Outsourced IT

The fundamental question when talking about outsourcing is, does it work? For an average person who understand the idea of outsourcing on a shallow level, outsourcing is not a worthed investment. He may think that it is completely a waste of time, money and resources. He may be reluctant to try other people to do his back office work because of several presumptions such as why work with others when he feels he is on top of everything and why do you need to let other people offshore work for your business when you are completely in control of everything in your own territory? For a politician, outsourcing is just another long political debate within Congress walls and newspapers. Politicians will just be skeptical about outsourcing as it is seen as something that will touch the issue of unemployment in his country and is an unpatriotic act. This may win him some vote in the next election but he still would be one of the many reluctant-to-change people. On the other side of the water, it is the businessman who does the outsourcing not the layman nor the politician. Outsourcing for the businessman is a modern day boon. Tons of businessmen are fully aware that outsourcing brings them the time freedom of non-core yet important back office work of their business and delegating this work to an individual or group offshore would give justice to their work and themselves. Thus, outsourcing gives a businessman freedom from all surface business work and they can concentrate more on the most important aspects of their business. Outsourcing works mutually because they can focus on the work delegated to them in a cost-efficient agreement. This is one major advantage of outsourcing. Another convincing advantage of oursourcing is its cost-effectiveness. Businessmen are quite updated with the advantage of using information technology as an asset of their business, they quite know how to exploit the power of the internet to maximize the results of their business efforts. Added to that, they also know that services and human resource is expensive in the US and Europe and that impedes them from gaining the desired results they are aiming for. In result, they outsource offshore in countries such as India and the Philippines because of its cheap labor. Take for instance, an ordinary American or European will be quite disatisfied earning an income of $ 300-500 per month but for Indians and Filipinos, this amount is above the average income. Thus, outsourcing offshore is not only a wise investment but a win-win solution as well. Also, one great advantage of outsourcing is, businessmen are able to save huge amount of money and they know that they can get quality work from their workers offshore. In addition, they are also able to update their business information technology infrastructure and stay up to date of the latest trends in Information technology. Businessmen are also able to full advantage of their money. Consequently, they recruit less and training costs are reduced wisely. The purchasing of essential technology will be taken care of by the outsourcing company, saving money, resources, effort and time in the long run. There are tons of advantages of outsourcing, presented above are one of the mant. Do not allow yourself to be misled by rumors, misconceptions, and rumors about outsourcing. You are the business owner and thus the architect of the destiny of your business.

By: Don E. Sears, eweek

With the simultaneous pressures of cost savings and software-centric innovation, CIOs continue to look abroad for development projects and managed services.

A global CIO study from 2010 reveals that 90 percent of CIOs will be maintaining or increasing offshore outsourcing projects in 2010 and 2011. According to the UK-based IT staffing and managed services firm Harvey Nash, outsourcing has been greatly used during the recession and CIOs are inclined to continue using outsourced services.

In its 2010 Global CIO Survey, Nash surveyed 2,855 IT executives from around the world and found 62 percent outsource software-application development; 53 percent outsource software maintenance; and 53 percent outsource IT infrastructure services. Twenty-two percent outsource systems integration, 8 percent outsource BPO, 8 percent outsource HR BPO, and 6 percent outsource their entire IT department. Thirty-six percent of CIOs are increasing their budgets in 2011 for offshore outsourcing activities.

The rising star for offshore outsourcing is Eastern Europe, but India is still a major player. Vietnam, the Philippines and China are also seeing increased IT activity. Says the Harvey Nash report:

“The role of India in offshore outsourced programmes remains dominant, but the dominance is waning and the rise of Eastern Europe as a preferred hub, especially for European-based CIOs, is undeniable. More than one in ten global CIOs now undertakes offshore activity in Eastern Europe. That figure is significantly higher within those European countries closest to the region.”

Nearly half of CIOs—48 percent—spend 10 percent of their IT budget on outsourcing. Roughly a third of CIOs have their budgets cut for 2011; forty-three percent had declining budgets in 2010.

