What Outsourcing Means To Business

Posted on October 30th, 2010 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged ,

Services and industries are adapting to the development brought about by outsourcing. Outsourcing simply means that a company chooses to let a third party company to run a certain process in their business that can also be done by their in-house employees, such as IT outsourcing. Outsourcing is continuously rising as the years go by and many large and medium scale companies are getting involved in this type of business. An example of jobs being outsourced are call centers who run services such as technical support, credit cards, medical transcription, and even bill payments. Different companies handle the different jobs or some companies have similar jobs but cater to different clients. Outsourced jobs and services are usually situated offshore or overseas, most often than not at developing countries as well.

Outsourcing has been around for quite a while but it was only in recent years that bulks of specialized services have been outsourced overseas. Specific specialized services like company payrolls, billing and data entry are outsourced in order to have these services done more efficiently. Being efficient and cost effective are the advantages of specializing a specific service process. Lower operational costs and specialized services are some of the main reasons why foreign companies resort to outsourcing.

There are many other reasons why companies start outsourcing jobs and services but the most important and most well-known advantage seems to be the fact that outsourcing, often times, saves money, a lot of it. Many of the companies prefer to outsource services to developing nations where salaries and benefits are not as high as in the original location. Minimum wages of outsourced jobs like that in the Philippines is nowhere near the minimum wage to that of employees in the United States. Benefits such as health care, bonuses, wages costs much lower if you outsource at developing countries than availing them at the business’ original location.

Outsorcing comes in many forms but the most popular ones are called information technology outsourcing and business process outsourcing. Outsourced information technology services often means the transfer of computer and internet related labor. This form of outsourcing creates jobs for programmers, web site developers, and other technology related professions. On the other hand, business process outsourcing involves call center outsourcing, human resources outsourcing, investment and accounting outsourcing, and claims processing outsourcing. IBM and Accenture is involved in business process outsourcing and they are just a few of the big named companies who are into this type of business.

Of course outsourcing is not without its disadvantages. Detachment between the company and the client relationship is one of the main disadvantages of outsourcing. These days services like customer care for businesses’ products and services are the most sought after outsourcing jobs. One of the disadvantages of outsourcing is the loss of opportunities in the mother land because most of the jobs are being outsourced to developing nations. The information was given by a businessman of web design and SEO.

Learning From The History Of Outsourcing

Posted on October 23rd, 2010 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged , ,

Many business owners and companies have practiced this set-up for quite some time now even if the concept of outsourcing was not yet popular, and the fact is, outsourcing has been around for thousands of years now. People who lived thousands of years ago needed to outsource their production as they knew all too well that they won’t be able to meet their demands on their own. People with specific skills have started offering their services to other countries in exchange for an equivalent service as well. That was when outsourcing was born.

During the Industrial Revolution that occurred in Europe in 1750 to 1900, there was a great need for outsourcing as there was a high demand for the production of goods. Ever since then, many companies have outsourced to third party companies their own business specific functions such as accounting, insurance, and legal needs. It was, however, done just within the country since offshore outsourcing was not yet an open idea for them that time.

It was in the middle of the 20th century when some companies worldwide welcomed the idea of offshore outsourcing. There was a great compulsion in the manufacturing of low costing toys and electronic goods, apparels, and many other goods to less developed countries. There was a rise of employment and levels of income for individual employees due to the fact that they have opened themselves up to outsourcing. Education levels and the skills of workers in developing countries has dramatically improved. On the other hand, the government in the developing countries developed competent infrastructures which are necessary for the manufacturing companies to maximize their profits.

The years that followed saw the fast development in the field of offshore business outsourcing. The IT revolution and computer technology played a key role in the development of outsourcing. Companies started outsourcing their business specific functions to offshore and third party service providers such as human resource, accounting, and data processing. Company management and other core functions remained under the company’s supervision.

Offshore outsourcing is now one of the best business concepts. From the early needs of the manufacturing business, outsourcing has evolved and moved into the world of information technology, data transcription, and call centre operations. Basically, outsourcing provided not only employment for people in the developing countries, it also help the companies themselves to even hit a greater profit since they could very well save on the cost of employment wages and benefits. Many companies are now adhering to outsourcing their core business activities just to ensure that they would gain more profits from doing so. Conclusively outsourcing has become a very integral part of any large scale company. The information was given by a speaker who’s recently trying his hand on IT oursourcing and SEO.

