Post on 18-Oct-2014
description
Outsourcing for small businesses
RISE Austin, May 2013Dan Crean
Outsourcing
St Expeditus - Patron of emergencies, expeditious solutions, against procrastination, merchants, navigators, programmers, people who have to deliver work or products on a tight schedule
…and victims of outsourcing.
Why Outsource? Core competency
Competitive Advantage
Faster
Cheaper
Better!
Lower risk
More variety
Kinds of tasks to outsourceOne-off projects vs continuing
Expeditionary marketing
Tapered backward integration
Time-consuming “drudge” work you can’t get employees to do.
Kinds of tasks to outsource - specificLogos, graphics, illustrations, background articles, data entry, bookkeeping, transcription, website design, email campaigns, market surveys?, marketing plans?, fashion and interior design, architecture?, product design?, financial plans, programming/code, research, fact checking, virtual personal assistants, proofreading, video editing, event planning?, tagging photos, cropping photos, customer service?, translation, simple animation, payroll processing, statistical analysis?, project management?, shopping, mailmerge, transcription, website maintenance and updating
How good does it have to be?
How does skill level and confidentiality affect choice?
Difficult
Easy
Proprietary
Generic More Likely to Outsource
Less LikelyLess Likely
More Likely to Outsource
Am I contradictingWhat I said earlier?
Specifications
• Set out must-haves.• Give contractor some
creative flexibility• Do not impose overly
tight deadlines
Managing your project
• Break it up into small projects
• Don’t necessarily get the same contractor for all phases.
• Minimize risk• Derrick Sivers says “take
just the first milestone, and treat it as a complete project.” http://sivers.org/how2hire
Choosing a bidder/contractor
Large marketplace platforms have rating systemsWhat is everybody is rated 5 stars?
What is the value of related experience or formal qualification?Why are medical doctors better writers than people
with journalism degrees?
Leap of faith! Hire more than one contractor for same project.
Derrick Sivers recommends “hire at least two different people “and “Some will definitely go bad. Just expect it and don't let it upset you”
Local Services
Craigslist, TaskRabbit, Jellifi – for events,Zaarly, more coming on line all the time
General Purpose Marketplaces
Elance, Odesk, Guru
Huge marketplaces. Thousands of contractors.
Great services for employer. Pay with credit card. Recourse if contractor tries to cheat you. They handle all 1099 stuff. You just show cost as an expense.
You can request bids from specific contractors or put project out for competitive bid.
Other marketplaces or suppliers (some)
• Textbroker (articles, 4 levels of price/service)• Rev.com
(transcription)• Amazon mechanical
turk (many)• Fiverr (wild!
Everything $5!)
• Logo marketplaces:99designs, stocklogos.com, brandcrowd.com…
• Design contests!• Gets you a wide choice
of designs for reasonable price
• Crowdspring.com, logoarena.com, forums.digitalpoint.com/forums/contests.94/
Project Management• Dropbox• Google docs• GotoMeeting/WebEx• Evernote• Asana• Zoho - $20/month• Basecamp - $20/month and up• Hipchat • Trillian (IM)• Email• Hire contractor to manage project?
Paying Contractors• Elance, Odesk, etc. allow credit card payment• Paypal, Dwolla• Bank wire transfers?• 1099 – a headache?• Contracts – another reason to not use craigslist.• Copyright/IP – YOU OWN IT!
Follow-on work
Is this a good idea? Pluses and minuses
Case Studies• Translation – pro company vs odesk• Logo design
This presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/dancrean/rise1
Resources: http://www.dancrean.com/rise