Key issues facing CIOs and the IT department include increasing operational efficiencies, cost savings, and improving business process. All three of these areas weighed heavily on the minds of CIOs, as more than 70 percent of them rated these highly. Other issues revealed by the survey include new-product development, entering new markets, improving price competitiveness, green IT and mobile commerce.

CIOs, according to this study, are looking for skills that lean heavily toward business acumen.

The top rated skill with the highest percentage of demand—44 percent—is business analysis, followed closely by project management (37 percent) and business relationship management (31 percent). Architecture (35 percent), IT strategy (28 percent), development (23 percent), testing (22 percent) and service management (21 percent) were eclipsed by skills that help the CIO work strategically with the business. The most surprising technology skill to fall in the bottom ring of demand in the study is security, at 16 percent.

Despite the cost savings, offshore outsourcing and hybrid models that mix onshore and offshore services come with their own set of issues. As the study points out, business culture and project expectations are not always on the same page. From the Harvey Nash report:

“For both CIOs and their outsourcing providers, the key statistic that continues to cause concern is a growing level of dissatisfaction with project management standards, despite the overall popularity of the offshore outsourcing model.”

 [Source] Software Outsourcing Blog Section: http://www.unisoftchina.com

With the simultaneous pressures of cost savings and software-centric innovation, CIOs continue to look abroad for development projects and managed services.

A global CIO study from 2010 reveals that 90 percent of CIOs will be maintaining or increasing offshore outsourcing projects in 2010 and 2011. According to the UK-based IT staffing and managed services firm Harvey Nash, outsourcing has been greatly used during the recession and CIOs are inclined to continue using outsourced services.

In its 2010 Global CIO Survey, Nash surveyed 2,855 IT executives from around the world and found 62 percent outsource software-application development; 53 percent outsource software maintenance; and 53 percent outsource IT infrastructure services. Twenty-two percent outsource systems integration, 8 percent outsource BPO, 8 percent outsource HR BPO, and 6 percent outsource their entire IT department. Thirty-six percent of CIOs are increasing their budgets in 2011 for offshore outsourcing activities.

The rising star for offshore outsourcing is Eastern Europe, but India is still a major player. Vietnam, the Philippines and China are also seeing increased IT activity. Says the Harvey Nash report:

“The role of India in offshore outsourced programmes remains dominant, but the dominance is waning and the rise of Eastern Europe as a preferred hub, especially for European-based CIOs, is undeniable. More than one in ten global CIOs now undertakes offshore activity in Eastern Europe. That figure is significantly higher within those European countries closest to the region.”

Nearly half of CIOs—48 percent—spend 10 percent of their IT budget on outsourcing. Roughly a third of CIOs have their budgets cut for 2011; forty-three percent had declining budgets in 2010.

Key issues facing CIOs and the IT department include increasing operational efficiencies, cost savings, and improving business process. All three of these areas weighed heavily on the minds of CIOs, as more than 70 percent of them rated these highly. Other issues revealed by the survey include new-product development, entering new markets, improving price competitiveness, green IT and mobile commerce.

CIOs, according to this study, are looking for skills that lean heavily toward business acumen.

The top rated skill with the highest percentage of demand—44 percent—is business analysis, followed closely by project management (37 percent) and business relationship management (31 percent). Architecture (35 percent), IT strategy (28 percent), development (23 percent), testing (22 percent) and service management (21 percent) were eclipsed by skills that help the CIO work strategically with the business. The most surprising technology skill to fall in the bottom ring of demand in the study is security, at 16 percent.

Despite the cost savings, offshore outsourcing and hybrid models that mix onshore and offshore services come with their own set of issues. As the study points out, business culture and project expectations are not always on the same page. From the Harvey Nash report:

“For both CIOs and their outsourcing providers, the key statistic that continues to cause concern is a growing level of dissatisfaction with project management standards, despite the overall popularity of the offshore outsourcing model.”

