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Yuval Lirov, PhD, author of ‘Mission Critical Systems Management’ (Prentice Hall), inventor of patents in Artificial intelligence and Computer Security, and CEO of Vericle.net Billing Technologies and Services. Vericle? unites hundreds of billing services across the nation. Its electronic medical billing software tracks payer performance from a single point of control and shares compliance rules globally. Yuval invites you to register to the next webinar on audit risk at BillingPrecision.com
November 30, 2007
Private Public Partnerships are popular as a means of building infrastructure around the world. Governments globally have been afraid of sending budgets into deficit or borrowing to pay for capital works and are seeking partnerships with private equity to fund a growing infrastructure gap.
Private Public Partnerships, or PPPs to those in the know or P3s to those even further in the know, are a topic of great interest to lovers of acronyms. Several different types exist which transfer different levels of risk to the private sector.
Traditional design and construction (TDC) is where private companies bid for a contract to design and construct an asset. A government controls the design and building process through the contract and owns the final asset.
Operation and maintenance contract (O&M) is where the operation of a government asset is carried out by a private company under contract. A government controls the operation of the asset by contract and continues to own the asset.
Lease, develop and operate (LDO) is where a private company leases a government asset and agrees under contract to invest in the asset, recovering the investment and a return on the investment in charges for use of the asset. A government controls the asset by way of contract and continues to own the asset.
Build, own and maintain (BOM) is where a private company builds and maintains an asset and a government leases the asset and operates it with public sector staff. A government does not own the asset and controls its operation by use of its staff, processes and policies.
Build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) is where a private company finances, builds, operates and owns an asset for a set period after which the asset is transferred to government. A government eventually owns the asset and controls the asset through a contract.
Build, own and operate (BOO) is where a private company finances, builds, operates and owns an asset in perpetuity. A government controls the asset through regulation.
PPPs at the beginning of the above list have been in operation for over one hundred years and have been a success or failure dependent on the individuals involved in negotiating the contracts.
For the latter half of the list where the risk is transferred, in theory, mainly to the private sector, it is too early to tell whether they have been successful. Many of these contracts run for thirty years and more.
Whilst criteria such as financial returns are easily measured the impact of the current models of PPPs on the ability of governments to provide adequate infrastructure in twenty, thirty or forty years is less clear.
What is clear, however, is that for a government to enter into a programme of PPPs a high degree of partnering competency is required.
Partnering competencies include negotiation skills, risk management, procurement, contract management, project management, specification writing, business case writing and options appraisal.
Many of these competencies are not developed to the extent required by simply completing a three or five year degree, but from years of experience in commercial business.
At the leadership levels in the public sector, competence in collaboration, legal and regulatory processes, change management, risk strategy development and project programme management are some of the skills required to enter into PPPs.
Any public sector thinking of developing PPPs must acquire or develop the skills to partner and ensure that the risks of infrastructure investments are shared appropriately with private companies chosen as partners.
Acquiring and developing the skills required is not a simple task. For instance, conducting a thorough skills audit of existing personnel to determine the competence gap requires a high level of skill in its own right.
Solving the problem of skills shortfall by using consultants is not a silver bullet either. Consultants often use their ’standard’ approach which is good for their efficiency and some transfer of better practices, but risks the provision of inappropriate analysis and solutions due to a lack of understanding of local norms and customs.
Developing internal skills by attachments with other public sector entities with experience in PPPs or even private companies involved in PPPs is one way of acquiring enough skills to enable consultants to be used for advice and to have their advice challenged against the background of local norms.
A further opportunity for improving partnership skills lies in the public sector itself. Most public sectors are organised in and operate in silos resulting in duplication of resources and a consequent reduction in effectiveness and efficiency.
Small projects developed to reduce overlap in the public sector and provide a better return on existing assets and reducing recurring expenses will challenge the existing set of partnering skills.
The time to develop partnering skills in the public service is now and the place to start is at home.
