What actually is outsourcing?

What actually is outsourcing?

Peter on September 10th, 2008

Tags: ecover, outsource, paypal

So I’m going to pose a question to you that might seem a little strange.

What is outsourcing?

And maybe later on, I’ll ask another question: Why should you outsource?

If you have been online or in the business world for any amount of time, when someone says to you: “let’s outsource” it probably conjurs up images of sending all the work to a different country that has lower costs, and results in people losing their jobs.

I think that’s a very narrow minded view of outsourcing.

What outsourcing is about is leveraging the skills of others to enable you to focus on your core business.

Recently Agriya had a requirement to create new digital product boxes for one of the new products we’re going to launch. (If you are not in the know, these graphics are called ecovers in the business).

Unfortunately our designers didn’t have any experience creating product boxes and 2 days was wasted trying to get a product box that looked really professional. We usually charge $15-$20 an hour for our designer, so in business terms, we wasted at least $240 in direct costs, it doesn’t take in to account the time I wasted trying to explain to the designer how to create a product box.

What I should have done was recognise that we didn’t have the skills for this small project and outsourced the job to a professional. Instead I tried to do it inhouse and wasted time and money.

When I eventually came to my senses, I hooked up with a designer called Hrvoje from Croatia who’s an expert in creating these kind of product box graphics. I gave him my requirements, paid him $67 and later that day I got an extremely professional graphic that my designers wouldn’t have been able to ever achieve.

The moral of the story is this: you might think it’s ‘cheaper’ or ‘easier’ to do a project inhouse because you are not paying out any money. But if you are not an expert in the project you are trying to do, consider the indirect costs where your staff are working on internal (non-money making) projects as opposed to client projects which earn the company money. In the end, outsourcing to an expert can work out a whole lot cheaper and quicker.

As for the results we got? See for yourself.

Our thanks goes to Hrvoje of eCoversLab.com for his quick and professional work.

Could your company do with outsourcing your IT projects to some experts? Are you wasting time trying to learn new skills in order to complete a project? Agriya is perfectly placed as a preferred outsourcing partner to take on a wide range of web development projects, giving you the ability to focus on your core business and save time and money on your project.

Get in touch with us at info@agriya.com for further details.

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2 Responses to “What actually is outsourcing?”

Christine says:

January 2, 2010 at 6:34 pm

Outsourcing is absolutely key to expanding a business, online or offline. What you need to keep track of is your ROI, the wider the margin, the better.

Another important thing to note of is management of the work you outsource, if you’re unable to track quality control and similar aspects, it needs to be taken care of asap.
Philam says:

March 17, 2010 at 12:40 am

Outsourcing business has experienced a massive increase and still expanding globally. Businesses from small to medium level or even the larger ones have been outsourcing jobs these days simply to save money and to focus doing other important tasks. Before you involve with outsourcing better you do careful study first and find out the advantages and disadvantages and how it could affect or help your company. Do not just rely on the feedback of others so you won’t regret.

Phil