Creating a good digital presence for a brand is something most brand owners would want to accomplish. This calls for perfect direction and a workable strategy. Outsourcing a freelancer rather than a trusted digital agency may not give a satisfactory result.
One notable fact about digital agencies is that they do hire highly qualified and technically sound employees. They understand the nitty-gritty’s associated with the promotion of brands. They also know how best to increase websites views, engagements and clicks, so as to delivering quality online ads for you.
There are several challenges connected to hiring a freelancer than a trusted digital agency. This article exposes five notable disadvantages of preferring a freelancer to a digital agency.
The Offers of Digital Agencies
There are some benefits attached to the hiring of digital agency. These include:
Due to its staff strength and expertise, an agency has the capacity to solve problems easily.
• Delivering of good results
Agencies work towards ensuring that they give you enriched services.
• Long term services
Once a good agency is recruited, it usually leads to a long-term working relationship. The reason is that the satisfied employer would want to maintain their cherished services.
The challenges associated with hiring a Freelancer than a trusted Digital Agency could be listed as follows:
1. Lacking technical expertise
Freelancers tend to lack the much-desired technical proficiency needed in delivering quality services. If the business owner resorts to employing them, then the result may lead to an unsatisfactory outcome.
2.Lacking support and maintenance
Incidentally, the freelancers are often being carried away by the much freedom allotted to them that they tend to forget their primary goal of support and maintenance towards your project. In regard to this fact, it costs you more to sustain your project.
3. Lacking time management
Unlike the experts in digital agencies that are prompt in delivering quality services, freelancers are a little committed. The crowd themselves with multiple tasks, which give them little time. This results in poor services on the part of freelancers.
4. Lacking analytical reporting
The truth is that freelancers will bring a staunch growth to your business due to their inability to conduct analytical reporting. They lack the necessary tools that are important for the evaluation of any business. The freelancers do not use such tact as keyword research, automation, and competitors’ analysis.
5. Lacking scalability skill
Freelancers do not possess the requisite knowledge and exposures needed to scale up your business venture. They are mostly newcomers with no in-depth facts about recent trends.
Conclusion:
It is advisable, when faced with the options of choosing a freelancer or a trusted digital agency, to choose the latter. One has to make that choice because the world of business is speedily moving in this digital era.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Working with an outsourced team means that you are dealing with a group of people who are specialized in various aspects. This means that you would be having expatriates who could handle different roles such as copywriting, designing, experts in PPC and SEO, etc – all embedded in one team. Such that the idea of assigning these roles to an individual who is ‘insourced’ cannot give you the desired result.
2. Hiring less experienced personnel
It may seem a better option to replace an outsourced team with someone who is ‘insourced’. The junior staff will be in lack of experience compared to his seniors who had acquired years of experience while working for an agency.
3. Choosing a senior staff as against outsourcing a team
The choice of replacing an outsourced team with an experienced staff does not guarantee success either. This calls for amateurish performance as the experienced staff ventures into other areas, not his specialization.
4. The tendency of quitting
As witnessed on several occasions, the employer may find their newly recruited staff incapable of handling assigned tasks. This has often led to the sacking of the worker. Sometimes, the employee makes excuses for being sick and still expects to be paid his annual leave!
5. Exposition to higher risks
When a business concern is rallied around a single person, it exposes the business to higher risks. For instance, at the absence of the much-depended staff, the business will experience a halt in leads generation.
6. Incurring higher costs
Even though it may look ideal and cost-effective to rely on your staff to do some tasks, sometimes, the reverse is the case. Take for instance where you may be needing to establish a new call center, the cost you would incur as to set up the new center would be far greater than relying on an outsourced agency to do the same job for you.
7. Over stressing your staff
Depending on your staff to carry out newer responsibilities is a sure way of stressing them. As a result, they would also become less efficient in their daily routine. Whereas, hiring outside your employees enhances proficiency.
Conclusion
So many outsourcing agencies out there can aid you in growing your business. You do not need to rely solely on your staff’s strength to carry out every business function nowadays. It is even cheaper and more reliant for you to do outsourcing rather than doing the so-called ‘insourcing’.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Benchmarking involves comparing one company to another similar company through key metrics of their operations. The use of benchmarking techniques makes it possible for one to have a total view of the company’s operations at a glance. If you like, liken benchmarking as an economic dashboard, which reveals things like expenses, production amounts, and employee productivity and so on.
