There is no way you will invest into something that you have no knowledge about. So before you join the many who have tried outsourcing their business into the hands of a stranger, perhaps you could try to learn as much as you can first from the many success stories behind outsourcing and the unsuccessful stories as well before you decide. I believe, this is the easiest way of finding out what serves you best.

Well here is the good and the bad reasons why you should consider or not, recommend or not the offshore outsourcing to others. To cite the significant ones are:

Outsourcing can cut your cost, time and most importantly will save you the headache of managing the rather repetitive and quantitative tasks. Assigning it to someone trained to do this task will do you much of a favor by allowing you to deal with the more important ones and free you from burnout. However, you just make sure you send the work to the right resource person. Or otherwise you are just digging your own grave. So wise-up, select with care. You have the power to choose wisely.

Another reason is that, you can avail of paying for cheaper labor. Why? Workers in developing countries are paid far less than workers in developed countries due to the lower cost of living. Moreover, enjoy the benefit of hiring these people on a work on demand basis… meaning, minus the hassle of managing a massive staff, less overhead, less fixed investment.

Although, the greatest advantage of offshore outsourcing companies is the flexibility of time that they offer. Compared to western workers, Offshore agents are noted to be more adapted to work to any time schedule the client demands of them.

So, whether you agree or not… this topic need not be taken further. Besides, at the end of the day, it is your decision. Educating yourself means empowerment, grab that power to your advantage… and make every deciding factor count.

Clients of outsourcing companies are not ordinary individuals but people who represent a company, an organization, or large firms from mainly US and Europe. They delegate some of their activities into the hands of an external organization or unrelated party that specializes in a particular service. Although, there are several other outsourced services out there, the three (3) main types of outsourcing are the following:

Technology Services Outsourcing
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and
Knowledge Process Outsourcing

Technology Services Outsourcing was born to keep up with the continuously changing technology. Gone are the days when businesses settle for inferior technology. As a result, business enterprises give in to the need to invest in the latest technologies and systems to stay competitive. This means added expenditure since it will involve a huge capital outlay for website development, network infrastructures, applications, telecommunications and so on and so forth. So to save funds, they outsource the job. Which means, creating extra revenue by not putting in extra investments; and there won’t be a need of hiring new employees or a need of training your current employees or yourself..

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) – The BPO started when the internet was invented. BPO is the process of hiring a third-party company or service provider to handle certain functions such as payroll and employee benefits management, customer service activities, human resources, accounting and call center. Further, BPO can be typically categorized into back office and front office outsourcing. Back Office handles internal business functions like billing and payroll. While front office outsourcing generally involves customer-related services or customer service. Other BPO functions include information technology enabled service orITES since most business processes include some form of automation.

Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) – an offshoot of a BPO. The defining difference is that KPO is more focused on knowledge-intensive business processes not just data entry; it involves high-value work carried out by highly skilled staff. The outsource work providers here are expected to work independently and often make many low-level business decisions. The present definition of KPO goes beyond R&D, product development and other business functions. Clearly, this is a more advanced process of outsourcing.

Many organizations in developed countries are adopting this so-called Offshore Outsourcing practice for many reasons. To name a few that really stands out: With offshore outsourcing, service providers would do just about anything you would like them to do; from telemarketing, to business process outsourcing, to customer support, technical support, customer service, help desk support, email, web chat support and many more. How convenient is that, right?

Secondly, for economic reasons. Professional fees or service fees of offshore companies are based on their “own currency”, making it very affordable.

Moreover, the offshore outsourcing companies offer 24/7 support and are very much willing to work any time of the day as you would want them.

Finally, the outsourcing industry is an extremely competitive one and many offshore outsourcing companies are really striving hard to give quality services to satisfy their clients as well as to attract new ones.

Bottom line, through offshore outsourcing management, companies achieve a substantial reduction of cost and bigger profits at the end of each project…clearly, it’s really about the costs. Less cost, means an increase in savings, means an increase in profit. To even support this logic, let me quote what Keynes’ have to say about this: “Savings is equal to the excess of income over consumption.”

So obviously this answers why a lot of companies invest in offshore outsourcing because of monetary gain as far as savings is concerned. Through outsourcing, they get to save more, eventually, they get to increase their overall profitability which is the goal of any business organization. But these are just even some of the benefits that the supporters of this kind of business set-up get to enjoy. Hence, the outsourcing industry has also grown with an unexpectedly rapid rate in no time.