Outsourcing services gain more and more popularity on the markets of developed countries. Only recently outsourcing has caused apprehension and offshore outsourcing services were utilized by either large companies or professionals in the area. Now this is a common business practice. In 2007 IDC research company is anticipating rapid growth of small and medium business influence on expansion of existing IT market segments and creation of new ones. Overall changes occurring on the global IT market require corrections in business-models of outsourcing services provision.

The Forum objectives are boosting software development and outsourcing services market, discussion of global trends in IT markets, and addressing current issues in the outsourcing area.

In 2006, more than 200 professionals from all over the world participated in the Forum. Ukrainian Outsourcing Forum `2006 welcomed representatives of Sony, PricewaterhouseCoopers, GE Healthcare, ACD Systems International Inc, JSC “Vimpelcom”, Infopulse Ukraine, KM Soft/Kvazar-Micro Corp., Validio Software, Lohika, EPAM Systems, Luxsoft, Murano Software, StarSoft and other widely known companies. Overall 148 organizations from the USA, England, Germany, Denmark, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, India, Switzerland, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and other countries participated in the Forum.

UOF ‘2007 Goals and Objectives

• Presentation of IT outsourcing services potential of Ukraine and other Central & Eastern European countries.

• Attraction of new customers for outsourcing services.

• Organization of B2B meetings between the Forum participants.

• Discussion of issues in development of IT industry and outsourcing.

• Presentation of «Ukrainian IT Outsourcing Research 2007»

UOF ‘2007 Subjects

Global marketing

• Cultural specifics of marketing on different markets.

• Peculiarities in collaboration with SMB (small and medium-sized businesses).

• How to turn cultural and geographical proximity to the Europe into an advantage?

Ukrainian regional Software Development centers.

• Regional Software Development centers presentation.

• Software Development business in Ukraine.

• Development potential of the regions.

Embedded/Firmware programming and Hardware Design

• Potential of Embedded/Firmware programming segment.

• Hardware Design – new rapidly growing segment of IT outsourcing.

• Embedded/Firmware programming and Hardware Design – outsourcing projects specifics.

IT professionals market. Search. Training. Education.

• Current status and trends of the IT labor market.

• Personnel training: educational programes, IT training centers.

• Regional specifics.

Software quality. QA and testing. Independent testing.

• Implementation of CMM standards for quality assurance.

• CMM – alternative approaches to quality assurance.

• Software Development methodology, instruments, and technology.

• Independent testing as a service.

BPO in Ukraine

• Call-centers – BPO segment leader.

• Job for Europe – data input and bills processing.

• Other types of outsourcing.

The Forum Format

Conference

The conference will be structured by sections with dedicated subjects:

• Global marketing.

• Ukrainian regional Software Development centers.

• Embedded/Firmware programming and Hardware Design.

• IT professionals market. Search. Training. Education.

• The best outsourcing solutions.

• Software quality. QA and testing. Independent testing.

• BPO.

Exhibition

The Forum will offer an exhibition of the leading Eastern European IT outsourcing companies.

Ukrainian IT Matchmaking Event ’2007 (B2B meetings)

Within the Forum there will be held the «Ukrainian IT Matchmaking Event ’2007» where participants will have an opportunity to meet future partners, hold business meetings and present their companies. On-line scheduling system allows studying the Forum participants’ profiles in advance and organize meetings preliminarily.

Round-table Discussions

During the Forum well-known experts will lead the following round-table discussions:

• “UKRAINE, THE IT-FIRST NATION” programme development”. The subject of this round-table discussion is a programme of Ukrainian Software Development industry expansion.

• “Ecosystem of Software Development industry.” This round-table discussion will deal with the issues of training the Software industry personnel.

Recreational activities

Within the Forum the participants are invited for a sightseeing tour of Kiev including visits of the most famous city sights.