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Kevin Dwyer is Director of Change Factory. Change Factory helps organisations who do do not like their business outcomes to get better outcomes by changing people’s behaviour. Businesses we help have greater clarity of purpose and ability to achieve their desired business outcomes. To learn more visit http://www.changefactory.com.au or email kevin.dwyer@changefactory.com.au
?2006 Change Factory
To see more articles visit http://www.changefactory.com.au
November 7, 2007
Does it make sense for franchise companies to outsource their sales staff and sales teams? Well with all the regulations and compliance needed to deal with franchise law it might be an idea. Well that is if you can trust the company doing the sales.
There are other considerations that a franchisor might also consider if they are looking to outsource their sales department. One is that 20% of all inquiries to franchise company are competitors snooping for information and if an outsourced sales company is doing the work they will not know the information that the competitors want and therefore cannot give it away.
Outsourcing your Franchise Sales Teams might sound problematic for new franchisor, as you will want to maintain 100% control and yet it might save you from getting yourself over extended. But also realize that outsourced franchise sales teams mean they will be more efficient, as most franchisors burn up 50% of the upfront franchise fee that they collect during the sales process.
What about outsourcing to Business Brokers, does that make sense? Well yes and no. Yes it makes sense for selling in regional markets and Business Brokers do know tons of local folks and their markets. And No because some business brokers use the franchisors Brand name to bring in clientele and then sell them an independent business for sale in the area, because they make a higher commission on those? Always something to think about when you are a franchisor these days?
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‘Lance Winslow’ - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington
October 24, 2007
If you have never heard of Outsourcing or maybe heard of it and never knew what it is and what it stands for. Well today, I am going to give you a simple definition about outsourcing. The definition of ‘Outsourcing’ in a simple form is like a contractor contracting a sub-contractor. One company hire another company specializing in a define task that many time the hiring company can accomplish but it is more cost effective to hire another company to accomplish it. China and India are the most common countries that companies usually outsource to because of the cost effectiveness. Other related terms to ‘Outsourcing’ is offshore manufacturing usually means offshoring or overseas. Late 80’s to the 90’s ‘Outsourcing’ has became a popular term in the business and management world nationwide due to the inflation rate in the U.S. Outsourcing offshore is very attractive and it is not an avenue you want to explore without properly research the companies you are dealing with because it could be a company worst nightmare. This is why there are companies out there that specialize in this fascinating industry.
There have been research made regarding whether or not outsourcing offshore is healthy for American companies. According to John McCarthy, Forrester Research?s Group Director of Research, ?This is going to be one of the biggest macroeconomic shifts in the overall U.S. economy in the next 10 years.?
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Outsourcing offshore can be profitable, but it is not an avenue a company should explore without a thorough research of the offshore company been dealt with. There are offshore manufacturing companies that specializes in the industry, but as usual I recommend an Offshore Manufacturing Company called Outsourcing Network LLC
October 6, 2007
In the contemporary workplace human resources are highly valued. Employers
understand, employees make or break the success of a company and therefore
seek to ensure employees are able to maintain a consistent level of
productivity. The health and well-being of employees is important to the
modern employer. Wellness programs are becoming commonplace within working
environments.
Wellness programs are implemented by a third party company that takes care
of the health and well-being of employees within the company. Employee
wellness programs vary from health screening and nutritional advice to
fitness programs and education.
Companies employ these third party agencies to try to offset the cost of
rising medical cover for their employees. Wellness programs are designed to
ensure the physical well being of employees is being looked after however
these kinds of programs have benefits for both the employer and the
employee. Employer benefits include a reduction in sickness related
absenteeism and a reduction in the time employees take off in general.
Other benefits for the company are reduced medical cover costs and a more
educated and healthy work force. Ensuring the health of employees within a
company is highly contusive to a happy and productive work place.
Employee wellness programs also have a lot of benefits for employees.
Wellness programs often involve some form of education. From smoking
cessation programs to weight loss to biometric testing and diabetes
screening these programs at the very least raise awareness around important
health issues. This awareness can have a drastic effect on employee health
and lifestyle. Employee wellness programs aim to improve family health in
order to improve the overall wellness of the individual employee.