In the early days, BPO started as a kind of organization only providing outsourcing processes like payroll. But eventually, over the years, it evolved and offered new services such as employee benefits management, financial and administration (F&A ) processes, human resources (HR) functions, customer service activities, call center and accounting.

While, BPO seems to be a very attractive and profitable enterprise, putting up and setting up one is not that simple. BPO companies like any other businesses, need a first-rate management group. A business run by people who have a vision, a solid plan and most especially the conviction to pursue such an undertaking. Many call center companies fail in their effort to grow their business because of poor management team. While the plan and the visions are there, it all goes wrong during the execution. They tend to get too excited and too aggressive to oversee somehow the more essential components in the process particularly in its customer service and HR functions. These two problem areas demand a delicate and discerning approach in reality, difficult to crack. Hiring the right persons, training them and making their employees happy is the most challenging part for a BPO to master. A lot of call center agents are not afraid to quit their job, knowing what they know, the demand for call center agents are high… hopping from one call center to another became the trend. So that explains why BPO’s are losing people periodically which is a waste of time and resources. And losing people means recruiting, hiring and training new ones. Although this is only one of the many things that they should put into consideration, it happens to be a crucial one.

Other concerns will be the performance metrics of the company. Outsourcers expect call centers to be in accord with project requirements. Meeting the requirements means projects grounded on a sound and strong foundation.

But despite of all these challenges, the BPO industry remains strong. It will survive because no matter what the odds, their contribution and importance in the business market are just too great to disregard.

Let’s name the disadvantages about outsourcing:

Not obtaining the desired results/output
The scare is not meeting the agreed standard requirements. A service provider should have a set of quality standards to comply and synchronized deliverables. The client should be able to find a service provider that they can trust, whether they are a freelance worker or organization, they will be able to deliver the product or service as agreed on. Otherwise, the outsourcing company may suffer the consequences of incurring another cost of having the process done by another supplier to fulfill the right results. In other words, paying twice for the same job.

Less managerial/operational control
Companies that outsource can lose control over the processes, since functions become entirely, as a result, controlled by the outsourcing partner. Your service provider may not necessarily share the same standards and mission that motivates your company. Remember, they are also making business out of you.

The risk of your service provider to go out of business/runs into financial difficulties
When this happens, the client-company faces the hassle of finding another firm to continue the aborted project or will have to consider taking the process back in-house. Aside from that, project timelines may also suffer as a consequence.

Irritated employees of the client(company)
Employees of the outsourcing company may in effect feel some grudge the fact that some tasks are being outsourced, as a consequence, they may be reluctant to work with the outsourced staff willingly.

Irritated customers
Especially in call centers, if the service provider does not observe strict quality control in their choice of their agents, customers of the client-company can get irritated due to communication problems. When calling customers cannot understand what the customer service representative is saying because of language deficiency or annoying accent. This causes more frustration or contributes more unresolved customer complaints.

Security and confidentiality matters
Trade secrets and business information of a company such as payroll, medical records, or any other classified information can be put at the risk of being exposed if these kinds of data or knowledge will be shared with the outsourcing company. It is advisable to evaluate to which service provider you will entrust these kind of information. Include in your contract a penalty clause as an additional safeguard if unauthorized leakage of vital information occurs.

Although, there are disadvantages to this kind of system, still it is not reason enough to avoid outsourcing. The goal is to consider the value that it may add as well as the impact to your existing business.

Companies outsource mainly for lack of time, resources and the ability to manage HR functions. So, whatever your company’s HR requirements are, surely, there is an HR outsourcing firm out there to meet those demands. You have the choice to outsource all your HR tasks or simply contract your services the à la carte way.

In this article let us identify eight (8) of the most commonly outsourced functions:

We have the 401 (k) administration – A 401 (k) is a kind of retirement plan in the US. It is one of the hardest and most intricate responsibilities performed by organizations.

The employee assistance/counseling programs – is a company benefit offered by employers providing services to help employees deal with personal problems to improve their productivity at work and improve their quality of life.

Retirement planning help – is an employer-sponsored retirement plan. There are two types of plans offered by employers: one is the defined-benefit plan and the other defined-contribution plans. Sometimes, a company offers both.