Forum participants

Among the Forum participants there will be noted experts in outsourcing, representatives of the leading companies from the Eastern Europe, the European Union and the USA and which are interested in developing their business in the Eastern European countries, as well as representatives of the national IT Associations and local state authorities.

Contacts

Additional information about the Forum programme and participation terms is available:

• on the Forum official web site WWW.OUTSOURCING-FORUM.COM.UA

• via telephones: +38 044 458-17-53

Please apply for participation in the Forum on-line http://www.outsourcing-forum.com.ua/en/registration/index.html

Ukrainian Outsourcing Forum `2007 organizational committee

The slight decrease in the IT dynamics at the beginning of 2000s being over, the new drivers has fueled further development of the IT branch throughout 2006 – 2007.

One of the tendencies of the global impact has to deal with growing business value of the Internet as well as associated boom in e-commerce. The IT-rich enterprises have won substantial market advantage over the competitors that have not placed IT as the key element of their business strategy. According to Gartner, the investments in the new information technologies would double within 2006 – 2010 period.

The burning IT issues of the two previous years have included digital convergence, mobility and Service-oriented architecture. Other point of focal interest turns out to be the alignment of IT and business processes within the enterprise in general and in sourcing models in particular.

The analysts from Experton Group have come up with the statement that in the next few years outsourcing “would be the driving force behind IT market dynamics”. Despite the global slow down in outsourcing dynamics – for the most part in America, the number and quality of outsourcing contracts concluded in Europe has risen during the first quarter of 2007 (Morrison & Foerster’s Global Sourcing Group). The year 2007, alike the previous one, has demonstrated the increase in the IT staff, despite the forecasts for decrease due to the outsourcing of IT activities. Hence, it proves out that outsourcing strengthens the market position of outsourcing buyers, expanding their technological scope and consequently creates new workplaces.

During the past few years we have seen the shift occurring in decisive factors for outsourcing: in addition to traditional reduction of development costs, outsourcing buyers become more and more interested in access to the pool of talents (due to the internal shortages of highly-qualified IT graduates) and industry-specific know-how. Another visible trend of 2007 is multisourcing, accompanied by growing process-orientation. The time of “mega-deals” is left behind, while overwhelming reduction of the contract’s scope becoming a nowadays reality. “Gartner’s Key Predictions for 2007″ include the forecast that through 2009, market share for the top 10 IT outsourcers will decline to 40.0 percent (from 43.5 percent now), equalling a revenue shift of $5.4 billion. The above mentioned trend consequently leads to the growing number of SMEs on the IT arena and therefore the increase of the impact on the outsourcing landscape.

Precise attention should also be devoted to the Top Trends 2007, outlined by CIO Insight: particularly, Management section of the forecast features predictions that outsourcing will change IT management and that offshoring will shift from India. Concerning the later tendency, notwithstanding pure neashoring, it is worth to note that Indian outsourcing providers are increasingly seeking possibilities for mergers with Eastern European software developers. Inevitably, outsourcing “moves closer to home”, with Indian and Chinese outsourcing proposals becoming less appealing to European vendors.

Over the years, data privacy as well as data security has become fundamental prerequisites for successful outsourcing cooperation. Therefore, intellectual property issues together with effective practices on risk mitigation will stay top of the agenda for the years to come. Also, outsourcing service providers are expected to be capable of driving innovation and delivering industry specific know how. Another trend of interest, highlighted by Morrison & Foerster’s Global Sourcing Group, introduces transformational application outsourcing, which foresees restructuring of the code in a more modern architecture, therefore making it deployable in SOA.

To sum up with, the coming years will see tighter alignment between outsourcing providers and software development vendors, resulting in more effective business cooperation models. Also, increasing competition will fuel more innovative approach to outsourcing, with process orientation becoming the core of it.

Outsourcing has become such a huge trend in the business world that more and more people have become interested in what the outsourcing world has to offer next. Those planning to go into outsourcing whether as a company who wants to outsource certain tasks or individuals and companies who want to offer their services to such companies will benefit greatly from knowing what the current goings-on are.

