Successful IT Outsourcing

You can’t talk Outsourcing in North American without a bit of controversy. Anywhere from hurting the economy, to people losing jobs. In the 5 years or so dealing with remote staff and offshore operation, I can never pass a networking event without a bit of a political discussion. The simple mention of me being an outsourcing consultant turns on the heat. More then once I have been approached by a few frustrated people telling me that they lost their jobs and they think that I’m very selfish for continuing to do what I’m doing. To my surprise I even got two hate calls. So I guess the question, why does a person such as myself, who believes in charity and social capitalism, get so involved in outsourcing? Simple because I’m proud of what I’m doing, and I feel that besides having a great business it I also contributes greatly to society.

Offshore employment most certainly does not hurt global society considering that for every job that I lose here, I provide 2 jobs in poorer yet democratic countries, which by itself is something to be proud of. Yet it also does not hurt our North American society, because for every job gained in India or in Romania there are more needs from North American and western production. That’s right, the more offshore economy improves the more McDonalds, Nike and Coca Cola is being consumed which bring back jobs directly to our market, and I’m talking about executive positions. At the end of the day what goes around comes around.

Keeping a closed border and focusing on local economy is like continuously stretching an elastic band, you always find a way to prevent it from tearing but the longer you prevent it the more painful it will be when it actually snaps. The snap affect in real world terms means that eventually poor countries will figure out how to get your jobs which obviously has been happening on a small scale but is being brought to equilibrium very quickly. Unfortunately if we try to keep a closed border it will simply lead to instability and loss of jobs. It would also lead to more frustration in poorer countries which sometimes leads to war or even terrorism.

So if you are outsourcing and someone like “my friend” Lou Dobbs is trying makes you feel bad about it, you tell them “I’m so proud of what I’m doing” I’m giving a job and contributing to world equilibrium which in the long run will make a happier more productive American, Western and global society.

Speaking of which I challenge Lou Dobbs to a debate, he has no chance.

If you got a chance to read few of my blogs you will have noticed that using outsourcing has become the true entrance to the internet industry. Quiet frankly as a student if I would have not discover a more affordable way of running my operation, I would have not being able to start my business and who know where I would have been. Saying that, outsourcing has come with many obstacles, which makes it clear no matter want you do it will never be like having local employees. However, if you do it right, you can get almost the same results at about a quarter of the cost or even more. The reason why I started distantjob, is because I felt that outsourcing in the traditional form is just not sustainable, and you will not get good results unless you pay a company pretty much the same amount you would have paid here in North America. To define outsourcing in the traditional sense is simply take a project and delegate to an offshore team which unfortunately you are not familiar with. To take it to the next level, even if you are more familiar with the team, you have absolutely no clue who is working on your projects. To be more personal my average experience with outsourcing was like this: I remember I needed to create a new web site for my reseller program. It required a new design and some programming. So first I would start with the design I would send off all my information. While I was promised to get updates and improvement every 3 days, I got some results 2 week later. The crazy thing is it was nothing like I had asked. While I was a bit frustrated I asked for another try, then after another 2 weeks I simply started describing page by page. Some pages were done right but some pages I simply gave up on, because I knew that by now the designer ran out of budget and time, and simply wanted to finish and tried to take advantage that I didn’t have time nor the energy to bug them about everything. That’s all before the programming started. The problem with the programming is that they treated it with the same attitude and if I wouldn’t test everything twice it would be completely wrong. After finishing with this project I still discovered some bugs, but simply gave up on that team. Unfortunately this experience has repeated many times, and if you have ever outsourced your product there is a big chance you would have had the same experience. In system admin while I worked with decent teams earlier in my career, I never actually knew who worked on my issues. It could have been someone excellent and could have been a disaster. The problem is no one even took time to learn or get used to an issue. So if there was a repetitive issue, the process of learning would have started from the beginning. That’s when I understood how important is to have well paid dedicated staffs. Working with a staff that I’m familiar with his skills, that is dedicated to my methods and targets, drastically changes the way I do business and the way I work with remote staff. I have learned that not too many companies are focused on providing this qualified staff. Where starting a remote operation is not about the work, but like your local operation is about the staff. We are here to train you and get you to understand how you can make outsourcing successful. Where you get to work with staff that you have interviewed and know their qualifications. Hopefully we can do right by you like no one else has.

Starting a business is extremely challenging. It requires your commitment, time, money, continuous attention. While there are many periods in your business which are extremely tough, I find that nothing is tougher then the actually beginning, where you are continuously fighting to break even or even make a small salary for yourself. Considering that so many people fail in the business world it is a big risk to simply decide to quit your work and suddenly and give 6 months to try build and sell your product. This would be even harder with a wife and kids or other commitments. Well I could recommend an alternative.

About 2 weeks ago my friend joined me with the same problem. He said “sharon, I’m going to start my own company, but I’m simply not comfortable quitting his job. My friend had an 80K a year job and simply was not comfortable letting that go, but he was willing to work hard. It was a tech company and involved him building the product by itself. He had all the skills and knowledge to make this successful, but simply did not have the time. My suggestion was very simple let me find you the right programmer with the right skills required, and your job would be to spend 1 hour every day after work motivating him, guiding him and evaluating like a real boss. The full time qualified staff cost him about $6/hour which is about $1200/month. The great thing is now he has 8 extra hours of productive work for that extra hour he puts in per day. My friend is on his path to starting a company. He might need another assistant to work with him on marketing and building the site later, but within 6 months he might have a full productive company running and ready.

What I’m trying to say simply is this, you can start a successful company without taking a huge risk like investing big money or quitting your job. You should hire a full time remote staff which usually goes anywhere from a sixth to a third of North American salary. Micromanage your full time staff like it’s described in a few of my other blogs and you will be able to build a successful online company in no time.

Best of luck guys

My first few years of outsourcing experience

I’ll tell a story about the challenges I had in outsourcing
I was introduced to outsourcing and India about 5 years ago while I was still in university. I was actually building a small hosting company at the time, and an independent music site. I didn’t really have money so I thought about a grass roots alternative of building my site and providing 24/7 support. The first company I was introduced to promised full 24/7 chats and ticket support. When I had few clients, I have to say that the experience was decent. It gave me my beer money and provided me with good amount of experience. Once I ended up in university, I got new funding and started growing my company, and then my support needs had to change. My first challenge was that I did not have a dynamic team.. Read the rest of this entry…