Pension administration – is the layer of management that manages and educates its employees from top-level executives to the common staff about their investment options and benefits as well as the sensitive information inherent in retirement plans.

Temporary Staffing – refers to a situation wherein a company hires an individual to work as part of their workforce on a temporary or contract basis and for a specific assignments. This is a function usually outsourced by companies for the following reasons: Absenteeism Savings, Turnover and Recruitment Costs Savings, “As Needed” Hiring, Overtime Savings, and Training Cost Savings

Background Checks – is a process of gathering valuable information about a person such as employment, education, professional verification and criminal history. These checks are often requested by employers from their new hires.

Training and management development programs – is a program administered either by the company or a third-party organization. It is a program created to train and retrain managers, current employees or even newly hired personnel to facilitate and encourage whole-person development and fulfillment. Training and management development programs differ from one company to another.

Payroll – is the financial record of every employee such as salaries, wages, bonuses, net pay, withholding, deductions and other items indicated on their paychecks; also means the record of total earnings of all employees in a fiscal year.

This short list is from top one to 8. Although, there are many other functions that are nowadays outsourced, these are the top rank business functions.

So what are the interesting points we should know about Offshore Outsourcing IT? US and Europe are the largest customers of this industry, the main players among offshore (in contrast with “near shore”) locations to date are India, China and the Philippines. And reducing costs is usually the main driver to this outsourcing phenomenon.

By the way, did you know that the word “offshoring” connotes a rather disparaging label. What’s the catch?? CIOs (Chief Information Officer) or in particular “the Execs” prefer to call it as the “g” word” or what is known as “globalization”. Globalization, they say, is the more polite way of addressing it.

However they want to call it, statistics shows that large companies from developed countries continue to send a big share/chunk of their IT job to overseas service providers. Despite their public profession of discontent about incompetent offshore workers or vendors. Still, they remain to patronize their services year after year. How ironic! Any system will never be perfect no matter how long it is being practiced in the business. Since both parties engaged in such a business will always put their own interest first above other things. It is really up to how you play the game and make it work for both to meet a mutually “win-win” relationship. Ideal, but possible. Evidently, this sounds like a long shot.

The advantages of offshore outsourcing IT is that company’s get to avail of skilled workers fit for the task required. This is the big why they turn to outside suppliers for an easier access of finding the right person for a really cheap price. For as long as they properly choose what tasks to turnover to their remote employees, risks of losing ownership over the project could be prevented. Other benefits include attaining faster ROI and getting the job done within the time-frame.

So if there was in fact a better alternative, other than outsourcing, do you think company’s would continue supporting the cause of outsourcing business? Do you think company’s would continue transferring their IT work outside their country? They won’t, but they do. Clearly, outsourcing works! Otherwise, it would be a dead business by now. But is it? Go figure…

So what are the kinds of offshore staff and virtual staff that are available for hiring? Here’s a list and short descriptions of the “in demand” offshore labor force for hire:

Telemarketers – Receiving orders, gathering information, delivering goods etc. generally describes this job. The person who does the marketing through telephone calls is a telemarketer.

Call Center Agents – They handle customer calls (outbound or inbound), tech support systems, and help desks. Call center agents work at home or are on site employees. They are trained to manage many ‘call’-types, including regular telephone inquiries, account inquiries, customer complaints, support issues, faxes, e-mails and web requests.

Customer Service Specialists – A customer service specialist is the channel of communications between company and customers. A customer service specialist or a.k.a. customer service representative/consultant provides a broader scope of support for products and services as compared to regular call center agents. They have more specialized training on a specific topic such as billing, order requests and usage instructions. And their core or primary duty is to provide ready complaint resolutions and explanations regarding product or service policies.

Marketing and Personal Assistants – A personal assistant (PA) is someone who helps in dealing with both secretarial and administrative tasks. Another name for PA is Executive Secretary. They closely work with senior management, directorial staff, executive and teams, to give administrative support, often times, on a one-to-one basis. Whereas, a marketing assistant’s role is mainly to approve contractor ads for financial reimbursement. They track contractor allotment based on program performance and ensures the proper use of logos and brand guidelines. Their tasks also include monitoring performance and marketing metrics, communications response data and clerical work.