The basic idea behind employee wellness programs is to align the needs of
the company with those of the individual in order to implement a more cost
effective solution to health care. The programs education focuses on
reducing the need for health care in the future by preventing health
problems through education and training. This benefits both the employer
and the employee as while the company reduces its outlay in medical cover
the employee reaps the benefits of these programs.
There are many resources online that will greatly aid in your Wellness Program search. Employee Wellness Programs Quotes is a fast and easy way to get quotes from many of the nation’s largest, most reputable Wellness Programs.
While there has been no hard numerical evidence as to the value of employee
wellness programs the qualitative substantiation is very apparent.
Workplace wellness programs increase the productivity of the employee as
well as contributing to their overall lifestyle. A happy and health
workplace has proven to be a productive and effective one.
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Charles Christian is a freelance writer specializing in a variety of industries.
September 27, 2007
Chairman
Chalr? Recruitment Outsourcing
A couple of months ago, IBM announced that it was purchasing a 9,000-person call center named Daksh with operations in India and the Philippines. The acquisition is interesting for two reasons. First, IBM previously had no significant call center capacity and with this one purchase has become a major player in the booming offshore industry. Second, the price IBM paid was considered by most people to be irrationally exuberant. According to investment banking firm Avendus, the price was roughly 15 times last year’s earnings (or three times annual revenues). Clearly, IBM felt that owning (rather than just leasing) call center capacity was an absolute necessity for its long-term business strategy.
Earlier in the year, Accenture hired a senior call center executive away from the contact center company ICT Group. When I spoke to this executive about his new job, he said he was hired to be ‘responsible for the world’s single largest call center offshore initiative,’ which involves 6,000 call center seats. Apparently, Accenture is moving into the call center business in a big way as well.
Traveling in the opposite direction, the large call centers are moving into the IT services business, although in a somewhat less grandiose manner. Sykes is a worldwide contact center organization with many service lines including managing tech support for clients like Microsoft and Intel. It has done such good IT support work that it has moved into full-blown IT outsourcing. In the Philippines, Sykes is hiring software developers by the hundreds to do software programming work for its blue-chip clients.
Convergys, another large contact center organization, has hired ICT heavyweights to oversee the company’s Information Management Group. Its objective is to focus on developing the company’s ‘higher-value service offerings’ in the IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) spheres.
Meeting in the Middle
Another area of budding togetherness for IT and contact center services, BPO is considered the mother lode of outsourcing because it encompasses everything that can be imagined as being outsourced. It is a very big field.
A quick look at the Accenture Web site makes that company’s direction clear. It now provides 18 categories of services. Some of the new BPO subsidiaries that have been incorporated over just the past few years are Accenture Finance Solutions, Accenture HR Services, Accenture Learning, Accenture Procurement Solutions, Accenture Business Services for Utilities, Accenture eDemocracy Services and Navitaire — a bewildering number of extensions to the core Accenture brand.
IBM’s approach is to keep all BPO work under a single company umbrella, but its BPO focus in the booming Asia-Pacific region is obvious by its hiring practices. As one example, recent full-page employment advertisements in the Philippines are being used to hire boatloads of people required for IBM’s outsourcing operations. The advertisements emphasize the need for ‘previous experience in the areas of customer care, human resources, employee and payroll services.’ Requirements for IT skills are stated farther down on the page, giving the appearance of being an afterthought.
On the call center side, Convergys is promoting services like billing and employee care (payroll, benefits and other human resource services). Sykes says it delivers ‘total solutions’ to ‘complement’ its CRM services. The large call center StarTek is probably the most bold. It comes right out and calls itself a ‘Business Process Outsourcing’ company.
So what is going on? Why does everyone want to be in each other’s business?
