1. Communication

Behind almost, if not all successful business partnerships is a perfect communication between both parties. This thought also applies to having a successful IT outsourcing venture. If the client and the provider can engage in a comfortable and yet professional discussion, it would actually help them proceed with their business smoothly. It would also make working together less stressful and easier because both parties can freely discuss with one another their concerns, needs, and demands about the project without hesitation. Lastly, if the client and the provider have a healthy communication then doing the other tips would just naturally and effortlessly follow.

2. Budget

It’s very important that in engaging into outsourcing, the client should be honest with his/her ideal budget to his/her provider. He/she should not make reservations as to declaring his/her planned budget for a certain project because most providers are actually willing to adjust and be flexible to the client’s monetary capacity without sacrificing the quality of service they sought for. Knowing the budget before the start of the project would actually be very beneficial to both parties because they would be able to forecast the possible expenses and profitability of the said project.

3. Goals

To determine the success of a certain IT project, the client and the provider should establish the project’s goals among any others. They should be able to create feasible and realistic goals so both would know if their partnership or their collaboration is actually beneficial to both of them or not. By identifying these goals, both parties would have a clear framework to help them start their project on the right note and later on, a concrete reference which they can use as basis that the work has been successfully completed.

4. Test-out

One of the most risky things that people do when they engage in outsourcing is the choice to trust one’s money and/or one’s skills and labor to a complete stranger. Worst case but realistic scenarios like not getting paid for your work or not being able to get your money’s worth are all possible risks one takes whenever you decide to engage in this kind of business arrangement. Not only that, there are also instances where the partnership just doesn’t work at all; the client and the provider just don’t fit right with each other. Thus, to eliminate all these from happening, or at least to lessen the damages these risks might caused you and your business, it would be wisest if both parties would try to test the waters first and actually see if things would work out for the better or worst. The client should try to request for samples of/or previous works done by the provider first, and if s/he finds it to his/her liking, then he can start to engage in a very small project just to see if they would actually clicked. If everything goes well after that, then it would be much safer to proceed with a larger project the next time since the risks have been mostly if not completely eliminated.

5. Professionalism

In outsourcing there’s no employer – employee relationship, there’s only Partnership. Thus, both parties should treat each other as equals and therefore should keep the professionalism at all times. Regardless if it’s a person-to-person (micro-outsourcing) or company-to-company (macro-outsourcing) outsourcing, it still does not change the fact that the relationship one has with the other is that of a partner and not of an employer-employee unless clearly defined otherwise from the beginning of the engagement.

Keeping all this 5 tips in mind and seriously applying it whenever you plan to do IT outsourcing can definitely guarantee a comfortable and a profitable business venture.

James Van Norman is a SEO Specialist at NOW Outsourcing Services. To get the best offshore outsourcing services, I highly recommend you to outsource to the Philippines.

The rise of the internet has made it possible for certain group like problem solvers to form an online community to share ideas and solutions, a great example of such community is Yahoo! Answers. With this kind of idea, where a group can collaborate on certain projects, crowdsourcing comes in.

Crowdsourcing is defined by Wikipedia as the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a “crowd”), through an open call. It is a kind of system wherein you have a crowd that would independently work on an assignment that you requested and then they would submit their best effort. From there, you may then pick your favorite submission and pay only that person for their work. I would think of it as a form of work-contest.

Crowdsourcing is not totally different from outsourcing

Outsourcing marketplaces such as oDesk and Elance sometimes falls under crowdsourcing as buyers or those looking to have a project done would post what they need and you have service providers who would bid on a project. However, this is not really crowdsourcing per se.

A good idea on how online crowdsourcing works is that you want a logo and you’re willing to reward someone $300 to provide you with the best design. So post your “project” on website such as Crowdspring.com and wait for the “crowd” to send in their work and you reward the person whose logo you selected. On the other hand, you can go to other community and directly “hire” or outsource the task to a specific person and pay that person directly once the project is done.

With the first situation, if might take forever to wait for a least 3 responses to your project. So if you’re in a rush to get this done, this may not be alternative. An option would be awarding a higher “prize” in order to attract the said crowd.

Crowdsourcing is not for everyone

There are some business models wherein the power of the crowd works. However, it is NOT an alternative to outsourcing. Take for example outsourcing your call center operation; can you use the power of the crowd? Obviously you need an outsource vendor who has the infrastructure, business knowledge, etc. to handle the calls and work with you for a long-term basis.

There is a big debate when it comes to crowdsourcing, to the point that it is being called evil. Crowdsourcing might sometimes be costly like when you want to polish a project to an acceptable level so outsourcing is a better alternative. If you’re dealing with private data, you don’t have any contract so you are risking being attacked. Both crowdsourcing and outsourcing plays a vital role as they are very useful today’s generation of savvy online businesses, depending on how one would capitalize on it and depending on the types of work.

Jessica Byw is a freelancer from the Philippines and is currently working on some projects for an outsourcing marketplace. She has also written some helpful articles on outsourcing as well as her experiences on being a freelancer on TaskArmy’s blog.

Effective management of remote developers is not as easy as it may seem, especially if this is your first time working with remote employees. Generally, there are two pretty obvious solutions: either you hire a qualified project manager to do this for you, or you do it yourself. Each has its own pros and cons, so let’s take a closer look at them.

The apparent disadvantage of hiring a project manager is that you have to pay him. However, hiring a project manager may be a better option for those who are not quite familiar with software or web development and for those who have to work with a large number of distant employees. A good project manager will be able to resolve all minor issues without disturbing you, and will bother you only occasionally. A qualified manager can offer efficient solutions that you could have overlooked owing to lack of experience or some other reason. This option is best for those who just don’t have time to manage distant projects or for those whose time is worth more than a manger’s salary.

