We recently had a request to do a sponsored review of BPOVIA, a Virtual Assistant Service. Their main selling point is the ability to cut your costs by 60%. How do they figure?

They assume that an In House, Full Time Employee will cost:

• $30,000 base salary
• $6,120 benefits (15% of salary)
• $5,304 vacation, sick time (13% of salary)
• $4,896 payroll taxes (12% of salary)
• $2,856 administrative costs
• $3,600 equipment, maintenance
• $2,100 space and equipment

The total therefore is $54,876 to hire a full time employee in house.

By comparison, their full time virtual assistants cost $950 per month. There are no benefits, vacation or sick time, payroll taxes, admin costs, equipment or maintenance costs, or space and equipment costs. The total you would have to pay on an annual basis is therefore $11,400.

More on BPOVIA:

BPOVIA is the largest virtual assistant service provider in China.

BPOVIA’s primary business objective is to provide small and growing companies with an on-demand and one-stop solution of essential business services varies from data entry, word processing to the tasks require more advanced skills like website design, graphic design, internet research, etc.

BPOVIA believes tapping into cheaper labor overseas isn’t just for large companies, but for mid-sized and small companies as well. Smaller businesses can achieve the same benefits from outsourcing as larger ones. BPOVIA’s major target customer is small and medium sized companies.

I’m not sure how they justify putting maintenance in the cost calculation twice and if all the additional cost assumptions are actually fair representations but even if you cut those extra costs in half, you’re still experiencing significant savings.

This is the first I’ve heard of Chinese virtual assistants - most of the companies I’ve seen are from India or other Asian countries - but it only makes sense that the service would expand to China.

Depending on the task I believe you can hire workers outside of the office to work remotely. I currently have two people (Americans) who work for me on a part time basis every month who I’ve never met before and I found through elance. It’s been a wonderful experience working with them but there are many tasks I would never outsource.

If you are considering outsourcing, make sure that:

1. The tasks are clearly defined and easy to do. If it requires your constant input and having to explain things dozens of times then it’s going to be very difficult to make it work.
2. They can communicate properly in English. I once called one of the largest virtual assistant companies in India and I couldn’t understand the person who picked up the phone. She couldn’t understand my questions either and ended up just telling me to email the company’s help line.
3. They are responsive. With that same Indian company, I did email them thinking that perhaps my experience with the woman on the phone was not necessarily representative of what their other workers were like. I never got a response from my email. Needless to say, I didn’t hire them!

BPOVIA looks ok on paper. The real test will be if they can actually deliver on their promises like the other virtual assistant companies are failing to do.

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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