In the business world, every company in every sector is associated with the art of benchmarking. Officers in areas of research, information, analysis, consultation, and marketing are all involved in benchmarking.
Having known what benchmarking is all about, it is very relevant t look at these 7 kinds of benchmarking for successful enterprising.
Process benchmarking:
This enables you to optimize and improve your processes by comparing performance against internal and external benchmarks. You can create an efficient and effective way of progressing by studying the footprints of your superiors who had passed a similar process.
Strategic benchmarking:
For your company to be more competitive, you have to compare strategies that made other firms to become very successful.
Performance benchmarking:
This uses resultant effects of what you are doing to form an information base. For instance, you could compare consumer satisfaction or revenue growth (it is done internally or externally).
SWOT:
In this kind of benchmarking, companies put together information through analyzing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Collaborative benchmarking:
This entails group comparing. The benchmark is done for many firms who come together under one body to provide and share information on how their competitors are doing in the market.
Peer benchmarking:
For companies to ascertain whether they are doing well, they compare themselves with companies similar to theirs with so many parameters.
Best practices:
A growing company may want to become established and become big like another giant company of their envy. This is when Best practices benchmarking is used.
There are steps to be taken, as your company would embark on benchmarking. They include:
1. Knowing the benchmark focus
The company should know its specifications as regards the project. It should know its limits and keep to them.
2. Planning and Researching
In this area, the company should have an overall view of what it is going to take to actualize the project. Let there be plans for cooperating with other companies.
3. Gathering data
Through planning and research, the company makes data available for use.
4. Analysis
When the gathering of data is done, the company studies and procures its results.
5. Recommendation
Analyzing data give rise to determining areas where the company can make further improvements.
Finally, benchmarking on false values within becomes the mere perceived success of illusions. Nothing in this regard is more dangerous than to have perceptions of success based on what is not found within. Regarding the issue of ‘better benchmarking’, to compare effectively, is indeed a way to achieving good results. This is just the opposite of ‘faulty benchmarking’.
The need for improvement is what makes firms to benchmark. The only key goal of all benchmarking is to make room for improvement. This goal touches all facets including efficiency, cost reduction, increased profits, and increased customer satisfaction.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
It is the desire for companies sourcing their Nearshore team to do so without hitches in the process. This article provides you with some relevant tips that would guide you through the excise.
These are 5 tips that would help you in developing your Nearshore team effectively.
Be Wise In Choosing Your Nearshore Team
Whenever you decide to source your Nearshore team, it is important that you know exactly what you are going after. It requires one’s carefulness because any chosen team will be working together with you in a project.
a) Request to know the company’s culture and relate it to yours and see if both cultures are compatible.
b) Monitor what the company has on its website to know its previous works.
c) Find available information regarding their teams and the recruiting process for their personnel. This would make you know if they have great minds working for them, then it’s likely that you will be provided with the same as minds.
Plan For An Effective Communication
Even though a Nearshore team would need to function independently, yet there is a need for continual interaction between your company and your Nearshore team. Put down a workable communication plan, which could come in various forms such as weekly meetings, faxes, emails, and calls.
Give Detailed Information About Your Product
Success is determined by how easy your team could relate with your communication-wise and how well they know your product and values. One important reason for initiating seamless communication is for easy expression. You are to utilize this fluid communication to explain your product to your team. On the other hand, you can also motivate your team members into aligning with what is your aim and purpose.
Clearly State The Roles
Undefined roles will result in having a greater risk of experiencing negligence of work. The establishment of the office of project Owner (PO) is essential because the PO is saddled with the responsibility of monitoring how and who is doing what task. Every other portfolio should be clearly spelled out between members of the team to ensure the smooth running of the project.
Define Your Success Indicators And Milestones
Breaking down your projects into smaller achievable goals will make you hold a firm grip on your project. There is the need to have your success indicators in mind, as it would serve as a guide to you.
Conclusion
Sourcing a Nearshore team is a sustainable means of reaching out to numerous talents lurking around. In the same vein, it is a means of bringing into physical form, a quality product harnessed by experts.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Translating financial content needs to be outsourced to a specialized outsourcing partner because it is not an easy task. The fact is that you are normally faced with some challenges in your attempt to translate financial content, making the task of translating daunting. That is why you should consider outsourcing translating the financial content of your company to an expert.