The other, a bit rougher, way is to handle everything on your own, and this one requires a more strategic approach.

Plan beforehand
Before you hire a freelancer or few to work on your project make sure you understand what you want, and most importantly, how you want it done. The same thing can be achieved in different ways, and you have to decide how you want your project executed before someone starts working on it. Simply saying that you want a blog or an e-commerce website will not do the thing. Do some research, find out about possible solutions and select the one that suits you most, and then look for freelancers or outsourcing company that has qualifications needed to bring your project to life.

Be clear
Write a detailed technical specifications that describes how exactly everything should be done. If you lack the qualifications or experience to do this, it’s advisable that you hire someone who does. I can guarantee that some changes and modification of your initial plan will still be required, regardless of how good and thought-out you initial plan is, but a qualified person will help you avoid a situation when you realize that everything, or most of it, needs to be redone.

Sign a contract
To protect your investment ask a company or a freelancer to sign a contract that specifies due dates for each stage of the project and describes what exactly is considered a successful completion of a certain stage or the project as a whole. Your contract should specify how exactly the payment will be made and at what stage of the project. It is best to make payments in milestones after successful completion of each stage of the project. If you agree to pay an hourly rate, make sure you discuss the approximate number of hours needed for completion of each stage of the project.

Test the product
This is often overlooked by many employers, but is actually one of the vital steps to successful project management. Programmers or web developers often cannot find bugs or errors in their own work; it’s like proofing the essay you wrote. Make sure each bug, and more often than not there is one, is fixed before a certain stage of your project is completed. Do not postpone this, as fixing a certain error at an early stage is easier than it will be later, when it will become a part of the big picture. After the bug is fixed, test everything again; oftentimes fixing a bug produces one or more new ones. Try to have everything checked and tested before it’s too late. You do not want to hear from one of your users that a certain feature that is already in use and is vital to a bunch of other features does not work properly.

Outsourcing your web or software development projects is a good practice, but only if you approach it strategically. And unless you are an experienced developer or project manager, I recommend that you hire someone qualified to help you manage your remote development team.

Offshore software development company masterofcode.com.
We will be happy to send you a quote on a project free of charge. Please, submit the request form and we will get back to you within 24 hours.

This article will discuss some of the basics of hiring a professional to help you out with your web business. There are two reasons you may want to do this: 1) you do not have the skills yourself or 2) your site(s) are growing so quickly that you need to hire someone to help out. This may be a marketer/SEO guru, writer, web developer, or something else.

Tips for Outsourcing

There is absolutely a right and a wrong way to hire help. I know this from experience. This section will give you a few pointers to keep in mind when looking to hire someone to preform any type of work for your web business.

Do

• Shop Around. Spend some time upfront finding the absolute best provider that you can. This way, you won’t get stuck with a dud and waste valuable time and energy.
• Ask for a portfolio. If they are even somewhat respectable, they will have a large portfolio full of quality work from satisfied clients. make sure you see this first.
• Hold on tightly to the stars. When you find an awesome writer that can produce work on time for reasonable prices, do whatever you can to keep them around forever!

Don’t

• Pay upfront. I hate to admit it, but I have broken this rule and gotten burned. You give the provider the full payment before they start and never hear from them again. It happens.
• Expect the freelancer to solve your problems or tell you what to do. Make sure you have a VERY clear outline of exactly what their role is and what you expect. Communicate this to them.
• Be afraid to give direction. To often, we will see some work that is just ‘okay’ and tell the freelancer that it is ‘Awesome!’. But we really don’t like it and the quality of our project suffers. Tell them if it looks terrible.

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Now that you have a website development project on your hands, your next step will be to choose the very best developers to handle your project successfully. There is a problem of plenty when it comes to website developers, so you will have a difficult time separating the best from the rest; but not if you keep the below mentioned tips in mind. Let’s take a look at what they are.

Tip 1: Portfolio Evaluation

Once you have a few names with you, it’s important that you go through the portfolio of these developers. Most of the developers on your list will have their own websites. Their websites will contain their portfolio and you need to go through it in great detail. The portfolio will give you an overview of the kind of work done by that developer and whether he/she has worked on a project that has a similar requirement to yours. If they have worked on just such a project, you can go through the live website and evaluate it for its efficiency and functionality. If you want to, you can also get in touch with the website owner and take his opinion on the services of the particular website developer. This will give you a better understanding of what the website developer actually stands for.

Tip 2: Getting in touch

A personal interaction is an absolute must if you want to choose the perfect developer for your website project. An in-depth one-on-one helps you convey your project brief to the developer, during the course of which, you will get an idea about the developer/s levels of expertise and experience. A good and astute developer is somebody who offers your various ideas and suggestions in order to help improve your project. This attempt to improve your project’s concept, even though there is no guarantee that he/she will be given charge of the project, is definitely a point in their favor.

Tip 3: Ensuring Zero Doubts

In the first paragraph, we mentioned a problem of plenty that makes choosing the right website developer so difficult. But, this problem can actually turn into a benefit for you. This means you have a wide array of options to choose from. So, even if you have minimal doubts about the expertise and experience of a particular developer, you can always choose another one. The trick to choosing the best developer is to have no doubts in your mind. If you have a doubt as to whether a particular developer can deliver the best possible services to you, either get your doubts cleared or think about choosing somebody else.

Considering these tips will help you choose the web developer who is the perfect fit for your project’s needs and requirements.

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