Web Designers – or also known as Internet Designers, is the person responsible for the look and the “feel” of a website, in other word, the creative design of the webpage. Web designers are efficient in the use of design software.

Web Developers – The skills of a web developer are more expansive than that of a web designer, while a web designer’s main concern is the creative look of the website, whereas a web developer fashion and construct everything from the home page, site layout, function and are ensuring a visually attractive and user-friendly web design.

Web Administrators – or also known as the webmaster, is the person responsible for keeping your sites running. His tasks include fixing website issues, errors and updates the content. Further, they are responsible in maintaining the website by ensuring that the web servers, hardware and software are working accurately.

Graphic Designer – or also called as graphic artist, is someone who can plan, analyzes and creates visual solutions to help intensify the right message or idea is communicated. His tasks include producing product design for magazines, corporate reports; also develop material for the Web pages. Graphic designers have a keen eye for creating what is pleasing to the eye.

Virtual Assistants – A virtual assistant (VA) is simply someone who you can delegate your chores to and the challenges of running your business. The most important quality of a good/exceptional virtual assistant is a person capable of providing a variety of services to a client. Being able to multi-task is much expected from a VA. A VA goes beyond traditional secretarial support to client development and marketing support.

Now that we have described each one of them, I hope we have achieved and gained a clearer understanding about their specific functions. In reality, one job item can overlap another, meaning, these people are not limited to their job description. In many cases, they go the extra mile to give their clients the most satisfaction for hiring them.

The thing that makes outsourcing attractive is because of its promising labor cost that can definitely help the company with their expenses especially if they are cost cutting because it allows them to lower their expenses but at the same time get the work done for them.

A thing or two about the outsourcing is that it becomes much of a disadvantage when it comes to the quality of work because of the distance, one cannot monitor the amount of work that the worker is doing. However though service providers have addressed this issue because they have provided the means for ensuring clients that they could carry out the job.

With outsourcing they can focus on their core values to improve their business and maintain the ability of their business to blossom. Cost cutting is the option that most of the companies opt for. With these in mind they find the service provider that best suits them and mirror their company culture.

Competition is high since countries have been seriously considering it as an income generating industry. For some, they raise the bar so high to ensure that they provide excellent service to their clients. Setting a standard to ensure that the clients are satisfied and delighted is a must for them. Since the clients are the life blood of the service.

Global outsourcing has a high importance to a country especially if they have the ability for it and the resource for it such as the labor workforce. A great way to help the economy and improve the lives of people who is in the industry.

Highly trained outsourcers are in a good position as companies seek out for them for their service. They meet the expectations of the client by providing excellent service and maintaining the quality of the work and never fail to deliver to make sure that the client gain trust with them.

Basically getting the work done and maintaining quality is the key factor to a successful outsourcing. When they gain trust and confidence in the industry they get satisfaction and happiness from the service they are getting.

It is very convenient with just a click you can already avail of the technical support. They will give you what you need and you don’t have to worry about a thing. It is fast and easy, that way they could give their customers the much needed care and attention of their equipments.

Repairing the computer is not a very cheap ordeal. That is why they have come up with a service such as technical services outsourcing to give customers a much wider option. Prevention is the key, it is a wise choice to do because it gives your computer the treatment it needs. Maintaining it to it’s tip top shape is important especially if you want the system to be speedy. With the maintenance, the computer is now updated and defect free. This is important especially if your work relies heavily on the computer, you need a well maintained equipment to make the job easier.

A lot of services are offered online wherein you can avail of. They could suggest what type of service you could choose from them. If you are clueless and you do not know what you need to do, they will help you decide the service that you definitely need. They will guide you throughout so that you do not need to have a hard time making up your mind. Customers will not have the difficulty because they will be guided by experts who can give them recommendations on what is the best for them.

Network support is also provided especially if you are experiencing a slow connection. They also offer back up solutions so that when something happens to the computer there is no problem provided there is data recovery to make it work.

For the companies who need to setup or organize the layout of their computers they can just leave it to them and find the style that best suits the company. Making sure that everything is functional and working.

The computer is essential to carry out the tasks that is needed in a given day. It is deemed important to be wary of its well being. We must also take care of it so that all our hard work will not be put to waste and with these we also show concern to things we often take for granted.