There seem to be two main reasons these companies are broadening their product lines into areas that are clearly outside their core expertise. The first has to do with customer requirements. Large blue-chip clients no longer want to buy bits and pieces of service offerings from a jumble of separate suppliers. It’s just too complicated and expensive to manage it all. They want to buy a broad range of outsourcing services from a few suppliers (or even just one).
This trend has been happening in the IT sector for some time now. According to Gartner Inc. and most of the major IT analysts, large outsourcing deals have been the ‘main engine of growth’ over the past couple of years, and this trend is expected to continue.
Escaping commodisation is another reason companies are expanding to new frontiers. The most successful IT companies have become so large and their project management procedures so reliable that, to a large and sophisticated client, their service offerings can be difficult to distinguish from those of competitors. In other words, they have become commodity providers — not that much different from farmers selling pork bellies. This situation has been apparent in the call center industry for some time. The IT companies, on the other hand, aren’t used to thinking of themselves in such a manner and probably don’t like it very much. But what unique selling feature could there possibly be among high-quality companies like Accenture, EDS, HP, CSC or IBM, other than price?
In order to escape this dead end, everyone wants to move aggressively into new businesses. BPO seems exciting because it’s new to everybody and industry standards for service levels and pricing are not yet well developed. As a result, the sales process is more consultative in nature (rather than just a discussion of price) and there is much more value to add. In such an environment, the opportunities for higher margins are greatly enhanced — as any salesman would appreciate.
Where Will It All Lead?
It is very evident that both the large contact center companies and the IT services organizations will continue to expand their product lines into BPO and each other’s businesses. However, it’s the IT companies and not the call centers that sign the big outsourcing deals — anyone who reads the business journals knows this. Announcements for billion-dollar outsourcing contracts are becoming almost a biweekly occurrence for the IT professional services companies.
As well, my information indicates that throughout the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region, it is almost always the IT companies that are looking to acquire call center capacity (i.e., buy call center companies) and seldom the other way around. If the past is an indicator of the future, then a lot of people from the call center industry might soon be calling themselves geeks.
Offshore Recruitment Outsourcing:
Chalr? Recruitment Outsourcing allow companies to improve the performance and income of their senior recruiting professionals by directing low value recruiting activities offshore at lower cost. Call or email for information.
Richard Mills CFA
Chalr? Recruitment Outsourcing
t: +632 892 6703
w: www.chalre-hro.com/
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Richard is considered a leading expert on Asia-Pacific outsourcing by ComputerWorld magazine. His column called ‘View from Offshore’ is a feature of the publication. Richard has also been called ?the guru on outsourcing? by Dr. Michael Clancy, President of the Economist Intelligence Unit (affiliate) and the ‘Asia-Pacific expert’ by Call Center Magazine. In addition to ComputerWorld, he is a thought leader for a host of other international publications.
Richard provided the Keynote Address to the regional HR Shared Services and BPO conference held in Singapore. He is an Expert Panelist for CIO magazine (US) and the Offshore Offsourcing Best Practices association.
Offshore Outsourcing is an emotional subject these days and many senior managers are uncomfortable talking openly about their company’s projects for fear of being labeled unpatriotic job killers. One fellow from California told me that when he accepted a posting to run his company’s offshore facility in Philippines, a number of co-workers came to his office to let him know he was ‘tearing apart the very fabric of our nation.’
Even big-talking CEO’s, who can usually be counted upon to hype their company’s cost reduction strategies, are often remarkably silent about offshore outsourcing. They seem to put the subject on a similar level as pornography - they all want to sneak a peek at it but none want to admit to do so.
Happily, there are some who will talk about their experiences with Offshore Outsourcing and their comments are useful for the rest of us. Most seem optimistic and think the future of offshore outsourcing is bright. Nevertheless, no one should be misled that running an outsourcing facility in a developing country is a Sunday afternoon picnic. There are serious frustrations that must be contended with.