Social Networking Sites

Certainly the phenomenon of certain social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter is not lost on the outsourcing world. More and more companies, whether they be utilizing outsourcing services or offering them, have gone to Facebook and Twitter (and several other social networking sites) to tell the world what it is they do, apart from the now-traditional ways of having their own websites. It’s all a matter of making connections and keeping them. Connecting with your core clientele helps a business prosper by letting them know of the latest goings-on in the company. Those looking for services would also be able to know an outsourcing company much faster, and in real time too, through these social networking outfits.

Internet-Based Communication and Payment

The internet has really come a long way over the years. These days, it seems that everything can be done online. With outsourcing involving people usually from different parts of the globe, communication is a very important factor in maintaining business relationships. With improvements in the world wide web especially in the way people communicate and pay fees, the world of outsourcing has truly been revolutionized. Meetings, client updates, and transactions happen online. Outfits such as Skype for communication and Paypal for payments have made life easier for those who outsource and the people they employ. People have actually come to depend on these two, and there are people who are developing newer and better ways to communicate and transact business.

Outsourcing is Cool

Thanks to books like The Four Hour Work Week, more and more people are starting to consider outsourcing in order to live fuller lives. The idea that they can travel and basically do the things that they previously can only do on their spare time or spend their days daydreaming about. The idea of having somebody else do the work for you while you spend your days with your family, or with traveling, or doing a ton of enjoyable stuff is what attracts most people to outsourcing. Being able to do what you want is really cool, indeed. More and more people are taking a shot at outsourcing with favorable results. This trend is likely to continue.

Offshore and Inshore

Just recently, a lot of companies outsourced their work offshore, meaning overseas, to people in India, the Philippines, and other countries. Since outsourcing has reached a wider audience, there are a lot more people offering their services in the US and Canada as well, and with rates and services that are just as competitive. Ultimately, it is the company’s choice which services to consider outsourcing offshore and inshore. The variety of choices is what makes this a great trend, and may ultimately result in more savings for the company while at the same time increasing productivity.

These trends are what’s going on in the outsourcing world right now. Whether you’re a company who outsources jobs or a company who takes outsourced jobs, you will benefit from knowing these things. Keeping up to date with business trends is very important as it will help keep communication lines open as well as speed up transactions and improve the work done. Overall, everyone is a winner.

Being both a web design and development firm, we required more than just a simple task manager. We needed an issue tracker to report, update, and resolve bugs with the web-based applications we were building for our clients.  The few online tools that existed at the time provided rudimentary task management and were absent quality time tracking capabilities. Issue tracking software is helpful for many reasons. When it comes to running a business and keeping track of large amounts of data using scrum software, things can sometimes go wrong to the point of your not knowing how to fix them. However, with a 24-hour help desk right at your fingertips, problems with your project or database will be dealt with and solved immediately. Listed are some tips for linking issue tracking to scrum software.

Found a bug?

If you create an account in the system, you can login, report a new issue, or view existing issues.
While viewing an issue, on the bottom left side of the page, click the “Watch it” link to receive notifications about resolution progress. Also, we appreciate your comments, feedback, and help testing and proposing patches.
Has your bug already been reported? Please search for a similar looking bug, before reporting a new bug.
Looking for work

The issue tracker no longer assigns new issues to any particular person, they go to “unassigned” instead. This means that anyone is welcome to pick up an issue and decide to work on it. But when is it the right time to do so? And how do you know anyone else isn’t working on it? If everyone follows a few simple rules, it will be clear.

Keeping Things Straight: While some people are well acquainted with their computer’s systems and inner workings, not everyone knows what to do (besides panic) when something happens to their database or their information system. It seems to be out of their control. Issue tracking software can help with this because it basically installs a help desk right into your computer.