When it comes to transcribing financial documents, here are reasons your firm needs to outsource financial translation services to an expert:
Accurate and Consistent Terminology
When it comes to financial documents, accurately and consistently transcribing terminology becomes a major challenge. The transcriber must have deep knowledge and understanding of how certain terms are used, not only in a country but in many countries in order to be able to successfully translate documents such as financial statements.
In addition, it is essential that these terms are translated exactly the same way in all the documents, in order to maintain consistency in the translation. For example, monthly, quarterly and annual financial reports must use the same words. Consequently, financial translators must make use of the right terminology in all the documents of your company, and also ensure compliance with IFRS rules as issued by IASB.
Complete Confidentiality Requirements
Absolute confidentiality is a must for transcribers, as financial firms deal with confidential information from their clients and their own company also. Furthermore, outsourcing partners or translators should sign Service Level Agreements and Non-Disclosure Agreements to guarantee the protection of financial data.
The way in which documents are managed should also be secured. You can outsource to a trusted translation provider who will have secure translation management systems set up, instead of sending unencrypted emails with vital financial information to a strange and unfamiliar team of the linguist. This way you are guaranteed that your documents cannot be uploaded or downloaded.
Specialized Content
It is very important to note that financial content is quite different from marketing material or technical manuals. Price sheets, merger and acquisition materials, corporate communications, financial reports, and compliance documents are all different from other types of content because each kind of document has its own challenges.
In addition, each of these files may be in different formats such as Word, Excel, PDF, or InDesign. For this reason, you need the skills of an experienced outsourcing partner who can work with such wide-ranging finance documents and transcribe them correctly.
Strict and Short Deadlines
Reports have to be generated and released quickly in the world of finance. As a result, businesses must be prepared to get numerous work translated accurately within a limited timeframe. Working within fixed dates for financial statements or annual reports can mount unnecessary pressure on your resources.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Outsourcing non-core tasks help both small and large businesses to improve profitability and save greatly on costs. Outsourcing jobs is considered a competitive approach to success. Nevertheless, organizations and business owners have concerns and issues concerning the principles of outsourcing practices at vendor locations.
Concerns Associated with Ethics in Outsourcing Practices
Environmental Concerns
The concern of business owners, in this case, is that vendor companies may practice environmentally destructive procedures. As a result, they may need to carry out periodic audits to guarantee conformity.
Low-Quality Services
There is a worry that services rendered from mid-way all over the world might not meet quality and standard expectations. Consequently, businesses that want to outsource should look at the track record of the outsourcing vendor and their technical capabilities.
Pathetic Work Setting at Vendor Location
To ensure good work conditions at vendor locations, organizations must enforce strict standards on work conditions at offshore locations. They are expected to carry out sporadic audits on the work environment and evaluate the HR guiding principles of offshore vendors.
Security Issues
Confidential information security is the main concern of outsourcing ethics. Business owners ought to be concerned about the safety systems in place and the security of electronic data storage. Therefore, if the outsourcing partner of your choice doesn’t have enough information concerning security measures, your best bet is to stay away from them.
How Businesses Can Address Ethics in Outsourcing
Legal Measures: All legal facets of the outsourcing relationship must be covered in meticulous Service Level Agreements with clients. The organization must enter into detailed Non Disclosure Agreements with the workforce and outsourcing firms or third-party service providers in order to protect the interests of its customers.
There Must Be Clear Communication: Companies must establish clear lines of communication with their clients. In addition, they must be transparent when it comes to pricing and schedules on transition. Outsourcing ethics and privacy policies must be clearly defined.
Confidentiality Measures and Data Privacy: There must be Virtual Private Network (VPN), Encrypted Servers, Firewall Protected Networks, and password protected systems put in place by companies to ensure data privacy and confidentiality of customer information. Breathtaking security gadgets and swipe cards must be installed to make sure workspaces are further protected.
Employee Selection: Companies must carry out thorough background checks on workers and follow stringent selection procedures in order to select honest, responsible, responsible, and ethical individuals as part of their team. This is necessary because the reputation of a company is only as good as its workforce.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Regrettably, most organizations select an outsourcing partner based on one or two factors only and this leads to failure quite often, even though the whole concept of outsourcing is rather easy.
In order to steer clear of outsourcing disaster, there are some fundamental factors you must consider before making the decision to outsource, particularly your first project.
Here are the top rules and guides you must follow before deciding to outsource your first project.
1. Do the Necessary Research and Groundwork
Outsourcing firms differ dramatically in talent, language, capital, infrastructure, and size. Hence, before you start out, list out different outsourcing partners and categorize them, depending on their strengths and weaknesses.