Charles Phelps is the Texan who runs the large Manila-based design engineering center of Fluor Daniel, one of the world's largest engineering companies. The facility has been in Philippines for many years and is now able to develop complete engineering designs for large facilities in the oil & gas and manufacturing sectors. Charlie speaks highly of his Filipino employees. He says, 'Our clients are always impressed when they visit our office. They see the smiles, the friendly atmosphere, the positive attitude of our team and immediately are impressed.'
Charlie became rather testy with me when I referred his center as a ‘back-office operation.’ He said something to the effect of, ‘Richard, don’t you ever call us ?back-office.’ We are a ?Global Service Partner’ within Fluor’s world-wide operations and leading edge in our areas of focus.’
He also presented an interesting slant to the job loss worries at some US companies. Charlie believes employees at Fluor feel their jobs depend on offshore engineering design groups like his in Manila. Without Filipino engineers, their project bids would not be competitive in today’s global market.
Neil Elias started the Manila-based Business Processing facility of AIG, the world’s largest insurance company, from scratch a few years ago. He has good things to say about the quality and quantity applicants available for his processing work - all of whom are university graduates. He says his employees have a ‘real desire for training and a service orientation.’ As well, Neil says government, schools and industry are all working together to make it a success.
John Standring is the talk of Manila these days for turning around the outsourced IT operation of Safeway, the mammoth supermarket chain. When John came, it was common knowledge among the local industry that the operation was a poor performer. After being extracted from a third party provider, the center lost its first General Manager just 5 months later. John’s turn-around results are said to have been dramatic and faster than most people here anticipated. He seems to enjoy talking on and on about his success but concedes that it was really just a matter of putting the right people in the right positions. John says the people you can hire in Philippines are not much different from those you can hire in the US or Canada.
Klaas Brouwer is Vice President of Global Technology for NASDAQ-listed Innodata Isogen, Inc. The company’s 5,000+ offshore employees provide high-end content and knowledge management services to US and European clients. Klaas is based in Manila but oversees operations for all facilities worldwide. When I asked him what advantages he has by operating offshore, he says it’s ‘the people.’ For once, this fast-talking Dutchman had to be prodded for details about this. He said that people in western countries will work late to finish a job for the first week but you get a lot of long faces if you ask them to do this again for a second week. In Philippines, people work until the job is done, however long it takes.
Then there is the qualification availability. Klaas mentions that positions occupied by basic college graduates back in Europe are being taken by lawyers and doctors in his current company. He also talked about his people being loyal, friendly, trusting, on and on.
Salary costs are probably the only significant positive that business leaders are not overly keen to boast about. It is no secret, however, that these offshore employees who are so admired by their employers are available for a few hundred dollars per month. Despite the bashfulness, we can be sure that this factor warms the heart of many a CEO back in the home office.
But we all know that you don’t get something for nothing. There are plenty of problems operating offshore facilities and we should be aware of a few of them.
All offshore managers say there is a strong deficiency of management talent. In developing countries, it is not always easy to hire managers off the street who are capable of performing at international levels. And since outsourcing is such a new industry and growth rates in employment have been so astounding, it is understandable that there hasn’t been time to develop enough quality managers. As the industry continues to thrive, this predicament will only get worse.
Another increasing concern of senior managers is that their qualified staff are being hired away by overseas companies. Japan, Singapore and Saudi Arabia are examples of countries that are aggressively pursuing Filipinos and Indians. While writing this report, I received a distressed email asking for assistance, ‘They are going to try to hire away from me 20 of my top designers and ship them up to Japan after some language training. This will hurt me big. You know this company?’ This threat is a currently an ongoing concern for those employing technical people and indications are that other skill sets could soon be impacted.
Another interesting challenge that most senior managers contend with has to do with perceptions of their company’s US and European teams that their operations are job killers. The result, the managers feel, is vastly increased scrutiny of offshore performance, and even a reluctance to work with the offshore operation. In turn, the offshore managers say they are forced to drive quality of Philippine and Indian output ‘above that of the work being performed in developed countries.’
Of course, there are a lot more challenges than the few discussed above. But, these are said to be manageable and more than outweighed by the advantages of working offshore.