Even though scrum project management software ensures that your data will be well taken care of, this may only mean that, in some cases, it will be kept organized and updated. There are no guarantees that your data will be protected from computer defects, hardware failures, or even viruses. Having someone at your aide can be of immense help, especially if computer maintenance is not where your strength lies.

Making It Work For You: All issues are different, and the folks on the other end of the issue tracking system know this. That’s why there is the feature of reporting the issue either over e-mail or by phone. This not only gives you the freedom to remain busy, instead of on hold for hours at a time or left lost trying to translate, but this also ensures that the help you receive will be intelligible and benefits your specific problem in a timely manner.

With some software it is necessary to get an update or add-on for different uses. Even if you are using something specialized and complex like scrum project management software, you will receive help from someone who knows about that specific software. There is always someone who is experienced with your problem waiting for your call for help.

Overview: Sometimes running large projects, organizing outrageous amounts of data, and keeping a team of hundreds in check can be stressful. But that stress only mounts when problems that you cannot fix by yourself arise. That is what issue tracking software was created to curtail–helping you with what you can’t do for yourself.

This article provides a basis for understanding secure programming with PHP and gives a broader view of the subject. You should keep in mind that these guidelines identify only the most common threats and how to avoid them, reducing the risk of security compromise at the same time. The basic rule for writing a secure application is: never trust user input. Poorly validated user input constitutes the most severe security vulnerabilities in any web application. In other words, input data should be considered guilty unless proven innocent. Choosing php and mysql as programming language for a website is not enough. With open source coding being one of the inherent properties of php mysql development, securing your codes becomes essential. So when one allows the users to upload files on the website, then security is definitely at stake.

PHP Programming Protection

While it is not entirely possible to protect your site, yet there are few precautions that you can incorporate for better protection of PHP programming. Some of these are:

• You should check the referrer, for being sure that the information sent is from your website and not an outside source. Since, there are maximum chances of the information being fake.

• Restriction of the type of extension files being uploaded on the website is yet another method of security check.

• Renaming files is another way in which the program can be secured. This procedure involves the checking of double-barreld extensions like yourfile.php.gif.

• Changing the permission command for the upload folder so that files within it are not executable.

• All the alterations created by the user should be allowed only when they ‘Login’ into the database. On the other hand the owner of the site should always keep a close watch on all files being uploaded and then make them live.

Mysql Programming Security

Another aspect in php and mysql web development is the protection of the mysql libraries. Therefore, the most important aspect involved in protecting the mysql program is the security of the entire server host.

Securing MySQL is very essential for the smooth running of the website. This is based on Access Control Lists and SSL-encrypted connections, for protecting the php mysql web development program from random users visiting the website.

Some of the vital things to be considered for online site protection are:

• Accessing of the mysql database should not be allowed for any and everyone.

• Privileges to the users should always be accompanied with some restriction. If one can easily connect to the server without any ‘login’ then the security level code of the MySQL server should be rechecked.

• The MySQL database should be void of plain-text passwords. Use programs like MD5 (), SHA1(), or some hashing function for complete protection.

• Do not choose passwords from dictionaries, since they can be hacked easily. Use programs that break the passwords.

Therefore, the successful development of a website through php and mysql web development is complete only when the site owner consults a professional programmer. They expertise in the optimization of the MySql hosting database. This program is dynamic in nature and is an effective tool in the creation of browser-based applications.

<input id=”gwProxy” type=”hidden” /><input id=”jsProxy”>

Offshore outsourcing has overturned the information technology industry. Top organizations are achieving significant competitive gains through offshore outsourcing .Outsourcing is a trend in which one company provides services for another company . Offshore simply means “any other country than your own.” The Internet and high-speed Internet connections make it possible for outsourcing to be carried out anywhere in the world