The winning outsourcing vendor must possess the right combination of those factors that suit you and your project best, despite the fact that factors including name recognition and size cannot be overemphasized.
On the other hand, it is imperative for you to remember that factors such as talent, language, and technology infrastructure play a more significant role in your choice of outsourcing firm than mere capital and size.
2. Start Out Outsourcing with Small Tasks
It is sensible to begin your first outsourcing project with just a little task. Once you have determined this task, and have decided to use an outsourcing vendor, endeavor to describe the task in clear detail, mentioning all you are expecting from the outsourcing vendor. This should include the goals and all other important details of the job that needs to be performed. Once this is accomplished, you will be able to determine if there are some outsourcing issues and concerns you have to address.
3. Communicate Well
Developing good and suitable means of communication is significant to the success of your first outsourcing project. People have their own way of communication in different countries, and this normally takes some time to understand and comprehend.
4. Set Clear and Realistic Expectations
Making sure you set clear and realistic expectations before you embark on your outsourcing mission. This will get rid of certain outsourcing issues to an extent. Common outsourcing concerns such as exceeding project costs, time delays, and quality of the finished task can be minimized when you are clear and upfront concerning what you believe to be good work.
5. Be Culturally Perceptive
The disparity in culture is a common outsourcing issue faced by companies outsourcing their first projects. Being culturally sensitive and accommodating these disparities will guarantee a more efficient and pleasant relationship between you and your outsourcing firm.
6. Pay a Fair and Reasonable Price
In your first project outsourcing, try to pay a fair and reasonable price, and stay away from mixing in a cost-reducing focus. Choosing the right outsourcing vendor that matches your particular need should be your priority at this level, and not the vendor who takes a few prices less.
On a final note, don’t outsource just once because it is constant trials that will make you gain the required efficiency to become a successful outsourcer. As an alternative, build on your success by correcting your past errors and incorporate complexity to your subsequent outsourcing projects.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Offshore outsourcing is the system of working together with an external body and hiring that company to perform a number of your business functions. Offshore outsourcing gives businesses access to high-quality services at reduced operating costs.
Offshore Outsourcing Categories
The three major categories in offshore outsourcing are; software outsourcing, infrastructure, and technology outsourcing, as well as business process outsourcing (BPO). It is quite essential for companies to outsource parts of their processes. In order to save costs, processes such as payroll processing and customer support are outsourced.
On the other hand, BPO can further be sub-divided. Front office outsourcing is outsourcing the customer support and call center services of the organization, while back-office outsourcing is outsourcing the internal roles of your business. Finance and accounting, help desks, and call center services for the internal operations of companies are all examples of offshore outsourcing.
Technology and infrastructure outsourcing services normally consist of services that support an organization like technology, networking, support services, and more. Offshore software development services comprise software development services. The Philippines is one of the countries that can work on massive projects and deliver them on time.
Why offshore outsourcing?
Save on investing in infrastructure, technology, and software
You will have sufficient time to focus on the core competencies of your business
You will gain access to specialized services which are not the core functions of your business
Services rendered ahead of time or schedule
Maximize your revenue and minimize operation costs
Selecting Offshore Outsourcing
Companies normally consider whether or not to embrace offshore outsourcing. Businesses normally select offshore outsourcing when the business process or project has functions that have to be performed on a regular basis.
Other factors include if the task in the project can be transferred on the Internet and if the project is simple enough to begin in the offshore country. Most companies look at the cost factor and go for offshore outsourcing to reduce some costs.
The Philippines, India, Russia, China, Bulgaria, Egypt, and lots more offer support and services in almost all areas of operations. Nearly all these countries provide call center services, software support services, programming services, data entry services, and many more support services.
The Philippines, a pioneer when it comes to outsourcing has been offering technology-oriented offshore outsourcing solutions to international organizations for quite a while. In fact, the country has created value for clients in the U.K., U.S., and other parts of the world by offering cost-effective and quality services ahead of time.
Outsource to the Philippines and experience risk-free offshore outsourcing.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Outsourcing is no more refers to the removal of jobs or businesses from a country. Outsourcing today is more about exploring effective ways of finishing critical projects and forming international partnerships. The Philippines have got massive admiration and acceptance globally for being a top outsourcing destination.
Here are how outsourcing to the Philippines will take your business to the next level.