Offshore Recruitment Outsourcing:
Chalr? Recruitment Outsourcing allow companies to improve the performance and income of their senior recruiting professionals by directing low value recruiting activities offshore at lower cost. Call or email for information.
Richard Mills CFA
Chalr? Recruitment Outsourcing
t: +632 892 6703
w: www.chalre-hro.com/
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Richard is considered a leading expert on Asia-Pacific outsourcing by ComputerWorld Richard is considered a leading expert on Asia-Pacific outsourcing by ComputerWorld magazine. His column called ‘View from Offshore’ is a feature of the publication. Richard has also been called ?the guru on outsourcing? by Dr. Michael Clancy, President of the Economist Intelligence Unit (affiliate) and the ?Asia-Pacific expert? by Call Center Magazine. In addition to ComputerWorld, he is a thought leader for a host of other international publications.
Richard provided the Keynote Address to the regional HR Shared Services and BPO conference held in Singapore. He is an Expert Panelist for CIO magazine (US) and the Offshore Offsourcing Best Practices association.
September 23, 2007
Outsourcing, outsourcing and more outsourcing, it seems that this has become the buzzword in business circles. So why does everyone want to outsource their business process. Well there surely must be huge benefits for so many businesses to be undergoing this process on such a large scale. Financial benefits of outsourcing is so huge and immense that all firms who want to unburden themselves from the heavy workload use outsourcing to meet the growing demand of their work.
More than ever, now companies and business firms are waking up to the ides of giving their work to be handled by an outside company or third party as is known in the business world. Outsourcing is very much in vogue these days. In developed countries there is an insufficient number of qualified and talented professionals. Also the price of qualified labor is very high in these countries. But this entire shortcoming in no way means that the business process takes a backstage.
Work has to go on in any condition and outsourcing is the perfect answer to this. All work is mostly outsourced to developing countries. These countries have immense qualified manpower that can do your work perfectly. What is more, your work will be done at less than half the rate that professionals working in your country will require. For example if you need to pay a professional about a hundred dollars for doing a particular job, you will have to pay about twenty dollars to professionals who will do the job for you through a third party.
Just because almost everybody and anybody is undertaking outsourcing for their business does not mean that you will also have to undergo the process. First of all carefully examine the various factors of your business and determine if undergoing this process will actually benefit your business or not. All businesses have different requirements and thus it is all the more important for you to find out if you can undergo this process. So while this can benefit some businesses it may not be so for some other business.
There are many factors you need to consider before you actually go about outsourcing for getting financial benefit for your business. You will be handing over all the major attributes of your business to be handled by some third party. Think carefully if you are comfortable with this or not. You will be handing over all the financial details of your business and so you must have complete trust on the third party firm that is handling the work for you.
Any company you choose for helping you in completing projects and deadlines must have the best security features in place to safeguard your personal information and data. You can find out other companies that have used their services and see if they are satisfied with the work of that outsourcing firm or not. Only when you are fully satisfied with all your queries go ahead and outsource your work to that third party.
There are many outsourcing companies that give you the offer of checking out the quality of the work that is done by them. You can actually give them some work to be done and see the quality of the work that is done by them. If you find that the work done by them is not up to par, you can always go to some other company who will do the work for you.
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Michelle Barkley is a CPA working for IFRworld. She specializes in Accounting Outsourcing ,Bookkeeping Outsourcing and tax returns preparation outsourcing. To know more and to use the services visit www.ifrworld.com
September 21, 2007
In early years of this decade, companies had started realising the benefits of outsourcing the activities to the experts that provides them competitive advantage. With more and more companies outsourcing their software activities, the global market for offshored IT services and business processes has nearly tripled since 2001. In bid to take advantage of this fact, players are now diving in this industry.
Offshore software development has now become the battlefield with cutthroat competition. The existing players are making it difficult for new players to enter in custom software development market and new players, like new IT ventures and contries, are trying hard to get themselves identified as software service providers. In attempt to increase the market share, companies are shifting their focus towards local opportunities. To sustain current growth, the seasoned players are sorting out the options in new upcoming technologies like mobile.