About The Obstacles To Outsourcing

Posted on October 23rd, 2010 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged ,

The notion of importing manpower and services from other countries has been around since the commencement of international trade. Nevertheless, the substance of outsourcing as known today enables the global workforce to be integrated in various ways. Nonetheless, there are some outsourcing hindrances that we have to take into consideration before we can resolve that it is appropriate to our business.
The payoffs of outsourcing are opposed by some hindrances. One significant element is the economic and political state of the country. Developing countries are more likely to have unstable governments. Additionally, the economic policies of these countries can transform from one political cycle to the next. Thus, there is a level of uncertainty that increases the risk for businesses who want to invest in outsourcing.

Another major challenge is the language gap. Because of this obstacle, not all countries are qualified for outsourcing. Developing nations that are well-versed in English like the Philippines and India are perfect candidates. Businesses should also find outsource partners that completely match the skill-set that they need.

Another outsourcing challenge is a country’s existing infrastructure. This involves the legal system, banking system infrastructure, and the telecommunications infrastructure that coordinates everything. Without a highly-developed infrastructure, the cost of subcontracting and the risks that are part of this kind of investment can be larger than predicted.

Once all the large scale challenges are taken into consideration, companies will have to address other outsourcing hindrances such as knowledge transfer, cultural gaps, training, and ability to integrate operations. Collaborating with offshore partners requires companies to adapt to their local operation in order to be compatible with them.Beyond all of these, there are dynamic challenges that we need to consider. This includes management challenges, security risks, time-zone, human resource management, and more.

Not everyone is capable to outsource. There are particular instances when hindrances to outsourcing prevail over the rewards. In conclusion, you have to think whether outsourcing is beneficial for your business or not. The information was given by a pro in search engine optimisation and website design who’s also expanded to IT outsourcing.

An Introduction Of The Best Practices In Outsourcing

Posted on October 23rd, 2010 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged ,

More and more companies nowadays, have resorted to outsourcing in order for them to cut their overhead costs. Moreover, a lot of companies in the United States and in Europe had paved the way for the increase in the employment rate of some of the developing countries such as India, China, and the Philippines. Outsourcing, however, is not just delegating tasks and/or getting the service of a certain provider and providing employment to low wage countries. There are some rules and practices that the companies must learn and follow in order for them to be succesful in this field and gain an even more increase in their profits.
First of all, the companies and the providers must develop good working relationship with each other. The usefulness of the relationship between the key management personnel of both teams depends on good understanding and strong working ties between them. Presenting a quantifiable objective is also an important factor in outsourcing. The client or the company requiring the service must clarify with the provider their level of expectation when it comes to quality of service. That way, strifes or misunderstanding will be avoided.

Before the signing of the agreement of the client and the provider, they should agree first on the incentives if the provider would be able to meet the client’s expectations, and the penalty schemes if the objectives would be consistently missed. The provider should be driven to meet the established customer expectations or even exceed it by adopting the performance based pricing criteria.

The client must review periodically the performance of its provider. A formal review meeting at least twice a month would be of great importance. This way, the two parties could discuss the performance of both teams and further determine the future goals and objectives of the company accordingly. Moreover, the meeting could also be a good avenue to discuss product reviews and all other deliverables. Both parties must understand that there might be a need to revise performance objectives to adapt to the the changing market conditions and the opportunity costs of both firms.

Most importantly, communication between the two parties must always be placed on top priority. The client and the provider must ensure that they communicate well with each other to be able to bridge whatever cultural differences they may have. Since the two parties belong to different countries and cultures, it is expected that there are some things or issues that they might not agree on most of the time. It could, however, be enhanced by organizing social events, educating each other about company background, and active participation in each others’ quality programs. As always, communication is always the key to better understanding and establishing good and healthy relationship. “It might also be a good idea to send a top and loyal employee to the business process outsourcing site for a couple of months to make him/her understand the implementation phase,” said a businessman in IT outsourcing as well as SEO who was a big fan of Lady Gaga.

Contractor Hire - Why You Should Consider Using An Agency

Posted on October 22nd, 2010 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged , , ,

There are times when a business needs to hire an outside contractor. A busy period or a specialist project is sometimes not enough to warrant a full-time employee and a contractor is a flexible and easy way to solve an immediate, but not ongoing problem. There are agencies well versed in contractor etiquette and it pays to use their expertise.

An organization can benefit immensely from hiring a contractor through an agency, particularly if they are hiring for the first time. Of course, it pays to do some research into which agency to use. It is advisable to go through an agency with experience in the field the business is involved in. It is also essential that the agency is up to speed with the latest rules and regulations and that they are honest and upfront about margins and contract rates.

