Experts on Call

>>Large corporations for years have outsourced work to companies as close as next door and as far as the other side of the world. Unlike small businesses, they have the resources to spend searching the world for the right company to handle those tasks. Now, the Internet has given rise to a new outsourcing industry, making it a viable option for even the smallest businesses.

Through the Web, your business can not only bid on projects, real time, from anywhere in the world, but it can connect to multiple resources and workers to support your business.

For example, I recently went to www.guru.com to find out how Web-based outsourcing might help me get a list of companies that manufactured a certain product. I outlined what I needed, sent it off by e-mail, and the list was completed and waiting in my inbox the following morning. Compiling that list would have taken me all day, but it took the guru.com team only two hours at $10 per hour (and the first project through this particular site is free.) As with any research that is done for you, you have to ensure quality by checking the data. Some Web sites, such as www.elance.com, have ratings by customers.

With a small company, I always have one-time projects I don’t have enough time for, and my employees are already working at full capacity. In the past, taking on another project meant hiring someone locally or not doing it at all. Today, the Internet allows me to hire cost-effective, qualified assistance from anywhere in the world.

Services available through outsourcing range from booking upcoming travel, to finding new products to sell, to compiling a list of prospective customers.