As far as the two major software development countries in outsourcing, India and China, has the most of the global IT market share and cover the larger pie of offshore development market. Both these countries have thousands of IT companies that are offering many different types of development and other IT services. In both these countries the growth of Information Technology industry is remarkable. And both countries are competing closely with each other.
The software development market is becoming exceptionally competitive. Even though, India and China are considered as the competitive software service providers considering the quality of the service they provide, the new countries like Philippines, Russia and Nigeria are also preparing to make a dent in this market. The countries are making deliberate efforts to gain edge over English as deliverable.
The current market can not be dictated by lower prices alone but quality and service is forming the core in software development. The winner of the deal is now decided on the total offerings- cost, quality and service. To address the quality related issues more and more companies are turning towards ISO and CMMI to get certified themselves as quality providers.
The profit margin and profit earnings have made this market lucrative to enter and hence very competitive. Survey suggests that around 30% of the software companies do cover their investment and start earning profits within two years from commencement. Moreover, 40% to 45% of the companies are gaining higher than their investment withing short period. Still their are number of companies who have failed due to lower quality development services. Despite of this the market is moving upward with India becoming the hotspot for software development services.
Increased competition worldwide for IT services has made it tough for the companies to sustain their position and creating an entry barrier for the new entrants in offshore software development market.
For more information visit www.e-zest.net
and www.offshoresoftwaredevelopment.googlepages.com
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Author is MBA in e-Business and Marketing and is working currently with e-Zest Solutions as SEO.
September 8, 2007
How much are you working in your internet business. Owners everywhere are working seven days a week and doing all the daily tasks to keep it going. If it’s not the paperwork that is burying you, it could be the computer issues. And naturally you here the old cliche, ‘I can’t afford to hire someone…I barely make enough to pay myself!’ You probably feel helpless!
The truth is, you need to hire help for those mundane tasks. This is especially true if those tasks require expertise you don’t have. The truth is every minute you spend learning how to do something is precious time you could be spending on developing your business. Are you like me, I wasted so much time trying to do some web design that for $50 would have freed me up for another 6 hours.
Self-made millionaire, Cory Rudl, said the best business including internet business decision he’d ever made was to hire someone to help him. Although he was paying out almost half his earnings to his employee, that move freed him to develop his business into a money making machine, to the tune of millions of dollars.
You can do the same for your business, and it won’t cost half your earnings either. Create ‘mini projects’ you can hire a freelancer to do those chores and pay them for the hours you need them.
Creating those mini projects in your online business will take some effort at first. It means you have to stop and think before you tackle a task, ‘Is this something I have to do myself, or can I delegate it?’ Even after getting started on a task, it’s important to be aware of your time spent - if it takes you too long to do it, you’re wasting your time! That’s the signal to hire a freelancer who can do the job for you.
Although many freelancers can come to your business office, you can save even more money with ‘virtual assistants.’ The craze for virtual assistants has taken the Internet world by storm.
Virtual assistants are capable, competent people in every country who are looking for work they can do from their own office. And their rates are incredibly low. For $2 or $3 per hour, you can have your website developed, all your QuickBooks transactions entered, have a software program developed to make your life easier…the options are endless.
For a few more dollars per hour, you can hire the best available copywriters, marketing gurus, graphics designers…you name it. The key is to define your mini project, decide what you’re willing to pay to have it done and get the word out.
The Internet is a great way to get the word out about your project. Websites such as www.GetaFreelancer.com, www.ScriptLance.com, www.Elance.com, GURU.com and www.RentaCoder.com have hundreds of professionals eager to work. Post your your mini project on these websites and you’ll have 20 bidders or more in a few hours. In a very short time you’ll be able to choose the best qualified professional for your project at your price.
So, if you’re working in your internet business, doing everything from sales to bookkeeping, decide now to get help. And grow your business instead of working for your internet home business. You can’t afford not to.
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