1. Numerous Technical Talent
The Philippines boasts more than a few tech talents because the number of competent and knowledgeable developers is on the increase. You can find a lot of high-quality programmers from the Philippines, even when you browse through online freelancing websites for programmers. The technical workforce in this country is growing steadily & will keep growing, making it one of the most important reasons for outsourcing to the Philippines.
2. Appropriate Business Environment
Philippines is developing modern IT and business centers, giving companies all over the world an overabundance of reasons to outsource their services to them. With political stability and favorable business policies, this country can be selected as your next offshoring choice to gain additional business advantages.
3. English Proficiency
Being primarily comprised of English speaking nations, It has been proven that the Philippines surpass China and India as far as English proficiency is concerned, and this is another cogent reason to outsource to the Philippines.
4. Cost-effectiveness
Although many think that cost shouldn’t be the sole factor while outsourcing projects, nobody would deny the fact that it plays a key role. Cost-effectiveness is one of the top aspects a business considers while thinking about an outsourcing partner and the Philippines is quite cost-efficient in terms of outsourcing development projects. The rates of hiring quality developers and other similar experts are much lower than the USA, and this is a factor which plays a strong point for the Philippines.
5. Rapidly Growing Outsourcing Market
The Philippines is known for evolving more rapidly, even as the worldwide marketplace for outsourcing services is expanding. The country is actually finding its fit in the offshoring landscape.
6. Innovation Oriented Approach
When it comes to the growing core for highly developed responsive growth, the Philippines has been known for quite a very long time. Moreover, the time zone alignment of the country with companies across the world makes it a perfect destination for agile partnerships with an assortment of staff solutions.
This time zone alignment is complemented and improved by the strengths provided by the Philippines workforce. It has been proved by the panelists that Philippines experts communicate more openly and directly. They also have an innovative move for problem-solving.
These are some of the business advantages and top reasons to outsource to the Philippines. You are guaranteed that companies and businesses seeking outsourcing partners in the Philippines will acquire substantial business advantages, unlike outsourcing to normal destinations.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
Unforeseen crisis of natural occurrences is likely to occur at any given time. When such happens, businesses that are affected may suffer infrastructural damages and other related loses. Sometimes, such occurrences may not be naturally induced, like the case of IT system infiltrations or other security breaches. Businesses are expected to guard themselves against these backdrops with a business continuity plan.
These are the 10 things to consider:
1. Critical Business Functions
Pinpoint those business functions and processes that are essential for your business operations. At the period of crisis, you have to evaluate which of the functions are to remain and which of them should be discarded.
2. Essential Equipment And Systems
The central processing units of your company may be totally damaged and subsequently, lose your company’s vital data. Therefore, you have to provide an adequate backup alternative such as the use of cloud computing services to secure your data.
3. Potential Risks And Threats
The efficiency of your business continuity plan is determined by the severity of the crisis. You can use the law of averages to determine which of the disasters are likely to occur in your present location. This means using statistical records of the past to predict the likelihood of such even repeating again.
4. Emergency Contact Information
Emergencies do not give you the leisure to browse the internet. For this reason, it imperative for you to printouts of current lists of fire stations or hospitals and police stations and have this list posted in every department.
5. Disaster Recovery Team
Companies should constitute a Disaster Recovery Team, which should include all the heads of departments. The reason is that these authorities are the ones who respond promptly with commands to the crisis.
6. Roles And Responsibilities
Clearly, state the role of each member of the recovery team. Mix the team with different professionals.
7. Emergency Drills
Conduct regular emergency safety drills for your employees. They should always be abreast of what to do in case of any unpleasant incident.
8. Data Backup Plan
Provide an efficient means of data storage. This implies that you should have other data backup plans so that if there were any physical damages to your facilities and types of equipment, your data would still be recalled.
9. Alternative Facilities And Equipment
Make alternative plans to where your company can get temporary accommodation if its business location is destroyed by any crisis. Assign which of the employees should be having a computer to backup your data from their homes.
10. Alternative Communication
Should in case the crisis destroys all the forms of communication with your employees; provide a rallying point where all of your staff would be converging during and after the disaster.
Conclusion
The act of placing a continuity plan for your business is highly recommendable as it helps your organization to recover quickly from any form of disaster. However, there are some preventable crises, which you can stop from happening to your company. Such man-made crises are data theft and security breaches, hacker attacks and equipment breakdown. Having a workable business continuity plan gives you room on not only to recover but also to continue in business as usual.
Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs to build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.
