Outsourcing

**janay** · 07-11-2008 08:22 PM

I highly recommend Timothy Ferriss's book "4 hr work week" that deals with outsourcing, time management, and decreasing your personal workload while achieving more.

check out more about it at: fourhourworkweek.com

**totters_traders** · 07-14-2008 06:04 AM

can any one here recomend a good outsource company that they have used, what they used it for, what results they got and how much it cost them. and was it worth it??

**dtechm** · 07-15-2008 04:49 PM

elance.com and other online companies... it really depends on what you are looking for. pm me if you need help.

**totters_traders** · 10-01-2008 11:56 AM

does anyone know of a good inexpensive compnay who can just do data entry for example

**Anastasia** · 01-15-2009 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by Jochen

I agree that outsourcing can seem very tempting to all, but you still need to take into account a lot of hidden costs, especially when outsourcing to low cost countries.

For example communication costs; how will you manage your subcontractor? How closely will you need to follow its progress...
Another example are obviously hidden quality costs, especially in a manufacturing environment. If lead times are not respected or products have to be reworked over and over again, you will loose a lot of money on your outsourcing and loose face to your customers

Core compentences of course should not be outsourced (unless your short term capacity is unsufficient), but not all other processes should be outsourced. Consider the impact and strategic importance these processes have on your business and perform a risk analysis.

Conclusion: choose your battles and try to assess the total cost picture

I really do agree with this post! Over the last 3 years I worked on several projects where parts of deliverables were outsourced - every time we spent time re-integrating outsourced deliverables into what was needed and the same amount of time again when bringing work done for us up to a European standard ... I would only outsource very easy un-critical tasks, something bordering on manual work! By the way our outsourcing providers were really big companies with yearlong experience etc. - where business know-how and understanding (!) of business processes and specifics is essential outsourcing may end up costing you more time and money