Now-a-days, companies are easily making outsourcing choices. They are interested in offshore service as a way to cut costs around IT needs Benefits of Offshore Outsourcing are vast to name a few
1) You will always hire highly-skilled IT personnel
2) Have total control over your employee.
3) Your employee will be working only for you and not juggling 10 other projects at the same time.
4)24 Hour Customer Support
5) Cancel Anytime No Long Term Obligations
6) Lower your operating costs
7) You don’t have to pay your employees vacations, sick days, medical benefits and other costs
Before outsourcing services offshore, one needs to have an in depth knowledge of various services being outsourced by corporations around the world to different offshore outsourcing destinations. Some of the services include

IT Services BPO (Call Center) Services HR Outsourcing VOIP Back Office Setup Web Design/Development Services Data Entry and so on…

IT Services : * Web Design, Software Development, Web Marketing / SEO, Research and Development, Lead Generation ,Data Entry, Server Maintenance ,Telemarketers, Website Maintenance, Remote Desktop Support, Project managers, Virtual Assistants

BPO Services
seem to be on the rise especially during these tough economic times

* Business process management (BPM) s a field of management focused on aligning organizations with the wants and needs of clients
* Legal Business Process Outsourcing services (Legal BPO), utilizing client dedicated teams of lawyers and engineers in India and the United States to deliver best-of-breed patent analytics and patent drafting, contract drafting and contract management, legal research, competitive intelligence, electronic discovery, and document review services to U.S. law firms at a radically low cost.
* Medical Business Process Outsourcing (MBPO) solutions include outsourcing of services like medical transcription, medical billing and collection, medical coding, medical insurance (A/R) collections, designing healthcare website with search engine optimization, document conversion, healthcare staffing, outsourced healthcare staffing, data entry outsourcing and so on.
Human Resources Outsourcing (HRO)
is an arrangement whereby a company relies on external experts or services to provide human resources functions
* Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) is a form of outsourcing, in which knowledge-related and information-related work is carried out by workers in a different company or by a subsidiary of the same organization, which may be in the same country or in an offshore location to save cost.

Today many communities are benefiting directly by outsourcing and the global economy is getting benefited. The future too holds huge potential for outsourcing of low end as well as high end knowledge based jobs. Work at home and outsource the projects online.

Hiring an outsider firm or an individual, to carry out some of your business work is known as outsourcing. Outsource happens to be a debatable practice because of the advantages and disadvantages it holds. Outsourcing industry (especially offshore outsourcing) gained momentum with the amazing growth in communication technologies and internet. Today, a number of businesses in US, Canada or UK employ offshore outsourcing, much to the dismay of local workforce (that’s the reason why in near future we might see some jurisdictions being imposed on businesses looking to outsource their work to some offshore company).

There are many reasons for companies who decide to hire outsourcing companies instead of hiring and training their own staff.

Outsourcing for Small Businesses:

Outsourcing has particularly helped entrepreneurs and small businesses, allowing them to outsource some of their business work while they can focus on their strengths. For example, a company which is good at web marketing might outsource the web development work to another company because customers are looking for a complete package instead of dealing with different vendors themselves. Similarly, a small business can simply outsource the tasks like recruiting, book keeping or PR management because the cost of hiring and training full time professionals can sometime exceed the cost incurred for outsourcing.

Cost saving is unarguably the biggest advantage associated with outsourcing but it is not the only one. Outsourcing can help in speeding up the process of establishing a new business or launching a new product. At times it helps in improving quality. In our example above, you can see how the outsourcing of web design or development work to a third party can provide better results to the customers as compared to trying and coming up with a mediocre website (because you are not an expert at web designing). It also allows you to excel in your respective field instead of spending time in learning all of the required skills yourself.

Disadvantages:

Outsourcing doesn’t always result in superior quality products or services. In fact it’s quite the opposite when you are outsourcing to an offshore company in a low cost zone, in that case quality becomes the biggest concern. These companies, in their bid to save cost, compromise on the quality. Therefore, you must choose the outsourcing company carefully instead of going for the one with lowest quotes. Once you start outsourcing your work, you must put in place some proper quality check measures to ensure the quality.