Every agency has a database of contractors at its disposal, as well as the knowledge required to get the right person for the job. The hirer doesn’t have this advantage and could find it difficult knowing where to look. The agency would never pass on a contractor without first performing the necessary checks. It will have a list of criteria the contractor must fulfill including proof of identity, VAT registration certificate and a company registered office address. Once satisfied, the agency will release the contractor to its client. This saves the hirer a lot of work and saves time and money too.

It can happen that there are several contractors available and in this case the agency will collect the relevant resumes and email them to the organization. A reputable agency will offer his experience and comments about the prospective contractor. If asked, he can even organize the interviews and attend them to give his informed opinion.

The next step after the contractor has been chosen is to agree terms and to make sure a contract is signed. It is the agency’s role to make sure this happens quickly and smoothly and he acts as a mediator between the two parties. On occasion, the agent will visit the site to make sure everyone is happy. If a renewal looks likely, the agency will pre-empt this and draw up a new or extended contract. It is the agency’s job to take all the risk and hassle out of the hiring process and let the client get on with his work.

Continue : Mechanical And Electrical Services

About Embedded Software Outsourcing

Posted on January 14th, 2010 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged ,

What is Embedded Software?

An Embedded Software is a collection of programs which are not meant for computers, but other electronic counterparts like cellular phones, automobile systems, robots, airplanes, missiles, television, toys, pacemaker, etc. Embedded Software is generally written for microchips which are different from general purpose Central Processing Units (C.P.U). Embedded software is composed mainly for special purpose electronic equipment.

Embedded Software Outsourcing Strategy

Outsourcing of these kinds of embedded software technology is popular as Embedded Software Outsourcing in the market. To reduce the labor expenses, the operational expenses and to improve the quality of the jobs, outsourcing is employed which is the process of the work on contract basis to a third party, sometimes through India Software Outsourcing. Since most of the companies are based in developed countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, where labor costs are high and workforce is low, the Embedded Software development processes are generally outsourced to English speaking and technologically developing knowledge centers like India and Ireland, however for most of the work on Embedded Software, the countries preferred are India and China.

Embedded software outsourcing is done to these countries since they are efficient in their work and are highly professional in their approach~These countries are given the prefercne over other countries for embedded softwar outsourcing, just because they have earned the reputation for being efficient and professional in their work. These countries are given the contract of outsourcing of the Embedded Software since they have reputation of efficiency in the work and high professionalism approach in the field. The outsourced development software companies in these nations take high work load and the people of these countries do not mind working overtime in order to reach the client’s deadline and requirement. Another benefit of outsourcing work to these countries is that the work is quite affordable and the quality of the work is not compromised with; also these countries are fast developing economies of the world so they are the most sought after destinations for outsourcing. These Information Technology canters have developed due to these outsourcing who take care of the British and American Processes and the latest embedded software.

Memory requirements of Embedded Software are very low and since the companies in India are specialized in programming languages and operating systems, they provide high end solution to the design and testing of embedded Software, so that the components can meet the specific requirements of the customers.

The domain of embedded software includes:

Aerospace and Defense
• Automotive
Consumer Electronics
Industrial Measurement And Control
Servers and Storage
• Networking
Process Control Systems
• Defense

However, there seems to be major hitches in the process of outsourcing embedded software projects to other countries due to technological mismatch and compliance issue, but due to some technological exchange the problem is solved and the process quality is maintained.

Benefits of HR outsourcing

Posted on October 21st, 2009 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged

Without having a human resource dpartment you will have to spend more times in employee paperwork. To open a human resource department without having a highly profitable business is like committing suicide. Turning to Outsourcing HR will the most brilliant idea for the small or medium level company who intends to broaden the business. This is the decision that most companies are turning to and has already started to feel the advantages.

The meaning of HR outsourcing is to give the contract to a company that can do specialized work, mostly human resource related jobs. Though it is beneficial but has some demerits too. You will be served in good ways. First of all, it will lessen your paperwork, which is going to lessen your stress and time so you will be able to think about more important things.

Payroll processing, attendance and time record keeping, and the filing of and paying of business taxes are mainly done by human resource outsourcing company. You can not deny the responsibility of outsource HR. The department has been given many more duties so the standard has been upgraded as well as the size. It is very exoensive and complex to maintain a human resource department. That is why the idea of transferring the duty to some other company has gained huge popularity.

Now HR companies are experienced in these works. They are not only very efficient but also well server. By dint of this the boss is allowed to focus on other matters brelated to business such as expansion of business. This means you will not have to deal with time wasting matters too.

That is outsourcing your human resource department which will help your employees in various ways. Because they are experts in human resources, these outsourcing companies sometime know how to give the employees the best HR services around, including health insurance and good retirement plans. They will offer more programs at cheaper rate. This can support your employees too.